Help please I don't enjoy being a mum

[qwertyy1234]

Don't know why I'm posting but just wanting a bit of reassurance from other mums I suppose. I am just struggling so much being a mum to my son who is 5.5 months. I love him so much but I just don't enjoy being a mum. Please no judgement or hate I don't think I'll be able to take it I have cried 10 times since yesterday. The sleep deprivation, not getting a minute to eat or drink or have a break is so hard. He contact naps and is very active and wants to be played with all day so I get zero free time. He's still waking multiple times a night for dummy or night feeds and then waking 5.30am on the dot daily no matter what I do. Sounds awful but when I am feeling like this and he screams sometimes I just let him scream and leave the room or ignore him as I just feel numb and can't listen to it anymore. I feel like he deserves a better mum. Does it get easier? Everyone says that but he's nearly 6 months and I don't find it easier at all I just feel miserable most of the time. DH & I are arguing constantly , we also sleep separately so he can get a good nights sleep as he works full time. Luckily he takes him Friday and Saturday nights so I can sleep then . We used to have a great relationship until DS was born. Sorry for the rant just want to get it off my chest. How do I let go of these feelings and just enjoy being a mum? Also do you think that I should cap his daytime naps he naps on me a lot during the day , but then wakes so early in morning. Naps total of four hours a day . Thank you for reading

No advice on wether it gets easier, my D.S is 4.5 months. Just a wanted to say you're not alone in how you feel. I could have written this post myself. I truly don't think I'll enjoy it until I'm back at work and not being a full time mum. I've moved my return date earlier to get back some of my sanity. A lunch hour to myself sounds like absolute heaven right now. My husband also sleeps in a different room and takes all the night shift Friday and Saturday night.
Im sure there will be plenty of people with advice re the daytime naps and hopefully to say it does get easier. But for me, I also cry daily, don't enjoy the ground hog day feeling and feel guilty for saying it but wish I had a time machine to either go forwards to when it gets easier or backwards to not get pregnant 🤷

Yes it gets easier. Is he bottle or breastfed?

This was 10000% me when I had my first. I found it such a shock. I regularly cried and thought what have I done to ruin my lovely life I had before. I genuinely didn’t know if I would ever want to have another. BUT I promise you it does get better. I found that once she started sleeping better at night, things improved. I felt more capable of dealing with the intense days. My husband was also sleeping in a separate room. I made a good effort to get her to nap ant least once or twice a day in her cot as it meant I had a little break.

Also the older she got the more interaction she gave and it became more “fun”. I made sure to get outside for a walk every day no matter what and also made an effort to go to classes. They’re not for everyone but I found just talking to other adults/mums helped loads. She’s 2 now and while it’s not easy, she loads more fun.

I now have a 4 month old baby also and I am reminded just how much I dislike the baby stage. It’s so relentless! but clearly I reached a stage where I was enjoying motherhood enough to consider having a second!

Sending hugs, just remember that everything is a stage and it will end/change. I found the first 6 months the hardest, as others have said, it’s just relentless! When they start to give a bit more back and interact more it gets much easier to handle….at least this was the case for me! Try not to listen to people that say it’s easy….there are a lot of them out there (good on them) but the reality for most of us it isn’t! Currently waiting on number 2 to arrive any day now…..and I can confidently say those difficult months feel behind us….trying to prepare myself that we will be going back there! Be kind to yourself, find some honest mum friends and get yourself out and about!

Only advice is to drop the contact naps and transition the baby to the cot. Then you will have four hours a day to feel more sane.

Bottle fed x

How do I do that ? I try sometimes to put him in his cot when he's asleep but he wakes up either instantly or within 15 minutes then I have to re settle him and sometimes he is so grumpy from being woken he cries for ages and is really hard to get back to sleep

The bit just before six months with your first is a real low point. It’s just about to get a lot better. The baby will sit up more reliably, be more interested in toys, get more out of baby groups and activities - will eat more and start sleeping a bit better too. Hang in there…

Why did you have a baby? Can you spend some time reconnecting with why you made the decision, how you felt in pregnancy etc)

Babyhood is a hard stage of course, but so is toddler (differently hard) and you could continue to say that about every stage of parenting. Yes of course it gets easier, a 5 year old is “easier” sleep wise than a 5.5 month old, but if you already resent him this much what will you be like when he starts acting out, talking back or whatever? You had this child, you’re his mum, you need to give your head a wobble.

It's hard and you're exhausted. Is there anyone other than DH who could give you a break at all, even if just an hour or two?

Crying ten times a day, feeling as if your baby should have a better mum, feeling miserable all the time- all these suggest possible PND. Have you spoken to your HV/GP at all?

This is just a horrible, unthinking post. OP is struggling, she doesn’t need to give her head a wobble, she’s allowed to struggle and to not be enjoying this part of motherhood.

OP, it does get better. I had to go to therapy when my daughter was young as I found my anxiety over routine, naps, sleep etc getting out of control. Once she started weaning, I found that meals and snacks gave more structure to the day. She also got better at napping in her cot, and started to consolidate her naps, so I got some breaks. She also got a lot more interesting, so she didn’t just feel like a responsibility but a little person whose company I could enjoy. I think sleep trained at 9 months and having our evenings back and full nights sleep made the world of difference.

She’s now nearly 4 and so much fun and life is so much easier (tantrums and all), but the thought of those early days makes me shudder. One step at a time, one day at a time. You can do this and in a few years, you’ll be back on this board comforting another new mum who is finding it just as tough xx

Babies can be very different. DS needed constant stimulation. I soon realised I had to go out with him, every day, for most of the day. Playgroup in the morning, walk round the park, cafe for lunch, walk round the town or park again (!), time coming home with DH getting back from work so I could hand him over and collapse upstairs for a couple of hours.

DD on the other hand was very happy pottering around at home.. so long as I constantly talked to her, she was happy!

So don't beat yourself up. Do what you have to do to get through.

It gets loads easier in my experience- about 9 months it got a lot easier and at 13 months easier still (which is also when I went back to work 4 days a week). She’s 15 months now and it’s great as long as she’s not unwell. She still only contact naps with us as we can get a 2-3 hour nap that way, at nursery she naps in the cot and has 20-45 mins and is overtired at night. I just use the contact nap time (like now) to chill on my phone or watch tv. I always set myself up first with some water, a blanket and some snacks.

Agree speaking to your GP sounds a good plan. Do you get out every day? By about the 6 month point I started going out at least once a day, either to the park (by then she could go on the swings), the library (she liked to sit and I read books to her and picked some to take home), the free baby song classes at the library, and some paid baby gym/ sensory/ music/ messy play type classes. It gets easier to get out more as the weather warms up too- some of my favourite memories from last summer were picnics with my 8-9 month old DD, she could sit up and eat but wasn’t fully crawling or walking yet, just took the nappy bag with suncream, portable toys and formula and packed under the buggy a picnic blanket, water and some food to share and headed to various parks after her morning nap.

Oh and I’m not sure the answer to the early waking, whether she has a short nursery nap
or a long one with us DD tends to wake early (5ish) but I tell her to lie back down and she usually does if I stroke her hand/ arm/ back, I get her out of the cot if she properly cries but leave her in if she’s just moaning. I’m trying to teach her that before 6 is still night time. I’m awake at 5 but at least still in bed. I get her out at 6. I appreciate that all might not work with a 6 month old. But my plan is that come the clock change I’ll shift her forwards an hour (but it won’t feel like it to her) and maybe she’ll start waking at 6 instead of 5 🤞 worth a try for you too?

Well, for me it involved a bit of sleep training. I did a sort of lighter version of "crib hour" and it changed my life. It only took two or three naps for her to get the hang of it