When does it get easier?

[SRH]

FTM to seven week old baby boy. Struggling with PPA and waiting for a referral for therapy. In the early days, I really thought things might be a bit easier by now. Maybe I’d be used to baby and he’d be a bit more sturdy/less fragile. However it feels more difficult than ever, his night time sleep is worse, we aren’t in any kind of routine. Breastfeeding hasn’t worked for me and I’m exclusively pumping which is so time consuming. I love baby but I am not enjoying motherhood and wonder if I was cut out to be a mum. When did it start getting easier for you all/when did you turn a corner and see light at the end of the tunnel?

Firstly I’d stop pumping. I doubt the small benefits are outweighing the huge toll it’s taking on your physical and mental health.
It took me at least 12 weeks post partum to feel even vaguely back to normal. And at least 5 months to have any kind of routine.
I’ m fairly sure you’re being an excellent mother. Get some help for your anxiety and ask for lots of help from partner etc. being overwhelmed and unsure is totally normal.

I feel like I could have written this post 17 months ago. Whilst it is a very personal choice, I felt so much better when I stopped pumping (I started easing off at 6 weeks - waking up to pump even when my baby was sleeping was a nightmare and was ruining me). It can take a long time to feel yourself again but it does get easier, I promise! I started to enjoy motherhood more when my DS was about 4 months (you start to get some proper feedback) and I LOVE being a toddler mum. There’s no shame in no enjoying the newborn phase. Someone told me this when I was struggling and it really helped.

Agreed with PP, id switch to formula as pumping is the worst of both worlds and so so difficult!

I found this age difficult with both kids, its peak clingyness and colic, DC2 was particularly bad and would cry for about 2 hours every evening like clockwork. It eventually just stopped around 12 weeks. I didn't even notice it just got less and less till one night I was sat in front for the tv with my baby asleep on my chest with no battle.

Get yourself out and about, especially after a bad night even if its just for a walk or a coffee . Not only will it help you, being out in daylight helps settle a babies cicadian rhythm (knowing day from night) and can help with night sleep. But i found going through the motions of getting dressed and out the house to be great for my mood.

The fact your concerned and anxious for your babies well being shows to me you are a good mum! I hope the therapy helps you out but it really does all get better and easier with time, but alot more time than Instagram and the other socials make it out to be.

My DC1 never latched. I spent 5 months pumping and it was awful. I don’t know why i didn’t give up sooner.

With DC2, i didn’t even try, and went straight to ff. So much better.

Would agree with PPs to stop pumping. There is no medal. And like people always say, you will have no clue which kids have been bf vs ff when they start school. Or even earlier.

I had a hard time after my daughter was born. I had two points where things improved. The first was when we sorted out my daughters feeding this was around 17 weeks and then again when my post natal depression was adequately treated and this was around 14 months. I developed treatment resistant depression so it was quite a long hour to find a treatment that helped.

My daughter had reflux and allergies however it took until 4 months before they were recognised properly and managed.

In the early days I felt quite a bit of pressure to switch to formula. She had feeding aversions which we now know is due to her reflux and allergies and feeding her was very difficult.

Breastfeeding was taking everything I had but at the same time there were days and weeks where that was literally the only thing I did and it felt a bit like they were trying to take the only thing I could do for my daughter. I'm not going to say stop pumping completely because I know that there can be complicated emotions associated with providing breastmilk. What I will say is you have done a great job providing 7 weeks of breastmilk. That's amazing. I would give some thought to what the pumping is doing for you. Is there a pumping session that would be helpful to drop? Is there a feed that would be helpful to switch to formula? Combi feeding might give you that space to keep the benefits for you whilst giving you a bit of a break

I did eventually switch to formula at 10 months and my daughter did as well on formula as she did breastfeeding. In hindsight it might have been better/easier to have gone to formula earlier. It would have helped identify her allergies sooner for one! I didn't realise that the breastfeeding felt like the one positive thing I could do had I done i could found other positive things that would potentially have been less draining on me. We had spent 2 months of trying to get her to take a bottle and I do think things would have gone better if I could get mixed formula and breastfeeding feeding to work

I agree with the advice to let go of the pumping. You’ve made a valiant effort under very challenging circumstances by the sounds of it. You’ve should feel very good about that.

But your baby needs a healthy rested present mama more than he needs breastmilk. I had a very similar experience with my first. Pumped til 10 weeks. Postnatal anxiety and OCD. Felt like a failure and like everything was so hard and I was getting it all wrong.

I wasn’t. You aren’t. You just need to make things a bit easier, lighten your load, enjoy your baby. You also need sleep. Ease off the pumping and switch to formula. Do you have a partner? Your partner takes over half the night feeds so you can sleep. Ear plugs and a sleeping tablet if you need it, then your partner is on duty all night. Sleep will make a huge difference to the PPA. On the weekends, if you can sleep as much as possible, do it.

Then in the time you aren’t stuck at home pumping, you get out. Fresh air. Walk around the park. Have a coffee and cake. Sign up for a baby class - this was huge for me, it forced me to leave the house once a week, no matter how bad things were going that day. Find a group - NCT, a walk and talk group, baby yoga or exercise, something for you to talk to other mums.

It got easier between about 8-12 weeks with my first. You do have to give yourself some grace though. It’s a huge change and a lot to cope with and you are making your way through. It really will get better.

It sounds like your mind is being incredibly hard on you to be asking whether you're cut out to be a mum 7 weeks in with PPA! Give yourself a break, lovely, it's early days still. It can be incredibly difficult to adjust as a new mum especially considering that you're physically rundown from lack of sleep etc. Not the ideal conditions to learn a new skill ie. parenting a newborn. Like anything else the curve is steepest at the beginning.

How much you enjoy it doesn't equate to how much you love your child. Your actions are what matter and you are showing up even when it doesn't feel good. That is a strong mother.

I can't give an exact timeframe but I do know that this too shall pass. You will get through this.. one day or one hour or one minute at a time. Sending love and solidarity and compassion. Big hugs 💜

Things improved massively here once we started weaning at 6 months. A couple of weeks after that they both started sleeping much longer at night.

I’d seriously think about FF, the pumping is extremely hard work mentally and physically.

Yeah it's really fucking hard. I was the same as you, looking forward to when it was going to get easy. And the answer is, well, it doesn't get considerably easier until after 12 months.

I was happier when I accepted that.

5-6 months was the highlight, he slept well, naps were predictable, he wasn't moving yet. But weaning is a bitch. And teething started at 6.5 months which ruined our life for months (he was sleeping worse than when he was a newborn) although we did get particularly unlucky with that as he got 8 teeth consecutively in 8 weeks, which is unusual.

The government doesn't give you 12 months off work for fun, at a huge cost to employers and the government finances. They do it because babies need a tremendous amount of care and most of them really don't sleep well. It's just survival.

I felt just like you but as soon as I stopped pumping I began to feel better, it's so time consuming and stressful and you just need to rest. I found things felt a little better at 3 months, then 5 months, then 6 months when we starting weaning. PP gave brilliant advice to get out for a walk eveyr day and try and join a group.
You are doing brilliantly and it will definitely get easier 💐

This parenting malarkey - it doesn't.

But it does change and evolve over time. Sometimes.easier, sometimes harder, often just different.

Sorry if that doesn't feel helpful, but it feels patronising tbh saying anything different.

However, I was fortunate to not have PPA/PND which probably changes things a lot. People who will have experienced that will have more of an idea when that eased.

Re the pumping and feeding - is your partner taking a reasonable amount of the night feeds? Mine did half, so we shared it equally. Or perhaps he does most of the nights if you are up pumping (don't fall for the 'he works so he can't be awake at night crap - us women somehow manage it when we are still up and down like yoyos when we go back to work). Or ditch the night pumps and combi feed? Or ditch the pumping entirely - it will make almost zero difference to baby.

You're just out of the starting gate in this marathon if parenting, but you can still see, almost taste, what life was like before. Soon it'll become your new norm, and you'll just keep plodding through each challenge as it comes.

I don’t think there is a magic turning point when it feels easier. I really struggled with DC1’s first year and I think it was because I was holding out for this sudden change from hard to easy. For me, personally it never came.

However, compared to a 7 week old my 5 year old is significantly more reasonable and his 2 year old brother isn’t far behind. Parenting just gradually changes and, while some bits get harder, personally I think far more things get easier with each passing month.

Exclusively pumping is the worst of both worlds really. Is there anyway you could either get baby back to breast or switch to formula?

I was originally holding out until baby was a bit bigger and might have a bigger mouth but I just don’t think it’s going to happen which makes me feel so sad and guilty.

I just feel so guilty and sad that I might have to give up the breastmilk so soon. I really wish his latch had worked out.

For me it got much better at 7/8 weeks, because

1. I stopped pumping
2. I started to go to a baby class each morning, either something like baby sensory or rhyme time in the local library, but what I enjoyed even more was mummy&baby yoga or an exercise class for you where you can bring baby. I felt I was doing something for myself again, I had structure because we had to leave the house in the morning, and I chatted to other mums there. And from about 4 months onwards, things were amazing with my little boy! You’ll get there!

Some times it doesn't work out. My grandmother never had enough supply to feed her babies. She was lucky to have a sister around the corner with similar aged babies and plenty of milk so she nursed my mum and auntie too to top them up.
My dad was born at 28 weeks and he was fed condensed milk!
You have done amazingly to get to 7 weeks, do you have a goal or the other side do you have a line where if things are still as difficult you'll give formula a go?

I probably would look over the next few weeks about trialling a bottle of formula and see how that feels. Just one bottle isn't going to change how you feel, it won't stop the benefits of the breastmilk the rest of the time but it might show you that milk is milk to baby and it's ok to give yourself a break. You might find that moving to 1 or 2 bottles of formula a day just releases the pressure valve enough that pumping for the remaining bottles is more sustainable. You might find that actually formula goes better than you think and half and half or mostly or even solely formula works for you too.

It doesn't have to be one big decision today I'm going to stop pumping and giving breastmilk. It can be lots of little decisions at a pace that ok for you.

I just don’t know how to leave the house every morning for X time as baby isn’t in any kind of routine. Sometimes he begins the day at 5am and is awake until midday. Other days, he goes back down to sleep between 6-9am. I don’t know how to get him into a routine x

There is absolutely no routine with a 7 week old. You go out regardless. You need to stop holding out for some magical point where it gets easier or predictable.

There is no routine possible until after the 4/5 month sleep "regression" when their sleep cycles mature and you can have more of a bedtime and nap routine. Even then, it changes constantly. You think you nailed it down and 3 days later it all goes to pot. Then you start weaning and wish you had appreciated the days when all that baby needed was milk. Then they start teething etc etc etc.

For your sake, let go a bit. Go with the flow. You're not going to have a routine, you're not going to reliably have a good night sleep most nights, it's not going to get much easier, for a long long time.

You really have to make the best of what you have. That's the real secret.

And stop pumping. I pumped when baby was 6-10 months as I went back to work but it was only possible because I was at work and someone else was doing the feeding. You can't pump AND be the only one doing the feeding AND keep your sanity.

I’d say it doesn’t matter at this age. I just let mine sleep in the pram whenever he was tired, and I took bottles with me to feed on demand. Baby classes are designed with this in mind - if your baby is hungry, you just sit there and feed him. If I arrived at a class and my baby was asleep in the pram, I would just take the bassinet inside with me and let him sleep there.

I found the newborn stage hard with my first - the lack of routine was horrible and I just couldn’t get my head around how I get out of the house when you’re feeding, nappy changing then naps again. Maybe early for you but for my second I follow wake windows more. Don’t worry if you go to a class and he’s asleep or you need to feed - everyone is in the same boat.

if it helps, I was dreading newborn phase again but I’ve enjoyed all of it with my second.xx

IME you feel better and it all becomes easier when you’re getting a decent amount of sleep again. Agree with everyone saying you should stop pumping. You’ve given your baby an excellent start on breastmilk but honestly by the time they’re fussy toddlers refusing their veg and eating old crisps off the floor of the car you’ll realise how they were fed as a newborn really doesn’t mean a great deal. Which I know doesn’t make a lot of sense when your baby is a teeny 7 week old but it will in time. Formula is honestly fantastic stuff. I’d make the switch ASAP then get dad on board to do the next night where he doesn’t have work the next day (Friday?) and go and get yourself a proper night’s sleep. Then do this regularly.

Do you mind me asking what wake windows you follow? Is it 2 hours and then a nap?

I have a near 6 month old and still working on the bond. Id say when they start to smile and react to what you are doing it starts to help.
He was planned but I utterly hated the newborn phase. I feel awful writing that when I know there's ladies out there who'd give anything to have a baby

He just felt like this very demanding potato and it was groundhog day with feed, change, sleep, feed etc

I tried to persevere with breastfeeding for 5 weeks. Going to be blunt, I hated it. I would cry while doing it, even though he was good at latching and it was definitely a me not a him problem. I felt like a bloody cow. It was absolutely NOT magical in my opinion and I hated the sensation. I tried to persevere because all I could think about was the chart in the antenatal classes of all the benefits vs formula. We were topping him up with a formula quota after each breastfeed as I wasn't sure how much he was getting from me. I really struggle with broken sleep so that added to my hatred of breastfeeding. I also couldn't take things like my strong headache tablets which are the only thing that touches when I get a bad one

After 5 weeks I gave up breastfeeding, I just couldn't do it, and it was making my mental health worse. I felt so much more comfortable giving him a bottle. After crying in front of the health visitor and my mum (the question are you ok was an instant trigger) i went to the doctors and am now on sertraline for my moods. One of DH family summed it up when pre sertraline, she asked if I was ok, I nearly bawled, and she said "you haven't been yourself for a long time"

I wasn't one of those women who enjoyed pregnancy

When your pain is better (dont try and push yourself too early i had a c section and post midwife appointment me and hubby went to the pharmacy, it was about a week after, and I felt like I was going to pass out, not helped by the heat) try and go for a little stroll with the pram if he likes the pram - you could build up to longer routes. I used to try and walk each afternoon, there's a nice loop i can do with the pram - he was generally due a nap, and i put headphones in and listen to an audio book, usually one ive read so i dont have to pay close attention, then zone out, I just made sure the headphones weren't on noise cancelling so I could hear him and would check under the bassinet cover to make sure he was ok. Id sometimes sit on a bench on the route, if he was asleep, just listening to my book

Re sleeping, mine HATED the hospital crib and HATED the next to me. I had the sudden idea of putting his moses basket in the next to me (ensuring all safe sleep was ok) to "desensitise" him as he was ok with his basket, then moved to just being in the next to me.

Get a love to dream bag, they were recommended to me when I was pregnant, and they are fantastic. It stops the startle reflex

Probably too soon, but what i found helped me a bit was having a purpose (I know nurturing a new baby is but I didnt feel that way more like I was going through the motions, he didn't go without or anything)

I set up a vinted account and started listening stuff on there, I quickly became obsessed. It was satisfying when something sold, and because the post office was in walking distance and I wanted to build my rating on there, I wanted to post things in a timely manner, so if I got a sale, it was a good way of making me go out with the pram, to post it, then if the weather was nice, we'd often continue on our longer loop we do

I still haven't been to any baby groups and he's nearly 6 months

The newborn years are the absolute trenches it feels, luckily your partner is supportive, I think id have truly broken if mine hadn't been and hadn't stepped up during my detachment

I felt like I needed "permission" to stop breastfeeding, because of all the benefits extolled on that PowerPoint at antenatal, so felt guilty because id be robbing him of that. However as someone said to me "a few baby is a happy baby" I also hated pumping even more than breastfeeding

Have a search on here, there's often "due in xx month" threads. I posted on the due in March 2025 thread and while unfortunately none of the ladies live locally, so cant meet up, we are all in a WhatsApp group and its so supportive to be able to rant/cry/ask if something is normal/share the small wins, and because our babies were all born around the same sort of time, we were all in the trenches together

Definitely get yourself another doctors appointment if youre struggling. Another thing great about the group chat, is its very warts and all, I find social media sugar coats WAY too much with the whole magical moments, instant bond etc, which added to my feeling there was something wrong with me for not feeling that way

@SRH at 7 weeks old I can’t fully remember as it was more of an on demand thing but my approach was wake up, feed, nappy, maybe tummy time/ play etc. Then nap again (I fed to sleep all the time for an easy life). In the morning I would walk in the buggy for nap time. In the early days it was amazing as he would sleep for a while in the pram and I could get things done (I also had the rock-it which would help him sleep!). When they are more alert wake windows are more obvious so you’ll get an idea but still the same: feed, nappy, play, nap.

you are at the hardest point! I think I was around 4 months with my first before I could get my head around what was going on. Felt like an achievement to brush my teeth by 2pm. Honestly, enjoy the moments you are nap trapped and haven’t done anything- they grow up fast and in a couple of months you’ll be telling another mum how you felt and sharing your story 🥰

p.s for wake windows I Google to get a general idea for their age and then you see what works for you