Not enjoying being a mummy

[Mycrazylife85]

My daughter is 11 weeks and we have had problems with undiagnosed tongue tie that was snipped at 7 weeks. Damage to nipples and therefore have used shields a lot, much to the disgust of health professionals. She has spent much of her life crying and moaning.

She rarely naps in the day, only if I take her out on the car or pram. Therefore I NEVER EVER sleep in the day. I can't put her down ever.

Her sleep has been better up until last night and she woke up after 2 and half hours she fed for 4 hours. I was exhausted by the end and spent those four hours wondering if someone could just take her for me as I hate being a mummy. Someone who would care for her and enjoy her and give her lots of cuddles.

I find so little of it rewarding. She cries and moans about 95% of her waking time. I have continued to breastfeed and wonder if she's not getting enough from me. The more she doesn't sleep the grumpier she is. She was much longed for but I often think I wish I hadn't become a mum. It's truly devastating. I long for my old life and feeling like a human.

I don't get a moment to myself. I struggle to eat as anything needs to be prepared or to hand. Or I take it out on the car to eat. I honestly hate life. And I am devastated I feel this way about what I thought would be a magical time.

She's so beautiful and seems to love me and often smiles at me which breaks my heart even more but I dread her crying again as inevitably it'll mean another hour feed and she won't sleep at the end of it.

It's the loneliness of misery

First of all, where s the dad? Why don't you get a moment to yourself? You should at least get time for a shower in peace everyday, and a couple of hours t yourself at the weekend. Are your parents or ILs around to free a bigot support?

The first few months are tough and exhausting, you are doing brilliantly still feeding her. Is she gaining weight as we should? What does your health visitor think?

• bit of support ......

As she should... Sorry, autocorrect gone wild!

It will get better OP, it just feels like this stage is never ending and so exhausting. I remember crying whilst bf DS1 (now 22!) feeling so alone at about 2am, so tired and just wanting to give up. I still had the baby monitor on and over the airwaves came a hiccupping sob perforated with singing and I recognised my friend who lived half a mile away who had her DD a week before me. It was such a freaky thing to happen and it never did again but it was such a comfort in the middle of the night knowing I wasn't the only one finding things difficult. You will get through this.

So sorry to hear you are having a rough time. It does get better for the first 4 months I literally hated my life, DS never napped except in carrier on walk or in the car, we lived in a freezing cold house, we used to go to the supermarket just to keep warm and for about a month he had horrid colic and cried non stop for 3 hours every night.
I hated the fact that I had put 3 years of my life on hold suffered multiple miscarriages for this!! However come 4 months we turned a corner, he still never napped but it did get better. Xx

First things first, it's going to be fine.

You're going to be fine, and she's going to be fine. Having a newborn is hard, and relentless, and dare I say it boring, and you're tied to them, and tied to the house just now, but it's not forever. This isn't your life now and this too shall pass.

What support do you have? A DH/DP? Any family? You need to share the load if you can and take some time to look after yourself. It's difficult just now but also get out of the house as much as you can, even if it's just for yet another walk.

The magical time is a bit of a myth really, but hang in there, you can do it!

Thank you so much @Mintjulia

My husband is at work from 7 until 7 and then comes hone, we eat on shifts, he showers and then I go up for a shower. That's my five minutes of peace, but other than that there's nothing. He comes home to her screaming her head off because she's so overtired. My mum and mother in law are on their 70s and it's too much for them too. My mum doesn't even pick our daughter up when she cries. She just looks at her saying "ssssh" and "it's hard life for a baby".

It's rotten. I have no idea to make it less miserable and I see all these people with babies having a lovely time and I'm bitter. Currently in the car pulled up outside some shops to try and get her to sleep and have me five minutes to myself

I'm sorry you're feeling like this - early parenthood is absolutely brutal and I definitely didn't really understand quite how brutal until I was in it. It's such a shock. But it will get better, and probably faster than you can imagine right now. My DD is five months now and whilst it's still harder than I could have imagined, and I do still sometimes wish for my old life back, those moments are few and far between because it's SO much more rewarding now that she's so smiley and interactive.

The only thing I have by way of advice is to think hard about what you really value in parenting, prioritise that and ignore the rest. I don't think you should assume you have supply issues - if she's gaining well and feeding well with nipple shields then good for you, the 4 hour stretch could just have been a growth spurt. On the other hand, if switching to bottles so that your partner could do more of the feeding (which feels like 90% of the work at this stage) would improve your quality of life and enable you to enjoy your lovely baby more, then go for it and ignore the health professionals and others who assume you want to breastfeed at all costs (not saying this will suddenly make her more amenable to being put down or cry less, just to do whatever works best for you, because that will definitely be what's best for her).

This is such a brutal phase and it sounds like you've done amazingly to get this far. The first 12-14 weeks are relentless and babies often don't like to be put down - it gets referred to as the 4th trimester! The good news is you're nearly there - baby will settle in the next few weeks into a baby rather than a newborn.
I wonder if she may have a bit of reflux if she's moaning lots? This often also improves at about the 3-4 month mark.
Can your DH hold the baby whilst you sleep after your shower, even if just for an hour or so? Also, putting babies in a sling can often help as he can Potter around the house and being held close is soothing for them. There are tips around for safe sling use.
It will get better OP - just hang in there.

@Mycrazylife85 you poor thing. My baby also didn’t get tongue tie sorted until 7 weeks and I breastfed until 11 but she was spending increasing amounts of time on my breasts and didn’t seem satisfied. I too was feeding via shields and couldn’t get her breastfeeding without them. They definitely had an effect on my supply. I’ve switched to formula now and we are both a lot happier.

Also remember OP - it's perfectly ok to not love, or even like, the baby phase (and especially not the newborn phase). Presumably you wanted a child, not a baby specifically, and if it helps try to think of this as a mammoth challenge you have to get through to get to the point where you have a lovely, fully-fledged child.

Also, if you feel like you're struggling to bond with your daughter, definitely do reach out to your GP or health visitor regarding possible PND, as I believe that is a classic symptom. From personal experience they're pretty good at prioritising mothers for support and treatment.

Thank you all. We're in a situation also that she only goes to sleep with me so my husband has her at night for an hour and I can hear her from upstairs getting more and more angry, absolutely screaming the house down. By the time she comes upstairs to me she's not slept in several hours and she's so tired. Unfortunately I can only get her to sleep if I feed her to sleep or go out in the car/buggy/sling so that means me again. The wind is a huge problem. Two nights now it's woken her up. I wind her as much as I can but she hates that and screams when I stop feeding and kicks her arms and legs and then hardly brings any up. I've tried all the positions. Then she's wide awake again and wants feeding again.

We use Colief and I'm starting using gripe water again. we used infracol in the early days but I don't like using that and it didn't do anything. All in all I wake up miserable and tired.

She sleeps about 9/10 hours in 24.

We're all miserable in this house

My daughter was like that. Can you try topping her up with formula after breastfeeding? I do that and it really makes a difference. It's because they're hungry al the time and every babies different tongue tie or no tongue tie. Try it and see.

Can your husband take her at a not too late hour and take her out for a late evening walk while you go to bed early? That way she might get some sleep and you might too if you can't hear her screaming? I know walks at odd hours sounds bonkers and should only be a short term thing but might be worth giving it a go? (We are currently dealing with crazy early wakings and my DP has been taking her for nap walks at 7-7.30, while I get a lie-in - obviously it's getting light by then so slightly different. He actually quite enjoys it as between WFH and baby bedtime, it's his only opportunity to get out during the week)

She might have silent reflux. It might be worth calling your gp to try her with baby gaviscon. Also, you are doing an amazing job. I know it doesn't feel like it, but this part of parenting is brutal. She is safe, fed and clean. That is plenty for her right now x

I breastfed for a year, but we also gave a bottle a day before bed. It gave me some time away and I knew she had had a chance to fill up with as much as she wanted at least once a day. Good luck!

Have you had your breastfeeding position looked at again? It might be worth working on the latch. However my favourite phrase with babies is this too will pass. Soon she will be able to sit up herself and the wind won't be so bad and the sleep will get better, eventually. Just try and hang in there it's really tough.

Also OP, have you had her weighed recently? Perhaps worth chasing your HV for that so you can get a better sense of whether she is getting enough milk. Your description of her wanting to be fed constantly and not napping much sounds very much like my DD before we sorted feeding out. What finally worked for me was starting domperidone to sort out my supply, which had been trashed by the weeks of tongue tie - if her weight gain is low that could be worth looking into (but there are potential side effects - suggest checking out the fact sheet from the Breastfeeding Support Network). Or, as others have said, think about how important breastfeeding is to you and whether you might be happier switching to formula. (FWIW, I only realised after my DD started being better fed how heavy a heavy nappy should really be - so number of nappies alone is not a great indicator unless you've done this before/know what to expect, which is why an occasional weigh-in can be useful).

I full on hated being a mum for at least two months, found it mind numbing for another 4 and pretty boring for another 5 after that. And this was with a baby who slept great, fed great and a husband who took 4 months off of shared parental leave so I was very much not doing it alone. I repeatedly asked my husband if we could give her back. I googled whether other people also severely regretted having a child. DD is 2 now and I literally love her to bits. I genuinely could not have believed I would feel like this now.

It really will get better but try and get as much support as you can in the meantime, whether that’s NHS counseling, if you can afford some paid help, your partner takes unpaid leave etc. consider bottle feeding if that would take pressure off you, sleep training etc.

@Mycrazylife85 you are amazing dealing with your baby alone from 7 to 7 all day. That is so tough. My baby is 11 weeks and I feel so lucky my partner works at home. Don't know how I would have coped otherwise. FWIW my baby cried all evening for weeks. Don't think there was a cause in our case, just a newborn phase. She is still grumpy but fortunately crying less now.

You say your baby sleeps in the pram? Perhaps you could ask grandparent to take her out for a walk while you have a break?

I have an 11 week old DS. He wasn't by any means grumpy all the time and has grown out of it now. But he would never let me put him down and would only nap either on me or my DP or in his pram being pushed. As soon as I got home he would wake up. I bought a thing called rockit which attached to the pram and kept it rocking/moving and he would stay asleep.

I had/have a very similar experience. My baby had all sorts of issues at the beginning: tongue tie, reflux, colic, wind etc and just CONSTANTLY wanted to be on the boob.

Is there any chance she could have silent reflux?

Sounds like she also comfort sucking.

I used to get so angry and depressed that my baby wouldn’t go down for a nap. He’d fall asleep on my boob and when I went to place him down after five minutes he was up.

Now we just cosleep. It’s the only way I can survive and for his naps either he’ll nap in car or buggy but if we’re at home I feed to sleep lying down with him and either have a nap myself or I go on my phone.

My son too would go like all day without sleeping. It took a long time to realise that he’s one of those babies who needs to comfort suck on the boob whilst he’s sleeping (I didn’t realise they can still be sucking when they’re actually asleep but they can!), a dark room for naps at home helped too and some white noise to block out any sudden sounds.

I really recommend side-lying feeding so you can get a rest too.

My son was super sensitive and had silent reflux so was really really unsettled. I bought a weddehod for my bed and we slept on that together.

You’ll get through this. It’s so shockingly tough I still can’t Fucking believe it

*wedge hog

@Mycrazylife85 how are you getting on now? I am 39+6 with first baby and I’m terrified of not enjoying being a mummy and finding it hard, to the point that I don’t want to give birth!