Is this really normal? ( Postpartum hallucination)

[EverybodyKnowsThatYoureInsane]

My baby is nearly 16 weeks and since birth I'm constantly hallucinating or dreaming that she is in the bed with me - often being smothered by the covers. I get convinced the a particular lump of duvet or a pillow is her. Either I can clearly see her shape & even her Face in the folds of the bedding or I can see it "breathing". Normally both.

I know it's not just dreams because I quite often have conversations with DH about it. When I do dream she is sinking deeper into non existent layers of the bed where I can't get her out.

In the early days we took it in shifts to sleep downstairs with the baby. When I was supposed to be catching up on sleep I would always end up texting my DH to ask if she was ok. Or go the top of the stairs and look down to check she's asleep and breathing. Otherwise I could not convince myself she wasn't in the bed.

A few months ago we moved her to sleeping in the next-to-me ( snuzpod) in our room. So now when this happens I can see her and touch her and know that she is in her bed... And yet I still feel like there's a baby in my bed. When DH has noticed he has been unable to convince me that ( for example) a pillow is not "breathing,,". Eventually I will gently squeeze out the particular piece of bedding until I can prove to myself that there is no baby in there.

One time DH came to bed late. I woke up thinking that a pillow in the middle of the bed with the baby and shouted at him not to crush her. He said " She's in her bed" and I looked and of course she was but still thinking that the baby was the pillow turned around to see him basically body slam it. My soul left my body for a good few minutes! Another time. DH caught me" phantom feeding" one breast to the other breast thinking my left boob was my baby.

I started removing anything from the bed that caused this experience. Now I sleep with just a blanket over me. But this morning I thought that the trim and stitching on the end of the blanket look like her feet and off it went again.

I suppose I just want to anonymously share this to get this out my system. A midwife said to me this was actually quite normal. That was in the early days. Since then I haven't met anyone who relates to it.

Has anyone experienced similar? Willing to admit I might just be crazy.

Please see your GP health anxiety for ourselves and others can be a sign of post partum anxiety and it seems to me that these scenarios that run through your brain whatever the appropriate name for them is linked to anxiety.

For a long time, decades, one of the way my anxiety manifest is by imagining friends and family dying, getting ill or generally coming to harm and can undergo completely normal conversations whilst this alternative world is going on in my mind's eye

It could also be some early signs of psychosis which is not uncommon in the period after birth, 1 in 1000. What you have described doesn't match my own experience but just is case it is I would reach out to support whilst it isn't completely consuming as pyschosis can become

Thank you for all your honest replies and great advice.
I will definitely be speaking to HV about this. It just helps knowing I'm not alone. I did tell a couple of people irl but they looked at me like I was mad so I said it had got better but really this part has kept going.

@Lammveg this is something I was thinking today. My baby is actually getting decent night sleep and I feel guilty that I am not getting the sleep to be energised for the day.

I get phantom crying- she was at a friend's house last week, and I had a shower, and could hear her crying outside the house and her friend's mum talking to her. I had to keep stopping the water to listen.

Omg I had this in the early days @KickingEAP , really really horrible. 💐
At my most sleep deprived I would imagine her breaking like a china doll of I dropped her.
Fortunately that part seems to have faded

I had very very vivid hallucinations, different to you but it was massive spiders running around the room and bats flying around.

I never told anyone, I really should have done. Traumatic 31 week delivery, Dts in nicu for 8 weeks, total sleep deprivation and clear PND looking back.

Hope you're ok op.

I had this constantly op for the first 3/4 months. Baby had terrible reflux so I had to hold him upright after every night feed. Inevitably this meant we both fell asleep sat up in the bed. When I woke again I would put him back in the snuzpod, but I would constantly be convinced a pillow/ muslin or something in the bed was him and I was suffocating him. I put it down to the exhaustion and sleep deprivation!

I know no one's watching this but I just thought I would post an update in case someone searches for this subject when they are suffering. Long story short baby is 5 1/2 months now and this has just stopped. I don't know if it's because she hardly ever has night feeds now or if it's a hormonal thing - seemed to stop around the time my hair started falling out and I started getting spots again so maybe that's something!

I'm still working on getting help for my mental health. Partly me bit getting my arse in gear partly just being a bit complicated but forging on.

Thank you to all the mums who replied and made me realise I am not alone and hadn't completely lost my mind.

Please call your midwives at the hospital where you delivered.

Doh! Too late.

I'm glad you've turned a corner, but if it ever happens again, please get medical help xx

I'm glad you are getting help with your mental health and I hope it continues to improve