I can't bear it, I can't stand my child!

[Fletchasaurus]

I love her, I do, or I really want to but she is such a bloody screamer I'm cracking up. I can't bear it, I alternate between sobbing and wanting to throw something. I'm still pumping as she had a rough start and wasn't able to breastfeed and I just want to scream and scream. I hate her crying for absolutely no reason, I got sliced open for her and she's so bloody ungrateful. She's a velcro baby who will NOT sleep and I cannot cope! DH takes more than his fair share because I'm doing such a bad job. My mental health has taken an absolutely battering over the pregnancy and then a long neonatal stay and it's too much. I'm under the mental health support team and it's not working!

Also what reflux meds is she on? If she's on omeprazole and you're going through the hell of dissolving the stupid fucking pills, they do a liquid. But they don't give it our easily. It'll make your life easier.

Exactly this. Do what you need to do to get rest/sleep.

You are in the thick of if right now but in time it will get easier. And hopefully it won't be too long.

Start a food diary as dairy isn't the only food they can react too. My daughter reacted to a lot of the foods I was eating

getting the occasional proper night of sleep is massive. We didn’t have family or friends who were able to do a night shift for us as suggested uptgread, but we did swap/share the nights and we spent some savings on a maternity night nurse - a couple of nights a week for about six weeks - which was the BEST EVER way to spend vast amounts of money, if you happen to have any savings/spare £ too and your family or partner aren’t able to give you full nights off.
I also did a class once a week which kept me sane amidst reflux and colic.

I should add all this help and time away from baby was with baby 2 as I had had a truly awful time with baby 1 and vowed to do the exact opposite next time.

That feeding schedule and pumping is too much.

There is nothing in breast milk benefits that outweighs a well mother.

It will get better. Or at least you'll learn better coping strategies. I fed one of mine upright in the baby carrier and then had to walk her up and down the stairs. Ridiculous but nothing seems ridiculous when it works!

For now you need to be trying to rest whenever you get the opportunity and working the most sensible timetable with your husband for survival. One of you goes to bed at 8 and gets til midnight for example. Tag team.

Oh lovely, pumping had me round the bend with DS1. Please consider formula.

As others have said, switch to formula. I was in SUCH a state with pumping and trying to breastfeed and your hormones will be making that feeling you must provide for your baby really strong. The second I went to fully formula fed the fog lifted.
Will they sleep anywhere at all? Car? Buggy? I spent hours walking round our town with one of my kids because it was the only time in the day that he stopped screaming.

Also, you are your baby's safe space and that's why they want to be with you 24/7. I know it feels suffocating at points, but they just want to be close to you for comfort.

Take the amazing advice of the posters above and please don't beat yourself up. Motherhood isn't all roses and your feelings are something so many of us have felt. It will get better, hang on in there.

The advice you’ve had is great.

I do genuinely think pumping milk is so, so hard.

Agree with the poster who suggested keeping a food diary, a friend of mine had a baby who was quickly diagnosed as being intolerant to cows milk protein, so she went dairy free. But sometime later, it turned out the baby was also intolerant to soy - which is in a lot of food. She did continue breastfeeding, had to cut out a lot to do so. But that option is there.

I would personally switch to formula - I started off bf and really do advocate for it. But only if it’s working for everyone. If it’s not, formula is there and your baby will be absolutely fine. Millions are.

I pumped, it's hellish. But if you do want to continue do you have absolutely everything you have to make it easier for you? I had multiple sets so I didn't need to worry about cleaning / sterilising, hospital grade pump, nursing bra.

Can you do shifts with DP so your four hours isn't interrupted? DS2 wouldn't sleep anywhere but on a person, so DP would stay up with him and watch TV until the earlier hours. We didn't really see each other it felt like, just passed a baby between us while going to different beds!

Do you have support from NICU? I found the postnatal mental health team pretty useless, but the NICU counsellor (who you should have access to for 2 years from leaving the unit) was absolutely amazing.

Breastfeeding is really not overrated. What a ridiculous comment

Op you sound like a brilliant mam and doing your best. Get formula.

You are doing amazingly well!! Nine weeks in is peak exhaustion even when you have an 'easy' ride - and your intro to motherhood has not been easy at all.

Agree with everyone that the returns to pumping are diminishing now after more than 2 months. If it would help you to stop, you have done plenty of that.

This is going to get much better.

As soon as I read your post I related! We had our first this year and he’s an allergy baby! Oh my god it’s something else! The crying never ever stops!
NHS missed his tongue tie 5 times! I didn’t know but not being able to latch causes all kinds of tummy problems.
We also saw a osteo’ for tension.
Prescription milk with thickener was a
life saver!

I should have added once we moved over to neocate we had a different baby who actually sleeps - all night!

Oh no! I was you! Crap experience with breastfeeding, A&E twice in first month of DD’s life because of dehydration, insisted on pumping until she was 1yo, she was a VERY intense grumpy whiny baby, it drove me mad!!! I honestly thought I had ruined my life forever! I took care of her with great responsibility and attention but struggled so much to bond 😩 Fast forward and she is now a lovely lovely lovely independant toddler, the absolute love of my life, I look at her face and my heart melts and hurts because I simply ADORE her! You’ll get there, trust me! In the meanwhile, do what you gotta do, ditch the pumping, it is designed to make us go mental! Sleep train! Getting her in a routine was KEY for my mental health (I also saw great changes on her as she was such an overtired mess by waking up loads and having crap contact naps). Going back to work PT was also a godsend when she was 13m, I am currently pregnant again and absolute sure I will put baby a couple mornings a week on a childcare setting to give me a break during mat leave. Just do what you feel could help even if it’s frowned upon (giving formula, sleep training, childcare). If you’re in a good space mentally you will be able to build this bond and be the best mom you can be! Sending loads of hugs and virtual flowers ❤️

You poor thing. I am a midwife and health visitor, if I was looking after you in real life I couldn't be so direct, but just pack the pumping in. It's a hassle you don't need. It's time consuming, it's mentally and physically draining.

Your baby is so small still, and things WILL get easier. I promise you.

Speak to the perinatal mental health team, accept the talking therapies, don't be scared of medication, keep talking, keep asking for help, and hang in there. Easier days are coming. X

Also, will she go in a stretchy sling?

Sorry, what?? Your 9 week old baby can't go mid than 4 hours workout food? I think at that age they need feeding every 3 hours at a minimum.

Buy some ready made formula for your partner to give the baby while you sleep. Bf the rest of the time. You do not need to sleep at night by the way, I used to sleep 6am-1pm after staying up most of the night with a newborn.

Oh love, I’ve been here. Pumping is worse than exclusive BF.

I told myself the following when I (wrongly, in a sleep deprived, hormonal storm) thought I’d regret giving up BF: You’ll regret it more if you look back on the newborn days with sadness because it was such a horrendous time which prevented you from bonding as fully with your baby. And I do look back on those earliest days with sadness because I pressed on with the BF to the detriment of my mental health among other things. I was delirious and I didn’t enjoy my lovely new baby at all. The lack of sleep amplified all my what would have otherwise been normal anxieties.

I truly believe BF is only great when it works.

If it helps, my DC was low weight born and remained a low centile while BF. They thrived being FF though. They gained weight quickly and beyond their previous low centile and were so much happier. They slept like a dream.

I had a screamer too, got gaviscon sachets prescribed by GP and gave them to baby before feed - worked a treat. Something about too much acid and reflux or something .

Just want to say what an amazing job you’re doing. Give yourself the credit you deserve, all babies are difficult but a high needs baby is so so so tough. Please tell your husband you are feeling this way and make sure you get the help you need. Tell the Dr and insist on help (I know the help you’re getting now isn’t cutting it so get it changed). I thought about throwing myself in the road when my little one had me so sleep deprived and was never off my side (he screamed every minute he was off me - it still makes me anxious thinking about it). There is the right help to make these thoughts go away, tell your husband and get him to help you fight for the right support. If funds aren’t an issue private talking therapy might help - I found better help amazing whilst I waited for the nhs stuff to kick in properly. It just helped getting it out of my head to someone uninvolved who could help rationalise what was going through my head. You are not alone in this xx

My son was a preemie six weeks in NiCU, medically fragile on oxygen-he screamed bloody murder when awake and it lasted eight long months-I had to learn to walk away and take breaks. He woke up at eight months and was a smiling, happy boy like a switch was flipped. Mine at least napped twice a day. I had to find a formula he could tolerate-it was soy based that we found helped. Please take a break, maybe get friends or family to give you a break. It does get better I promise you

"she's so bloody ungrateful" she is a baby.. she does not know how the birth went.. you might be suffering post natal depression, ask for help to your health visitor or midwife.

Oh come on, do you think op literally expects her baby to say thank you?! She's just expressing how she feels. I remember feeling this way.

She's also already under the MH team so "ask for help to your midwife" has already happened.

Such an unhelpful comment, sticking the knife into a new mum without even reading the op properly.

Oh come on, don’t be such a judgey-pants.

Babies are, quite literally, ungrateful. They are not capable of gratitude.

There’s nothing wrong with saying that or with feeling and articulating the toll it can take on you being a mum to a baby and it being a fairly thankless task at times!