How do you cope with the fear?

[plantsitter]

I hope I'm not going to sound like a nut job here.

DD is 2 months old and I think I'm doing pretty well, feel ok mostly, getting out every day nearly and making friends. DD is healthy, putting on weight, quite a cheery soul. The only problem is intermittent waves of terror that she is going to die. When she's asleep I have to check every 10 minutes or so that she's still breathing - I even wake up a couple of times in the night to check. I'm terrified of driving her in the car, though I do it anyway.

Am I insane? How do you balance such immense love an responsibility with, well, being normal??

It is a big relief to read that it was not just me being precious, checking each child at night until they were quite big . I still have a little check on dd (12) last thing at night but remember the night I abruptly stopped seeing ds1 was ok (force of habit) when he told me to f**k off as he was 17 and why was I creeping about...

I was extremely anxious when my dd was born for about 6 months, over the last 2 months its not so consuming. The worst thing was (feel free to throw things) was when she started sleeping through, i didnt sleep for weeks, checking on her every hour and would wake up with a sore clenched jaw where id been grinding my teeth anxious in my sleep. I got a breathing monitor and gradually learned to relax. Looking back i dont think i realised how bad i was, i still get some horrible thoughts, but most of the time i dont worry. Even now though, im dreading the teenage and university years, i was a complete risk taking swine who got up to all sorts. Just hope shes not the same!!

This is the nappy one! I didn't go for this one cos I was scared it would fall off and DS would put it in his mouth or something... The Angelcare is good in that you can turn it on later to just the sound mode (which they recommend for past 6 months old). I imagine I will have it on sound mode only now till the second one is born and the paranoia begins again...

When DD was a baby (she is 5 now), I remember ringing my sister who was looking after her overnight for the first time and asking her if she would go in to check if she was breathing before she went to bed herself and check that her cooker was turned off. My sister probably thought that I was a was a complete nut job.

It does get better though, although never completely. I do think about the first time when my DC's go out on their own instead of with me or at a place which I leave them with people I trust, it fills me with dread.