5 weeks PP and struggling

[cjr18]

Hi All, I gave birth to my second baby just over 5 weeks ago. I spent the last 20 weeks of my pregnancy not sleeping at all due to severe pelvic girdle pain. I'm really struggling with the tiredness now, my son has feeds every 2-3 hours through the day and night. I keep hitting this point in exhaustion where I just uncontrollably cry, have really dark thoughts and feel disconnected from everyone and my baby. Its worse when I am on my own. When my husband is back from work i do cheer up a bit as he can help with the baby.

I'm also finding I cannot go back to sleep after a night feed. I'm awake from 1am every morning. But I have to get up and carry on to get my 4 year old to pre school.

Sometimes when I hit the exhaustion level that i can't control what I do and its like I'm watching it from the outside.

Has anyone ever experienced this before? I never had any of this with my first child. I was diagnosed with pre natal depression in my pregnancy

Sounds very much like you're overwhelmed and need some professional support @cjr18

Can you feed LO and get DH to take them both out for an hour or two so that you can sleep?

Have you told your DH how you feel?

I would give your GP a ring

Sleep deprivation is horrendous.

Can you sleep when the baby sleeps in the day?

Are you BF? Can DH take him off you after to settle him?
Does DH help on a morning with your oldest?

My DH is really good. He takes over from the baby when he is home from work and I go to bed around 7/8pm to try and catch up on sleep. He starts work early but tries to help where he can.

Unfortunately the baby isn't much of a day sleeper. He can be awake for about 5 hours at a time some days so no chance of any sleep in the day.

I have the HV and my 6 week check this week so will mention it to both of them. It doesn't help that I can't shut my mind off during the night either. Just feel like a complete wreck at the moment :(

Obviously nobody can diagnose on a forum like this but not being able to switch your thoughts off and go to sleep is one symptom of PND?

Could you give PANDAS Foundation a call and talk to them about how you feel?

Definitely speak up at your check this week. Feeling tired is normal with a newborn but being unable to get to sleep when they are asleep is not. Can you pin point what is stopping you sleeping, are you ruminating on something?

Literally everything is racing through my mind during the night. There isn't just 1 specific thing I can pin point it down to. I try Counting back from 10 concentrating on my breathing, but I get to 7 and my mind is somewhere else. I'm just completely exhausted and never felt anything like this before. I dread every single night at the moment. Just don't have the energy or enjoyment with anything. Just feel like every day is an effort right now

Definitely sounds like you need a bit of support OP

@cjr18 how are you doing now ? X