I'm not enjoying being a mum

[emnoneya]

I'm really not. The unpredictability of it. I keep trying to tell myself it will get better and it won't be like this forever, but what if it doesn't get better? What if it is like this forever?
My DD is 9 weeks old and I thought after 8 weeks it started to get better but she still whines for no reason, you think she's happy then all of a sudden she's irritable. She's been fed, changed, cuddled and she still whines. Not knowing if shes going to be easy to put to sleep one night to the next, will I be up with her until god knows what time trying to put her sleep? Will she be up at 3am or will she sleep until 5am? Will she cry if I take her out for a walk in the pram today? If we go out for a meal how long will it be before she gets fed up and starts crying? When does she want feeding next? Do I feed her before I go out or while I'm out?
I feel like I'm losing my mind. I really wanted to enjoy being a mum and I thought I'd be good at it but I feel like I'm just scraping by every day. I talk to her all the time and she smiles at me, then the next minute she's frowning at me. I miss my old life, I miss my freedom, I want my own time back, I feel like I've made a mistake and then I feel awful for thinking like that. I feel tired and like I can't be bothered, I just want her to leave me alone but at the same time I don't want to be away from her.

When my DD was 9 months i vividly remember thinking i WISH i had known it would be like this.

At 8 weeks old i was sat in bed at 4am thinking i have ruined my marriage, my life, my husbands life and this poor childs life.
at 15m she is hilarious and life is good. Marriage is good, i am good.

Newborn stage is difficult at best. Horrendous at worst.

Reading your responses has been so helpful and it's helping me to see there is light at the end of the tunnel. Just got to hang in there a little longer...

OP my baby screamed and was generally a misery to be around from 7 weeks to 13 weeks. It was awful, I wanted to die. She's 18 weeks now and like a completely different baby, laughing, giggling, rolling. Hang in there. I recommend chocolate!

Chocolate is a good medicine!!

I created a similar thread to yours when my dd was younger op and it popped up recently as a zombie thread. I clicked on it not recognising the title, thinking I could offer advice to someone and was quite surprised when I saw it was my writing. It really reminded me of how different I feel and how far I've come. One day you'll be able to look back on this thread and feel the same, honestly op one day it will all feel like a lifetime ago. I hope you're ok today

This is absolutely normal! It does absolutely get better! It’s a long road! It may take months! But it does get better (if it didn’t we would all stop after 1). Remember babies are general winge bags. They do it absolutely for attention. My DD is 6m old (baby no 2) and she wants carried all day long! The minute I put her down the crying starts! The minute I pick her up - happy happy! Grrrrhhh lol! They are little drill Sargent who do not let you sit down - you must walk about all the time creating lines in your carpet! Once they can do more they do tend to moan less. I think every mother has questioned there choices many many times over so don’t beat urself up! If you can ask someone a grandparent or friend to watch the little one even for a few hours to give yourself a break it makes such a difference!

Another telling you I could have written your post. At 5 weeks I felt like I had ruined our lives and would never be happy again. I felt terrorised by my love for my baby which was not a joyful love but a panicked, terrified love that honestly felt like prison.

he woke so often for 7 months that I thought I would die of sleep deprivation and hated my life. Then I night weaned him, thinking at least then my husband could do some nights so I could rest. He started sleeping through…he’s now 9 months and I feel like the sun has come out in my life again.

he also was and is a very intense baby who needs carried a lot. But he is currently crawling around investigating the living room and I am on mumsnet, which I thought I would never be able to do again!

it will get better - no one know when - but it will.

This is the newborn stage - some of it really sucks. Things will change before you know it and even though the days seem long, one day you wake up and realise those newborn days are long gone and when did that happen?!
I have a 2.5 yo and found 0-6 months the hardest. I’m just about to have baby 2 and keep telling myself I need to remember it’s just a phase

Hey lovely. I have a 4 year old and a 5 week old. I found the first few months with my 4 year old very difficult but it got so much better! Honestly those first few months you are in the trenches, the baby is not fun, you get very little back and you do feel like you're just getting through each day. I'm going through it again now with my 5 week old thinking what have i done?! But it does get easier and I am trying to remember that. You will get some freedom back and your little one will be much more fun! They'll still be testing but somehow it's better once they are more interactive. And when they're sleeping better obviously!

I mainly hated it from birth to around 3 years old. I loved DS and did find good moments in there but most of the time I was depressed, exhausted and just hated what my life had become. 18 months was better than 3 months and 2 years was better than 18 months but it blurred into a miserable sleep deprived mass if I’m honest. Then when he started going to preschool at 3, I suddenly realised that he liked me. That hadn’t been obvious before then. We slowly became the best of friends and he’s now a strapping teen and we still adore each other. I would do 3-4 onwards again in a heartbeat but I found the baby and toddler years so dark and miserable that I would never go back there and he is an only child for that reason. So hang on in there - it will improve but it will be slow.

You aren’t alone in feeling like this. It is hard. But nine weeks old is still very, very young and this is still very new to you as well. You simply can’t control very much right now, so try to roll with it as much as you can. Take any help you can get, be kind to yourself, know that no one finds this bit easy. It does get better.

I can’t add much as you’ve received some really detailed and helpful replies and I haven’t read them all, but I just wanted to say that your post resonated with me and how I felt at times for the first 6 months at least. The unpredictability made me so anxious and I couldn’t sleep because I didn’t know how long I’d be able to sleep for, I just never switched off.

DD is 13 months old now and getting more predictable but I’m still anxious at bedtime, especially now I’ve stopped breastfeeding so I no longer have that to fall back on. She is sleeping much better now though and she is a joy to be around. It does honestly get better and you are doing a wonderful job.

Well done you for being so honest. There is no obligation at all to enjoy the baby stage and that doesn’t make you a bad mother or human - just a normal one. Your kid will grow, become more independent and in time you will find and get used to a routine, feel more confident, one day get back to work and have some space and find your way of doing things. Take the pressure off yourself!

I think everyone has these thoughts but it's a bit taboo and people don't talk about it. Personally, I'm finding the toddler stage particularly challenging and often wonder why I did this to myself. I also paid for the privilege.

I think I’ve pretty much blanked out that stage! Honestly it does get easier. X

I've had two now and with my second I was more realistic about how i'd feel so it felt easier, and like a PP said, we also got therapy after the first one was about 9 months to help, it resulted in my husband giving me much more time alone without the baby to decompress and it was truly helpful.

The 6-12 week stage is utterly exhausting in my opinion, and you're in the thick of it. You've lost your "new mum" energy and glow. You're a walking feeding contraption who gets shouted at by the baby for everything. It feels very one sided as the baby takes everything (your sanity, your sleep, your food, even your hair in a few months). Some people LOVE being a mum to infants. I personally couldn't wait for mine to get older and get past that stage. I remember someone saying to me "the years are short and the days are long" and that sums it up perfectly. You'll get through it. I have a 10 month old who I can finally leave alone in his safe play space for a few seconds, and a 3.5 year old who is amazing. I think bonding and relaxing into parenting for me just comes later on in the relationship. To each their own. Also, congratulations on your baby!

Ah OP, I understand. My baby was so difficult at that age, I felt like I spent my life just stopping but crying - if she wasn't feeding or sleeping she was crying. I was always on edge when taking her out/to people's houses because I knew she'd kick off.

It has improved massively, I'd say since 5/6 months it's been much more happiness than whinging. She still wakes up multiple times a night and won't sleep in a cot though. It's rough but all these times will pass.

I liturally wrote something like this myself a couple of years back!
My lo wasn't really much of a crying baby (although she had her moments) I just found it really hard to get to grips of becoming a mum and felt my life had liturally turned upside down and i wasn't me anymore.
I wrote a post on here and remember people saying the same type of things about how it will get better with and this time next year you will feel alot better and I remember thinking although it was lovely to hear, its not now!

However our lo is 2.6 years now and omg doesn't it change! And honestly time really does fly by even though it doesn't feel like it right now!

I sometimes think to myself now I wish I knew what I knew now and could go back because id 100% do it again with her and actually relax and enjoy it more.

I know it seems relentless, your tired, you feel like you don't know what your doing half the time but it really does get alot easier! I personally think the toddler stage is harder than the baby stage 🙈 just because they have their own mind, want to do what they want, answer you back but on the other hand although I find it hard sometimes, i love this age! It's great when they start talking and they understand and enjoy things alot more!

I'm a FTM so i don't have much advise but if you have someone close to you that you feel comfortable to talk to, tell them how you really feel... I used to tell my husband everything about how I felt id be a blubbering wreck sometimes if I was feeling down and it helped to get it off my chest and he would just talk to me & understand that's one thing that definitely helped me!

You are doing great! Keep powering through you will soon see things start to gets easier ❤️

Thanks everyone. I went out with her today on my own for the first time, she cried, REALLY cried. I'd fed her and changed her while we were out and she was still upset. She did fall asleep for a little while but by the time we got back to the car she was screaming again.
Although all of that happened it hasn't put me off going out with her again. It wasn't enjoyable at all and I was at the end of my tether by the end of it but once we got home I was sat talking to her and she was smiling away at me and she melted my heart.
I hope one day when she's a little older, I can do the same trip out with her, genuinely enjoy it and look back on today and realise it does get better.

Honestly, OP, the thing about babies is they change from week to week. My son at first loathed the sling and got absolutely hysterical in the pushchair, so for a while it looked as if I could never leave the house to go further than I could carry him in my arms. Then suddenly he decided the pushchair was fine with no particular reason for the change. And refused to sleep in his Moses basket. Etc etc. Swings and roundabouts. Something will solve itself, the thing you were frantic about last week will stop being an issue, and something else will take its place.

My DD is six months and I know this feeling SO well. It's getting gradually easier each week and month. Those first weeks were an assault on the senses and nothing prepares you for it. Each week now feels a bit easier - sometimes because baby is getting easier and sometimes because I'm feeling more confident in parenting.

I've found it helpful to keep a list of 'wins' on my phone. Every time something good happens I write it down. I.e. baby has slept three hours straight, or I've managed a train ride alone with baby. It helps me keep aware of how far I've come. What felt hard one week will be second nature the next week.

You are doing a brilliant, brilliant job.

That’s completely normal. I wonder why no one talks about this.
You lose your sleep, leisure time, your body isn’t the same, relationship isn’t the same and it’s incredibly stressful.
They start sleeping through the night 12 hours usually at around 9 months but it gets better way before 9 months.
This crying little potato will turn into a little human.
It gets so much better.

I felt the same! And I love kids, couldn’t wait to be a mum etc! OP I’m currently sat in my garden with a cuppa enjoying the sun, my 2 & 4 year old are splashing around screaming with laughter in their paddling pool- IT GETS BETTER!! all the best xxx

You won't enjoy all of being a mum. It's bloody hard work. You'll find it's just a succession of phases some which you'll love and some which you definitely will not! And the funny thing is it's different for everyone.

I truly loved the newborn phase and couldn't understand people who felt like they were just getting through it. Then mine seemed to turn into a sleep-hating demon overnight on his first birthday and it felt to me that everybody else had finally settled into motherhood and I'd been hit by a bus!

I think the trick is to just see everything as temporary and lean in to the bits you're enjoying and just get through the other bits as best you can!

My eldest was a whingy baby. He didn't get the whole nap/routine thing eat play sleep or whatever. He woke every 39 minutes until he was 18 months old and was so entirely miserable until he was fed. He was happy as a clam once he was fed but never really wanted to be with anyone else, just constantly in my arms. I loved him fiercely but it was hard work and I can't say I enjoyed it. I felt like I was doing everything wrong when I saw everyone's contented babies and mine was just grizly. But then one day he was suddenly a chatty curious little toddler who slept all night and wanted to hold my hand all day and have adventures with me. He never tantrummed and was happy to go along with whatever as long as we were together. He's now 6 and still desperate to hold my hand and tell me all about his day. This morning I came home from nightshift and he had been in my bed drawing pictures for me to come home to...I'll attach one.

My second was an entirely different experience, he slept and fed on the dot and seemed such a happy contented little thing. I realised that all the judgement I put on myself with DS1 was tiny that I wasn't handling things well and that everyone else's babies seemed much easier and happier than mine was because I had a tricky baby.

I am now obsessed with my DC and love being their mum. Honestly, the baby stage is overrated for me. Give me a toddler any day over a baby. I love when they get a personality and you can talk them through things.