am I normal ? first time mum, cot death

[radstar]

Please can I have some advice, this is my first post, so please be gentle with me. I'm a first time mum of a 10 week old.

Is it normal to be terrified of something happening to my baby or my partner and close relatives?

I know that cot death is rare and I follow the advice. I know there isn't a great deal I can do about unforseen illness and accidents but I still worry. I'm supposed to go away next week with my baby but not my partner and I am not looking forward to it in case something happens.

When I think about it rationally I know I'm being silly. My partner thinks I'm obsessed with death. But my Dad died out of the blue of undiagnosed cancer and in my work I have seen a lot of dead children. I wonder if that has something to do it with it.

My pregnancy was a surprise, never thought we would have kids but I'm so happy about it, things turned out better than I ever thought for us, I'm scared something will come along and burst my bubble.

I would appreciate your thoughts I have seen good advice before on here - sorry if this too long.

Normal. I do not really sleep for the first year when I have a baby as I have to make sure they are breathing. I was as bad with number 4 as with number 1. Once I have relaxed a little about cot death, there is always meningities, traffic accidents, choking etc etc to worry about. I think at some point you just get used to worry because you are now mother.

I still poke DD now and again to check she's breathing, if I wake up in the night! She's 13! Totally normal behaviour for a mother imho!

I am on number 4 and he's 4 months old. Im still paranoid but i use a Snuza Halo clipped to his nappy and i sleep alot more soundly. My son unlike his sisters doesnt have to be subjected to panic stricken poking in the middle of the night because of his monitor i know he is safe.

Its perfectly normal to be worried i still am and i have nearly 17 years of experience behind me, like other mums on this thread have suggested if it will help at all do something practical and get a movement sensor ( i like the Snuza as it works everywhere, pram, car seat, amby baby hammock as its so portable.) HTH

yes sir - I do worry sometimes on long car journeys too, I think thats partly why I'm nervous about next week, its our first long journey on our own. I am glad the consensus is that it gets easier, I thought it might but am conscious of wishing my time away and then realising I havent enjoyed the early years with my baby

Numptymum - thats exactly how I feel, sometimes he does look dead, very pale. I thought I only thought this because of the dead children I have seen. I never thought what I did as a career would have such an impact on my personal life, I used to be able to put it away somewhere in my head but in the early days of parenthood I really did get upset as so many of those peoples' stories ran through my head. Again I am better at dealing with my thoughts the more time goes on but I have the occasional panic poke like some of you do. I have decided I can't do the forensic side of my job anymore though when I go back to work, its too much. I was happy (not the right word but cant think of another)to do it before as most parents don't want to. Like I said I never thought I would be the parent.

Really feel for you Radstar, it must be so hard to forget those images. Have you spoken to the other parents you work with to see how they deal with it, or dealt with it when they first became parents - they might have been same as you and prepared to do same as you before...?

We actually ended up joking about DS being in dead-baby mode, as the first time it happened I was pretty freaked out, but we got more comfortable about it when we realised it happened regularly - there seemed to be a particular phase of his sleep where he was really deeply asleep. I'd completely forgotten about it until I read your post - he's 21mo now and it's a distant memory! So things will get better, you'll get more relaxed and used to how your DC is when 'normal'.

Not read all of thread, but think you are totally normal. I still wake in the night in a cold sweat, wondering if my 2 yr old is still breathing !

Lots of other morbid thoughts too, like what will happen if I'm in the house alone one morning and I fall down the stairs - who would know / what happens if I set the kitchen on fire (again ) / slip over in the shower / what happens if DP dies etc etc...

Hope I haven't put ideas in your head ! It does get much much easier. As you get to know your LO better and become more confident in your abilities as a mum.

numpty - havent really seen anyone from work to ask, I just remeber when I started they said they couldn't do it once they were parents and now I understand why. I was worried all the parents I knew (that don't work in my profession) would think me a bit odd and I wouldn't want to upset anyone with morbid tales.

puffy - dont worry you haven't given me ideas. I've had all of those!!!

I do feel a bit more confident about knowing whats normal for him now just occasionally freak out over something new!

This is only shows how much we care as mothers
You've got the instinct so you will naturally feel what you have wrote about. I remember not only checking my daughter's breath but crying , worrying that i can drop her, or fall or god knows what else.
I would say it's nice to get along with yr baby without third people -i mean our mums- mine is only upseting me, whatever you will do trust ur instincts

Totally normal. I have a 5.5 month old who sleeps with a babysense breathing monitor in his cot and will do so till he's at leasty 1. Loads of people took the piss when I got it, but it has given me peace of mind and not sure I'd have relaxed at all had I not got it. DH has begged to take me for a night out and let his mum babysit and I've finally agreed, but now worried that she will have a heart attack when bathing DS or generally will fall down dead during that evening. It's madness.

DH STILL walks down to check that DS is still breathing every evening, and DS is nearly 2!

I remember in the first weeks, walking down the hall of our upstairs flat with horrific images of exactly what it would be like if I tripped and dropped him over the banister scrolling through my head.

I think I was feeling overwhelmed by the sheer level of responsibility - keeping this little thing alive.

It does get better.

Fairly normal, if you ask me. I was paranoid about cot death too, especially as my DS was an incredibly silent sleeper.
I co-slept with him for the first 5.5m until we were disturbing each other too much - the first few nights in his own cot I used to tiptoe in to check he was still breathing and a couple of times I had to poke him to see if he was ok.
One time when he was about 6.5mo and he was in his cot, he had managed to throw off his covers and his hands were freezing cold - that scared me good and proper!

It does fade off after a few months to a year.

There is a great sketch by [comedian] Michael mcIntyre which basically says that at the end of each day he looks at his wife and says "phew, another day over and the kids are still alive". That really sums it up I think

HarryB

Also remembering that great Billy Connolly sequence about how little babies try to freak you out - gurgling down the monitor then stopping breathing for ages, you panic and they start gurgling again.

Maybe do a St John Ambulance Early Years course - covers the really serious stuff like choking and unconsciousness. Or there are some other people who do this kind of thing. Is good to feel you could do something in an emergency (and for your friends' dc's too).

If you see dead children as part of your work you are bound to be even more scared - you know that it can happen.

I'm afraid it's all part of being a parent - goes with the stretch marks and poverty

do you think it's any better with the second ? and what happens when they're 18 and we;re lying awake waiting for them to come home at night !

Actually the emergency first aid for babies and children freaked me out even more over cot death -- it brought home to me how short the window is from stopping breathing to being dead and too late to do anything about it (shorter in a baby than in an adult, apparently) and how unlikely it was that with a sleeping baby you'd notice in that brief period (unless you had the oodles of alarms, etc.). But on the other hand it did reassure me about choking, falls, etc., so I guess it was swings and roundabouts from that point of view.

Everyone's scared of this, we all prod our babies to check they are breathing.

FWIW my DH did fall down the stairs with DD and instinct made him protect her rather than himself. He ended up with some seriously nasty bruises.

Thanks everyone for your reassurance, I appreciate it. There was some good advice, I am trained to the highest level of first aid/ life support through work (nhs worker) but it doesn't stop you worrying about not being able to put it into practise. I guess instinct would just kick in like so many of you said. I did worry that even with this training I was being a bit neurotic and abnormal. I feel better knowing it is just part of parenthood and this is normality from now on. I'm sure my partner does worry more than he says he does he is just good at putting a front on!

radstar - probably with that level of training, you are likely to worry MORE - because you know what COULD go wrong, and likely outcomes etc IYSWIM ! So DEFINITELY don't beat yourself up

Just wanted to add that like the others, your worries sound completely normal however wanted to mention that from the normal thoughts of concern about my baby I developed OCD where I almost couldn't let my dc3 sleep and managed to completely warp the cot death thing into if I didn't check on her she would die. Was all very bizarre thinking back but wanted to mention it as it was a really horrible time. Think anything that re-enforced the intrusive thoughts (movement monitor, excessive checking etc) had a negative impact. So although you sound completely fine now, listen out for others around you if they (or you) think it's getting worse and get to the docs pronto.

Yes! Normal! ds is 5 and every time I go upstairs I check on him, and if I can't hear him breathing I gently put my hand on his chest so that I can feel him. Daft huh. And I always check on his when I wake up in the night, and of course when I go to bed.

Yep, I used to gently prod him when he was tiny too, or slip my finger into his tiny hand so that he would grasp it. If I could reach I'd sometimes kiss under his toes so that his toes would curl around my kiss. (Good job he's a heavy sleeper!!!)
Having him in our room helped, and cosleeping make me relax completely.

Don't worry, you're normal

puffy - thankyou!

anchovies - that must have been awful for you, i do sympathise and will heed your advice. xx