Dread nighttime with newborn

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I had LO 10 days again- very traumatic birth, placenta abruption, lost 3L of blood and had general anesthetic and didn't meet baby for 12 hours and she was in special care and we didn't come home for a week. Is it normal to be so anxious about night times, some nights are better than others but I just find nights so scary and I dread them. Don't know if its cos its dark and feels lonely or what, guessing part of it is hormonal aswell. Tell me I'm not alone :(

The night fear is really normal, I still get it now (DD is coming up to 3!) just because it’s dark and for some reason all my worries seem bigger.

Keep the house as bright as you can, distract yourself with a book & get early nights if you can.

Oh and congrats btw

Thank you @Glassofshloer, glad I'm not alone 🥰

Congratulations on your little one!

Very much a real thing. I remember feeling a out of dread in my stomach in the evenings with DS1. I now have 4 week old DS2 and nighttime can be a similar build up. It really does fly by though, although it feels long now, and it will get better!

Yep I had this, and still get it if LO is poorly and he's 4!! I remember that dread so well. I wouldn't sleep and keep watching him breathing, all hormonal/anxiety driven at the time. Speak tk your midwife/HV (can't remeber when the swap over) and get as much support and help as you can. As pp has said it does pass reasonably quickly although when your in it it seems never ending. Congratulations and know you are never along in this journey of motherhood xx

I had this with DS2, it would start at dinnertime and I'd be really sad. It felt like homesickness is the only way I can describe it.

It did start to pass, if it doesn't get better for you in a few days I'd speak to your GP. Sometimes our brain chemicals can get a bit out of whack following birth.

Yes I remember this too and it did improve but you're right, your hormones are doing a big shift right now so listen to your body and rest when you need it and eat well too ❤️

Yes definitely. I know it doesn’t really help you, but I had a springtime baby and would feel so much better at 5am when it started to get light, even if I hadn’t slept much in the night.

Do you have a partner? My DH would take the baby downstairs for half the night and just bring him up for feeds so I could get a bit of sleep. That helped a lot.

I had this, I could barely eat dinner as I felt too anxious. It didn't last long, I just got used to my new normal.

Sorry if my post didn’t sound very helpful referencing spring time, just wanted to acknowledge that you’re not alone in feeling worse when it’s dark.

I know they say you should ensure dim lighting at night etc so the baby knows it’s nighttime, but this early on it really doesn’t matter, so don’t worry about keeping the lights on, watching tv etc if you feel like it.

I sleep with the landing light on since having children and always go to bed with a fully charged iPad so I have something to distract myself with on a bad night.
I’m not usually one for having the heating on overnight but did when mine were babies. Take a snack and drink up with you. Make nights as comfortable as possible and it does get better

Yep, DD2 was born rather dramatically too and spent a week in NNU, I didn’t see her until she was 12 hours old. I didn’t sleep properly for weeks after she was born even though she is perfectly well now (and a pretty good sleeper!) and I’m only just letting myself have more sleep than the bare minimum. I’m just coming out of the other side, keep talking to people, read light and fluffy stuff when baby is settled, I sleep with a low light on too.

Congratulations!

I had a deep sense of anxiety every bedtime with my child and that lasted for a few months. I would just feel totally hopeless as soon as the light started to fade. Maybe it was knowing I spend more time pumping my breasts than actually sleeping. It passed but it was awful. Hugs.

I have ptsd at night as it reminds me of the stay in hospital so you may be feeling this it will get better as time passes. I found the darkness reminded me of the ward as I didn't sleep at all when there and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. I got through these plaguing thoughts and memories by using grounding techniques. So if I felt sad and started remembering the experience I'd mentally make the effort to think of what I could see now not then, what I could hear now not then, what I can smell, taste, feel etc over and over again until I forgot the experiences/flashbacks xxx

This was earlier this year Xx

Thank you all so much ❤❤❤ glad I'm not alone in all this 🙏 hoping it will pass with time xxx

Totally normal to feel this way! I used to have to eat my main meal at lunchtime as I felt too sick and anxious to eat in the evenings. Fast forward to 10 months and I now actively look forward to the evenings when I can put bub to bed and have a bit of time to myself! It's a cliche that everyone says (and doesnt help much when you're in the middle of it) but everything is a stage and everything passes. You'll look back and hardly remember this in a couple of months, but I know its hard right now so sending a big hug and all the positive thoughts.

Yes, I remember this well. It's awful but as pp have said it does pass gradually. I used to get so down in the evening because I was dreading the night. Was desperate for the morning and for other people to be awake as well. We slept with a low light in our room for weeks, and occasionally video called my sister in Melbourne when baby was really small

My gosh yes every single night I got the anxiety of that Sunday night feeling before school as a kid but 50 x worse and every night of the week for about 2 months! My baby was a terrible sleeper so we’d be pacing the roads in a sling at 11pm and I’d dread going home as it was so incredibly lonely, tiring and frustrating.

Keep snacks / drinks near by along with phone chargers and good tv shows on a nearby tv. Keep the lamp on if it helps, tiny babies don’t care about light at nighttime. Do you have anyone you can tag team nights with? Eventually we got into a routine of my partner having him till midnight and I did 12-6, and then he’d take him off me again at 6, knowing it was just 6 hours made me feel a little less lost.

It’s totally normal. There’s 1000s of women doing the same thing every night, you’re really really not alone, despite how much it might feel like it at times. The feeling goes by itself quicker than you could currently ever imagine xx

Ok, you might think me crazy, but why dont you start putting some Christmas decorations up, where you tend to be up at night. It will provide cozy lighting, but also might help you feel better about being up in the dark.

You can look at the night as a bleak lonely and boring time. Or you could look at it as a cozy quiet time with your baby. Time when you don't have to rush, or do chores or get out to baby groups. Where you just have eachother.

If you can get your mind into that place sometimes, it may really help.

This is most definitely a thing, I had it too in the first few weeks. Two friends told me at the time that they did too. I would get very teary the closer it got to bed time in anticipation of being up all night, in the dark without a clue what to do.

It passes though, I actually enjoy bedtime now and the fear feels like a distant memory (DD 12 weeks).

Congratulations

Very normal feeling and good points from pp. A lumie lamp or similar would be good because you could keep it on but low. Watch lighthearted comfort tele, and could have an audiobooks of your favourite books running throughout the night so there's not silence when you wake and it gives you something to concentrate on and stops ruminating on scary thoughts.

Didn’t have the dread but did feel really, really glad to know that I’m the morning my mum and dad would be visiting and restore a bit if normality to our little world. Can you get a friend or relative to drop in, so you KNOW that soon it’ll be day time and someone will be there to help you put things into perspective? Not what everyone wants but did help me a lot in those small hours of the night.

I thought I was the only one! I was honestly traumatised by the nights because I was exclusively BFing, DH was useless so I ended up doing every single night up till the point she slept through (2 yrs maybe). The early weeks were horrendous, I was so sleep deprived I started hallucinating faces in the rooms and the folds of the curtains. I hated the feeling of our bedroom because everything was so familiar and suffocating, especially from the endless pacing back and forth with a baby. I ended up sleeping on the sofa for a while because I was getting too much trauma from the surroundings of our bedroom.

It's a deep, visceral horror that many can't understand unless you've been through it. I sometimes felt it was like being forced to take back-to-back long-haul flights without being allowed to sleep. It's that feeling when you're intensely jetlagged after getting off a 12hr flight then arrive at your hotel and just crave the sweet release of sleep. However instead of being able to sleep they force you back on the plane and fly you back for another 12 hours whilst keeping you awake the entire time. Arrive at destination only to fly back. And repeat. And repeat. Until you feel like you're losing your mind and will surely die from the torture but miraculously you're still alive each morning, and somehow putting one foot in front of the other and getting things done.

(To state the obvious I most definitely had PND but the circumstances didn't allow me to seek help. I was so sleep deprived that driving was dangerous and BFing meant I couldn't leave DD for more than 2 hours at a time. DH was so uninvolved that I worried about leaving a newborn in his care while I was gone).

I remember this so well. Mine are 10 and 12 now but I recall.the dread so well.