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Feeling defeated

3 replies

SecretSloth99 · 09/03/2025 19:20

I feel so defeated by being a parent right now. My 4 month olds sleep has gone out the window (normal, I know), we used to have 5 hour stretches at the beginning of the night and now I’m lucky if I’m getting four 40 minute chunks because she’s keeps waking and then I feed back to sleep before transferring, which takes about 30-40 mins and then she wakes soon after I’ve managed to get back to sleep. The anxiety I have over night times now is pretty high because I don’t know how much longer I can do this no sleep situation. Co sleeping is not an option as our mattress isn’t entirely flat nor is it breathable…

I’m hating breastfeeding at the moment because she’s so wiggly all the time but absolutely hates the bottle. I’m pumping to build a stash so I can have a bit more flexibility with my time / be able to go to friends weddings and hen parties but my god I hate sterilising (huge huge props to those bottle feeding parents!!!)

She’s crying, a lot, it’s rare we get a wake window with minimal crying. And I’m struggling to constantly entertain her - she gets ‘bored’ so easily and I end up having to walk around the house with her, turning on taps, showing her the mirror etc etc until it’s time for the next nap.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s the most wonderful thing in my life, and I have a phenomenal husband who does so very much, but I feel like I’m doing all of the mental labour, the research into sleep, the planning of all the baby admin and I’m absolutely exhausted,

well done if you made it to the end of this mini meltdown. No real reason for it other than looking for some solidarity and encouragement!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
tarheelbaby · 09/03/2025 19:30

Babies are wonderful. No one doubts your love. We've all been there.

It's so hard! Well done, you! Even with a phenomenal husband and an easy/good baby, it's jolly hard.

Can you go out for walks? I found this made a big difference with my 3+ mos DD. I put her in the pram and after a short/medium walk, she dozed off which gave me a few minutes to catch my breath.

SecretSloth99 · 10/03/2025 07:52

Thankyou 🙏🏻🙏🏻

Ah yes we walk a lot, at least two walking naps a day and she does sometimes stay asleep when we come back to the house which gives me time to do a few jobs but the sleep regression and the crying is killing me right now!

OP posts:
DaffyDuk · 10/03/2025 13:22

I have so much sympathy and no advice! All I can say is: you’ll make it through.

I waited a looooong time before number dc2c and people often ask me why (pretty rude really!) and in part the answer is that it took me so long to recover from dc1’s baby years (plus a few complications aside from that).

Not everyone has an easy journey through the first few years. My dc1 was incredibly hard work for the first 12 months.

You are far from alone. Wishing you the best.

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