Postnatal rage - please help

[Postpartumhelp]

If you had pp rage, what did you do to help it?

I am 5 months pp with dc no 3 and have never felt so much anger in my life. I know the lack of sleep doesn't help but I'm constantly feeling angry at my loved ones and I don't know how to stop feeling like this.

Baby was up multiple times at night and we co sleep and just as she finally got to sleep at 5am, DS 7 trundles into the room and tried to get in bed with us. I told him to leave, and he did, but he comes back in at 6am (just as I had drifted off) and woke us both. He then goes downstairs and I followed DS and was very angry shouting at him not to wake us up and we had only just go to sleep.

DH has taken the baby and I am sitting here stewing in bed and just so fucking angry.

Part of the reason why I'm so angry is because I have lost count how many times I have told DS not to wake us up like this. We have just come back from holiday where he was in a separate hotel room with DH and DD and it was bliss but our house is much smaller and we don't have locked doors. He's always been an early rises and woken everyone up.

It's not just DS, it's also DH, DD and DM DF too. Basically I feel angry towards anyone who is not the baby. Everyone is pissing me off and I'm so unhappy and don't know what to do.

My dad used to shout all the time, but doesn't shout now/since we were older kids, and I feel very confused by the personality change over the years and really resent him for it. I don't want my kids to feel the same way about me.

I am bf and baby had a severe reaction to formula so I can't stop bf until we see the allergy specialist.

Mine is 2 and I still have it!

Apparently your hormones can take 2 years to go back to normal.

For me it has mainly been continued lack of sleep. I was never like this before kids when I slept and was healthier and had more time to exercise.

I’m also struggling with feeling overstimulated and my 2 year old is in terrible 2s mode and is scratching, pinching, hitting and biting me.

@Iocanepowder im sorry you are going through it too. I also feel overstimulated and just feel like my nervous system has been ripped to shreds. I hate feeling like this. I feel like I'll never be normal again, especially as I am 40 and will probably have peri to contend with soon too.

Ah yeah. i’m 38 and all i feel all i read about is peri so it’s also on my mind as something to anticipate in the next few years!

I didn’t breastfeed (was a disaster) so i’m hoping someone else can come and give you some advise in that area.

I think once they get to 6 month, can work at giving up night feeds which may help?

And tbh with DC1, at 7 months i was so sleep deprived that i was having suicidal thoughts and my DH sleep trained him with ferber method. It did work tbh.

Do you get any breaks at all? X

Yeah can be normal, really hope you’re okay and don’t give yourself a hard time. It’s good you’re aware, you can mitigate your feelings in the moment and bring down a notch actively. Where’s husband sleeping? Can he sort older child? Or if it’s because 7y old misses mum, bring his mattress in short term so he can settle next to you quietly? Just options to get you through the exhaustion of now.

BF - do you still have milk/dairy in your diet anywhere? Does baby have skin itchiness/eczema/uticaria related to allergy? Symptoms worse at night and will wake baby more, it’s so uncomfortable. There are things you can do. I can relate BF/CMPA baby.

So I get that it’s a pattern of behaviour that make you upset about your rage but kinda sounds like it was a bit justified in this exact scenario.

What can you your 7yo do by himself downstairs? If he’s bored down there he’ll naturally want to come find you (or anyone).

Oh God OP - I would be exactly the same!! The early days of sleep deprivation, the demands of breastfeeding as well as having more than just the baby to deal with is hell. Don’t be hard on yourself at all….. I’d be a ball of anger too! Take a deep breath, tell yourself that you’re not being irrational or overreacting and that it’s just because you’re understandably knackered and overwhelmed, and then move on from it. Don’t be mad at yourself for feeling under pressure x

Thanks all. Yes, I'm going to have to sleep train so my mental health doesn't suffer any further. She's just so little and very slow gaining weight that I feel bad. She doesn't take the bottle with pumped milk either.

Unfortunately the GP thinks she might CMPA as she has eczema too @HVPRN so we have been using creams to calm it down which is another reason why I feel bad for wanting to sleep train her so I'm holding off until she is older.

@WannabeMathematician unless he's playing Minecraft he's not good at being on his own and even when playing Minecraft he wants someone to play with him. We actually don't let him play it unless it's the weekend as otherwise it's all he wants to do and gets upset when he can't play it anymore. We decided to make it weekend only as he was getting up at 2am to play it which was driving us all mad.

DH is doing a lot with the older kids at night/in the morning so baby and I can rest and I try and do stuff with older kids/1:1 time during the day/after school and we rotate between ourselves but I don't really get any breaks because baby is dependent on the boob.

I know it will get better but I just didn't expect to be so angry, sometimes irrationally so, and just want to go back to being me and not this angry shouty annoyed pissed off mum 😭