AIBU to ask how you felt for the first 3 mths of your baby's life?

[PerfectPrepPrincess]

For me it's been a mixed but heavy bag. Hell of a labour ending in EMCS with poor treatment in hospital, poor breastfeeding experience where we're still 'clinging on with thin lips' whilst mixed feeding that has lead to a very emotional number of weeks.

We've had some lovely times however and I'm over the moon with my baby.

But I'm constantly stressed over one thing or another baby wise, there is a deep seated current of mild sadness like a kind of grief... Not sure why it's there. I don't think it's PND, if it is it's very mild. I think I'm 'grieving' for the newborn weeks that have just disappeared as I've been 'consumed' by trying to get breastfeeding working (given up now, it is what it is).

How did you feel with yours? If you didn't have PND were you more than 50/75% happy and over the moon, or were you anxious, irritable and sleep deprived, what was it like for you?

I’m 17 weeks in. I’m still so so tired. Think I probably have or at least had undiagnosed PND. I’ve found it a little easier now there’s more interaction, the smiles seem to lift me at least

Being sleep deprived is so tough though. I never thought it would be as hard as it is. We’ve switched to FF in the evening/night as everyone said ‘they’ll sleep longer on formula’ ... it hasn’t happened

I miss a bit of me time. And a bit of us time. We don’t get a minute to even have a kiss

1st - exhausted, in pain, upset
2nd - in pain, happy and relieved never to be doing that again.

My baby was fine.

My ex became dangerous

I don’t really remember the first nine months until I left.
I’ve blocked most of it out I guess.

She’s 9 now and we are grand

Babyness is such a small part of the journey

@HerrenaHarridan so sorry to hear you've gone through all of that 😢

Thank you to everyone who replied. It's really interesting to know we've all gone through it in some way or another but no one talks about it in real life xx

Bloody awful and hated this little person who had turned my life upside down in a matter of hours. Horrendous birth, and just didn't know what to do with her. 27 years later, she's my best friend and I don't know what I'd do without her. Thankfully the by the time DD4 came along, I was an "expert"

OP did you stop breast feeding suddenly? I only ask as I did that with dd1 and felt awful for a few weeks before feeling fine again. I found out later that you can get an oxytocin crash which lowers your mood and makes you anxious. Pretty sure that’s what happened to me

First baby stormed out the house on day 3 and just went for a drive (ended up at tesco I think!) Was exhausted, sore, struggling with bf, cracked nipples, felt like I had no support and the midwifes weren't completely honest about what having a baby would be like.

Second baby felt really well, a few tears but not like before, no stitches, moved to formula with no guilt, had a sleeping routine, so much better

Hardest time of my life.
Baby wouldn’t sleep he was just unhappy all the time for no reason. Would never be put down. He didn’t have colic or anything he was just a high needs baby. I cried most days for about a year.
No good bits really. It was just awful.
He’s 8 now though and brilliant!

@tubbycustardtummyache no my milk never really got up to full supply, still BF a little, mostly at night.. In fact I'm pretty sure baby associates BF as a nighttime thing as they are being refused during daylight hours which makes me sad, I loved staring at their face and getting the eye contact and I was just getting interaction littlerally a few days ago it's so sad 😭

Congrats OP. Sounds like you have had a difficult time though.

For me I felt overjoyed with DS1, easy pregnancy & birth, and a very contented, adorable baby.

Tired out with DS2! 21mth gap, DS2 was a terrible sleeper and a very unsettled baby. And the reason I didn’t consider a 3rd. He’s adorable now though!

I'm so glad reading this post that what I'm feeling others have felt as well.

I'm only 12 days after an emcs after a bloody awful labour where my pain relief ran out and they wouldn't refill , gas and air was doing absolutely nothing and he was back to back.

There was no way that first night I should even have been holding my baby let alone taking full care of him.

They wanted to keep me in for an extra night towards the end but there was no way I was staying in that hospital one more night.

I feel like I'm getting absolutely nothing done, breast feeding isn't working properly he just won't latch , all I feel like I do is sit and express or just stare into space .

I was so jealous of my DH getting to go out today , I miss driving so much.

I just feel like I'm not good enough.

First baby - darkest days of my life. Had postnatal ptsd and a baby that screamed non stop every second he was awake. Felt very disconnected from him and everyone else. Not actually sure how I got through this time to be honest.

Second baby - Happy, exhausted but relaxed and content. He was an easy baby and fitted right in.

I was stunned. I was so happy to have a baby but felt overwhelmed. I was worried about washing / sterilising the bottles correctly and became almost obsessed with it. I was in pain from an episiotomy and it took 3 months to be able to walk longer distances again.

I think difficult births take longer to recover from physically and emotionally in general.

My own first, it sounds weird but I have a lot of memory gaps of that first few weeks. I remember the pain and crying a lot but I don't remember much of my baby in that period. We have lots of photos of DC1 from then but I don't really like to look at them.

With DC2 it was a more straightforward birth, home a day later, milk came in quickly and easily. The main emotion I remember feeling was relief in that first but as I'd been really stressing about everything that went wrong first time round and what could go wrong this time and none of it happened.

@whoknew23 hopefully on the red book for your child you have some contact numbers for your local feeding team, please call them. Call your MW as you're still under their care for 28 days, call your HV, ask one of them to refer you to the hospitals lactation consultant. It may be something as easy as a tongue tie that can be snipped. Even if you were told baby had no TT they may well have had one missed.
I was told no TT by MW but GP last week said there may be a mild one!!!

You just described exactly how i felt i too had a emergancy section long stay in hospital gor us both. I deffinently had PTSD, i also felt guilt as i convinced myself it was my fault he had GBS. It took me about 2yrs to overcome it tbh and i just think its the same for most news mums but tbh it did make me quite unwell as i let it consume me. Just take each day as it comes and seek helo from your doctor they will refere you for councilling for the ptsd

Like I didn't know which way the floor was, and I had 'easy' babies!

I had a stressful bit whe DD lost too much weight in 10 days and we had to do a expressing/mixed feeding schedule for about a fortnight. Honestly with her things improved once I dropped breastfeeding, which wasn't working out - we both felt much more content after that.

DS, BFing worked (after 3 incredibly sore weeks), but he had a long stage of cluster feeding in the evening

DS1 I was in a state of “wtf have I done” for a good while. Also had a traumatic birth and awful breastfeeding experience and had PTSD, severe PNA and PND.

DS2 is 16 weeks, the first 2 weeks I was high as a kite (beautiful planned section, only feeding breastmilk either by direct nursing or pumping). Then I crashed and spent a good 6 weeks with mild PND and very irritable and quick to cry, tired all the time. At 6 weeks I stopped putting him on the breast and stuck with exclusive pumping which is working well for us. Feeling loads better now the sertraline has kicked in and he’s sleeping better.

Just so, so tired. Pre-eclampsia, forceps birth, a massive haemorrhage, and a huge 9lb 2oz baby. Luckily he breastfed like a charm but I was so fucking tired all the time I didn’t go anywhere really - I used to see mums walking past pushing buggies in groups and wondering how they had the energy.

DS didn’t nap longer than 10 minutes. To achieve a nap, I had to breastfeed him for ages or push him backwards and forwards in the pushchair for ages. He was awake every 45 mins in the night for feeds, and was often awake for the day at before 5am. I remember once when he was about 5 months old he woke up at 5am and didn’t nap until midday…….when he slept for 5 minutes. I sat on the floor and sobbed. I was due to go out for lunch with friends for the first time in ages and I was just too tired.

Second baby slept more, which I was so grateful for.

The hardest three months of my life. I felt so trapped and utterly exhausted. Breastfeeding was really difficult and I was bottle feeding EBM and then expressing after every feed including overnight until we had TT corrected. The lack of sleep did terrible things to me and I felt real rage when my baby wouldn’t settle. I got mastitis three times. I was emotionally very fragile. I feel like it took me a while to bond with my baby.

If I have another (currently too frightened to do it) I will formula feed if breastfeeding is anywhere near as difficult as it was first time around. It’s not worth my mental health.

I think of it as being very dark... It was winter, I was tired, it was repetitive and mind numbingly boring. Lockdowns haven't helped. Constantly trying to work out what I should be doing, wake times, naps times, feeding. Turns out I wasn't feeding right and she was really small. It's only now at 6 months in that things seem brighter... I feel guilty that I should have probably been feeding her from both breasts at every feed from the beginning, I'm frustrated that DH seems incapable of putting her to bed, struggling to realistically work out how to wean... But so much brighter than the initial three or four months! I didn't think mt baby was wonderful, not beautiful, not the best thing ever.. still never told her that I love her.
There's no right way to feel about it and every day is different and always changeable. But I definitely don't feel like I have PND or anything like that

Dc1 long time ago but the newborn stage was fairly easy she was a chill baby who slept alot. Easy delivery etc. Dc2 and 3 were twins and their first 3 months ( and the last 3 months of pregnancy tbh) was to be honest sheer hell. I felt shell shocked after c section and complications, breastfeeding was awful and I failed, every aspect was more medicalised and troublesome than my first and I still feel sad that it was so different. I ended up with Pnd. I think my expectations of my body, myself, everything, was too high.

Also was December, oh the dark gloomy days didn't help. It was dark and wintery for the first 3 months of their life. Dc1 was born in May, I reckon that made a difference.

Tired, happy, territorial

DD (now 4 and a really good kid) was a very angry baby, spent most of her first 9 months or so shouting at us and fighting naps with all she got. I spent all my time trying to stop a baby from red-faced crying, or pushing the buggy for hours and hours through the local park. DH and I were both on shared parental leave for the first 6 months but we were still utterly exhausted and sightly traumatised. It took us a long time to get over that period, and our relationship still has some scars.

DS has just turned 3 months and is a completely different baby. While we had some problems with a serous tongue tie that required me to pump for the first 6 weeks he is generally cheerful, breastfeeds enthusiastically (finally) and sleeps well at night. It's tiring and a bit relentless, but we're coping well and are in a decent routine. I'm certainly enjoying the newborn stage a hell of a lot more. Having low expectations helped I think 😀