Anxious FTM and DH going back to work

[xxxemzyxxx]

Sorry this maybe long and I’m sure this topic has come up plenty of times, I just do not have the mental power to try and find old threads, but I could really do with some advice.

I’m a FTM and had my DS 3 weeks ago. I’ve been a rather anxious new mum, the anxiety builds in the lead up the evening, normally starting around 5pm and then eases and disappears around 6/7am. I feel fine during the day. I think I’ve got it in my head now that evenings and nights is the time he is most likely to get moody for no real reason or suffer tummy pains from wind and I’m really struggling with coping when he’s unsettled. I must add that he doesn’t spend hours upon hours crying, in comparison to some other babies he is quite good, I just haven’t yet gained the ability to cope with the outbursts when they do happen, it’s very built up in my head. For a good part of the night he won’t settle in a crib, he has to be on one of us, from around 4am onwards is when we can tend to put him down and he won’t wake up. This means at the moment me and my partner are doing shifts to be with him downstairs while the other gets a decent block of sleep. I tend to sleep for the earlier part of the evening starting at 9/10pm and then take over from DH around 3am (DH is good and does try to give me longer some nights, especially when I’m struggling to cope). This is another thing I’m struggling with, I hate not being able to be in bed with DH, although we both know it won’t be forever.

Our families have been amazing and we’ve had quite a few nights where they have come over and looked after him overnight so we can get a full nights sleep. It’s now been 5 nights since the last time one of them was over For a night and after that the anxiety was still there but I was coping a lot better. But last night I started bursting into tears again, probably tiredness catching up to me. My trigger last night was after seeing my MIL and SIL during the day being calm with DS and him being calm back (at a time in the last few days he has been a bit fussy). I am now frustrated with myself that my DS can probably feel my tension and this in turn isn’t helping him settle. I know this isn’t always the case and sometimes he will just need to fuss or cry, but I now feel bad that my mood is not helping and just turns into a horrible cycle. I hate the thought that when he’s awake at night looking up at his mum, that I am doing my best to smile at him but with tears in my eyes.

My main point of posting this thread is for advice on the following:

• my DH is due to go back to work on Monday which I am nervous about, and we will definitely have to change the times of our current shift pattern so I will end up doing a majority of the night as DH won’t be able to sleep in like he can at the moment (as my anxiety eases in the morning I feel happy giving him as long as I can to sleep). DH generally wakes up at 7.30am to leave for work by 8am, and generally tends to be back between 4.30-5pm. How has everyone else organised their time and schedules once their DP goes back to work? I am looking for ideas that will be fair to both me and DH.

• I am worried about sleep as I know that makes anxiety worse. They say sleep when baby sleeps, but that’s easier said than done when baby doesn’t settle anywhere but on you for a certain duration during the night, and even when I do get to put him down he is such a noisy sleeper I wake up at every noise, so sleep is very broken. Any tips from other mums would be great. My mum is coming over for Tuesday and Wednesday night so I will get a break after the initial 2 nights, so I am accepting help from family, but I know I can’t have it all the time!

• any tips on how I can I learn to cope better when he’s get fussy would be appreciated too. Once I’ve tackled this obstacle I think my anxiety will ease significantly!

Sorry, what initially turned into a thread where I simply wanted to ask how others managed their time once a DP went back to work, has turned into a lot more! As not to drip feed to much, I am open with my family and friends about my anxiety so don’t keep it bottled up.

Speak to your HV about getting help with your anxiety. You really do not need to suffer through it. Your baby is tiny, he's probably going to sleep badly for weeks, if not months to come, and if you don't get a handle on the anxiety now you're going to have a really hard time.

Agree that you need to perhaps consider some help for the anxiety- I've been there, and looking at my baby/ darling boy while in tears. And DH finding me sobbing in the shower.

But what worked for us was eat soon after DH was home then I'd go straight to bed til maybe 11, swap, and then hand DS over about 7- DH would walk the dogs with him in the carrier then bring him back in for a BF and nap with me. He was BF and the one night we tried DH doing all the feeds, I was in agony with a blocked duct so the shifts were what we did. And, for the remainder of the 4th trimester, accepting that going to be straight after dinner was what I did. Didn't last forever, but it has taken a long time to get to a point where we have evenings together. However I'm very much against sleep training etc so that didn't happen

I also had (have) a bad, noisy sleeper, and anxiety that as soon as I got to sleep, I'd be woken again. Still do to be honest at 3y3mo!

Have you got a sling or carrier for fussy times? Saved us. No way could i walk two dogs on muddy paths with a pram. Popped DS in if I wanted to go to shops or something. Close to me, cosy, hear my heart etc.

At the moment, you have to stop being so considerate of your DH. Sounds awful but you are recovering from birth and looking after a tiny new helpless person. He will get by.

Hi, DS had severe silent reflux and had to be held when he slept until we got this medicated at around 3 months (it sounds a long time but he was in special care for 6 weeks so it was actually around 6/7 weeks we had to do this for)
I slept 7pm-11pm, DH slept 11-5am, i slept 5am until 7am. We ate together and had a cuddle and chat between 5.30pm and 7pm. Weekends we took one night each so each of us got a full nights sleep, within reason, (ie 10-6) and spent much of the time recovering from the week. I found as long as I had a chunky 4 hours each day through the week and a couple of hours power nap this was fine. I also couldn’t sleep when the baby slept.
Everything else in life got put on hold until we could get baby down for sleeps. I remember that first day we got him medicated and reflux under control we put him down in his crib and we all went to bed together and slept for a solid 6 hours was absolutely glorious!!
Fear not - it does get easier. Honestly it really does. DS was mainly sleeping through by 5 months and now at 18 months he’s a solid sleeper.
You get your time together back soon enough. While you’re in it it feels overwhelming and relentless buts it’s all about surviving together and in the grand scheme of things this phase does not last long. Keep getting the help you need, it’s great you have that family support.

If it’s only been 3 weeks, your hormones will still be all over the place, which won’t help with anxiety. Can you speak to your GP and see if there is something they can prescribe to help you get on top of it a bit? Everything is harder to manage when you’re anxious.

The bad sleep is quite likely to persist for some time, so you do need a strategy I think. Are you cosleeping? With my DD I hadn’t planned it exactly, but it was a lifesaver when she was tiny, and we actually kept it up until she was 2.5 because it worked so well for us. You still get a broken night, but you don’t have to fully wake up to feed/resettle them, so it’s much more sleep in total. You will get used to the noises they make at night as well. We kept the spare room made up, so DH would start in with us, and if it was a bad night and he needed the sleep he’d go to the spare room until morning.

Can your family do some day time care so that you can get a decent nap in? My DD wouldn’t stay asleep if put down, but my mum was quite happy to come around and stick a DVD on a cuddle DD while I went upstairs to sleep for a couple of hours. It’s amazing what a 2 hour nap can do for you!

Even if you can’t sleep, getting a break and having a rest helps. When your DH gets home, he can have some baby time while you have half an hour in the bath. Doing that occasionally made me feel like a new woman, I was far less frazzled for the rest of the evening.

It gets easier, but will still be tough for a while. As your babies sleep gets more predictable (if not actually “better”) you adjust to it. The early weeks are just about survival, take whatever help is offered and remember that this doesn’t last forever.