I’m a terrible mum aren’t I?

[quietlady]

My beautiful DD is five months old. She went to sleep at 8pm last night and woke hungry at 6.15am. I had a dreadful night’s sleep as I was tossing and turning for most of it (I’m going through quite a stressful time at the moment) and only slept for about four hours at most.

When DD woke I fed her then put her straight back into her cot as I was so tired and just couldn’t face getting up and going downstairs with her for 1.5 hours. Surprisingly she went back to sleep fairly quickly but I just feel so guilty, like I’m dumping her in her cot instead of getting up and playing with her.

Am I a terrible mum?

6.15?! Nope you’re not terrible. Best way to set her body clock to sleep longer. My dd doesn’t wake till 8:30 and I count 7 as too early! Mine would wake for feed early hours at like 4/5 and I just have bottle and left no convo.

I’ll play with you after my coffee and breakfast buddy!

It seems like she needed more sleep too. From what you have wrote in your post you did nothing wrong.

Nope. You fed her, did the necessary and then put her back to bed.

Ds is 3 months and I do this every day. Hes usually asleep until 7:30 after his feed (anytime between 5-6)

No, you weren't awful.
OP- learn to be kind to yourself. Motherhood is tough, you'll exhaust yourself if you beat yourself up over everything

Why would you think you're doing anything wrong? That's almost exactly what I do with my 13 month old every morning. He's much better when he goes back to sleep for a bit (and so am I!). And if he doesn't go back to sleep, that's what CBeebies is for.

Isn’t this normal at her age? God knows we did an early morning feed and back to sleep...take the sleep you can!

Goodness, no, I count the mornings I can convince my 15 month old to go back to sleep until seven as wins! He's not keen on being asleep, something interesting might happen without him.

His personal best was eight to eight and I didn't know myself. But sadly don't have a farm of my own where he can follow round after chickens all day every day.

I think this is pretty standard - my 14 month old normally wakes some time between 5.30 and 6.30, has a feed, goes back to sleep for an hour or so.

God no love, I would have done exactly the same thing.

By chance, is this your first? I was wrecked with guilt over not doing enough, and to some extent still am whenever I realise I'm leaving my DS(4) to it!

Oh, thanks for the reassurance. It just felt wrong to put her back down as by the time I’d finished her feed and changed her, it was almost 7am and light outside!

Yes, she’s my first.

Give yourself a break OP - parenting is a long road and sometimes you need to take 5 when you can.

@Fishfingersandwichplease

Give yourself a break OP - parenting is a long road and sometimes you need to take 5 when you can.

I don't think it's even this (although this is very true!) but she obviously needed more sleep so the OP did the right thing. I don't know about anyone else but my DS certainly won't sleep if he doesn't want to...

I had an awful night’s sleep, fed my 6 month old DD at 4am them couldn’t get back to sleep. She woke at 6.30am so I fed her and then put her back in the cot for half an hour.
Sometimes you need to put yourself first especially if you have to look after a baby all day!

Also - We got Velcro blackout blinds which attach to the window frames, they are amazing! Keep the room dark in the evening and morning, made such a difference over summer!

I do this most days with my 9 week old baby, sleep when you can! Like others have said she wouldn’t have gone back to sleep if she hadn’t needed it too

I can't believe I'm reading this. If you are terrible then you need to call social services on me. I won't get up before 9am. If my baby wants to, it's tough. He lies in bed with me until 9/9.30 😂