Is there a forum or thread for mums/mums to be who are quitting smoking?

[LivinInTheMoment]

Struggling along daily with trying to quit the smokes. After my mc in May I started smoking as was so stressed out and upset.

Since finding out i'm pg again, (approx 8wks now) I have cut down to about 2-3 cigs a day now but it is so so difficult. I'm so emotional and highly tempermental some days and i will cry if i don't have a cig. Ridiculous I know, but thats just how i feel. Then after i have a cig i feel so guilty.

Just thought it would help if i could find some other ladies who are in my boat trying to quit or have quit.

Thanks in advance

Hi Livin - you CAN do it. Ask your GP for help. And your MW will offer you support at your booking appointment if you've not already had it. Take the support! I'm probably not being hugely helpful but know how hard it can be to quit and didn't want you to go unanswered.

Good luck! x :)

Not been in your situation, but wanted to say well down on cutting down and hope you get the help and support you need to quit.

:)

I haven't had one since the day I found out I was pregnant. I can't offer any advice though as I haven't even missed or craved it! I'm sure it will get easier for you... Definitely mention it to your midwife to see if there is anything they can do to help.

Ria x

Livin, I have struggled too but since I got pregnant I have been smoking strictly 2 a day. One in the morning and one at night time. I did the same with dc1. I don't miss or crave having any more but I have found it very hard to quit totally and it took a lot of discipline to get me to 2 a day.
I feel I am doing well as have the Drs who have seen me regarding my pregnancy.
I have been a bit naughty with the midwives telling them I am not smoking though as they tend to make a much bigger deal of it than the Dr's/consultants.
Just do the best you can, if you can get down to 2 a day, then 1 a day, you are doing better than me. :)

hi there, i havnt had 1 since about 3days after i found out i was pregnant (now 21weeks) i think its a mind over matter thing i knew i had to do the best for my baby and it wasn't right for me to continue smoking because i had a choice and my baby didn't, i was quite a heavy smoker and for the 1st month i was REALLY missing it, especially because i live in christchurch new zealand and we have had some very large earthquakes recently so every significant aftershock that had me grabbing my daughter and running for our lifes practically i was very upset i couldn't have a cig afterwards lol but all i wanna say is well done for cutting down, you can give up completely but you need to really want to do it! i wish you all the very best :)

Thanks for the support ladies!
Today was a better day, i managed to go until this evening before i had one cig. Might not bother having the second smoke today.

I think i could probably have gone the whole day without one, but i just felt kind of on edge and something was missing, til i had the smoke.

I've battled with a few addictions in my life and overcome them all, bar the cigarettes. But being pregnant is certainly the best motivator.

I'm going to book in for my first scan next week and hope that will make me really turn off the smokes as i think it will all be more real for me.

Ivor well done on keeping it at 2 a day, it really is difficult isn't it. where u a heavy smoker? I would smoke 30 a day, at least 20, but mostly 30.

Thats great livin, keep it up! It is difficult. When I had my first DD I cut down and then I kept it up really inbetween, although when I got really stressed out I had an extra one but generally I have kept them to 2/3 a day since dd1 was born.
Yes, I used to smoke about 20 a day before I met DH (who doesnt smoke)
Apart from quite a long time ago when I was at uni etc I have always smoked outdoors though as my parents/most of my family don't smoke either.

Your doing great Ivor :) I admire that you can keep it to 2 a day. I am such an addict its so hard to cut down. I've always been an all or nothing girl!
I am going cold turkey from tomorrow on, its weird but i'm actually startin to feel a bit sick if i smoke now. Only had 1 yesterday and 1 so far today. Have one left in the box and that I will puff away in the garden tonight. Tomorrow start fresh and smoke free. Fingers crossed I can do it.

livin, you are doing really well and I think you should reward yourself for being so good.
I gave up 7 years ago, but wasn't pregnant then. Have you read Allen Carr's book? It didn't help me TBH, but it did make sense. Anytime you have a cigarette, you wake the monster in your head and it will start jumping and nudging you to smoke again and again.
After many failed attempts I stopped and went from 40 fags to none in a day. It was hard and I personally found day 3 the hardest, but the day after the urge to smoke was gone. And it has never come back.
I forget most of the time that I used to smoke heavily for 7 years.

I think going cold turkey is probably the better option, but cutting down will do its part.

Have you got help from your GP? I saw mine weekly and it helped a lot.

I think that stopping smoking is a mindset. I was never "ready", so kept falling back into the bad tracks and I always convinced myself that I "needed" a fag desperately. This then spiraled and I would fail to quit again.

The final attempt that I made, I was in a completely different mindset. I knew I could do it, as I was letting an addiction drive me, but I was the stronger one. I was the one that picked the cigarettes up and fed it.

I really hope that you can go cold turkey and will find it easy to stop, but get as much support as you possibly can. And don't feel like a failure if you can't quite fully. But keep trying again and again until one day you will be the stronger one and you will win.

Good luck and let us know how you get on! :)

You're doing so well :)

It's a massive struggle isn't it? I've only just managed to stop all together and I'm 15+3.

Your midwife should be able to give you all the help you need. Mine was very supportive. It also helped seeing my baby for the first time on the screen when I had my scan. I was overwhelmed with guilt all of a sudden, where as before i hadn't given it a second though.

Good luck x

poppys thanks for the advise. i have read allen carrs book several times!!! yes it certainly makes sence and i think i will have another read of it today to remind myself of the brainwashing this nicotine does.
well done to you for going from 40 to zero, that is extraordinary!
you are right it is all about mindset, i'm not ready to quit, but i have to quit. i just am telling myself that i can always smoke later, just not now and keep putting it off. so hard but so far so good.

nooby well done on quitting! it is super difficult. how did u manage to quit?

yes i think seeing my first scan next week will give me extra incentive to stay quit. i am booked in for wednesday afternoon. really i can't wait for it.

Hi, I would second Poppysmum's post. The Allen Carr book is absolutely excellent. I took two days off work; the first to read the book and the second to in case I felt ropey but I was fine. Good luck.

Hi all - God, I can't tell you how good it is to find this thread! I've been too scared myself to post about this but I'm also struggling enormously to quit. I'm 16+5 and have been on 1 or 2 a day since I found out I was very unexpectedly pregnant at 5w. And occasionally there were days when it crept up to 3, 4, 5 a day... As ivor points out with the midwives, if you are only having 1 or 2 a day it is surprisingly easy to keep it hidden from a lot of people - my DP works shifts so I have been able to keep it secret from him that I am having 2 in the evening, not 1...

I finally worked out about a fortnight ago why I was finding it so hard to quit. I have had pretty bad sickness, still chucking up once or twice a day ten weeks after I started being ill, and so I have been quite down, quite lonely (it's hard having a social life when you need to be close to a toilet every evening) and it struck me that my 1 or 2 cigarettes in the evening were the one nice thing, the one treat I had that was getting me through the day.

poppys and ivor - yep, am clinging to the 'I'm just not smoking for a while' idea, as the mindset of actually quitting for good is quite terrifying. Hopefully once I have quite for a while I won't want to start again, but at that this point anything that gets me to stop is alright in my view!

Today, coincidentally, is the day that I have no cigarettes in the house and was hoping to quit for good. Hopefully this thread will help! I have nicotine spray at the ready, and the knowledge that in a week's time I am going to stay with friends for a few days who won't be remotely sympathetic if I am still smoking, I hopet these two are enough!

Good luck to everyone else trying to quit, and huge congrats to everyone who has managed it already!

Livin It was the sickness that did it for me. I've had it since six weeks, and as it gradually got worse and worse, the desire to have a cigarette became less and less.

How's the cold turkey going?

Bella try not to look at it with the view that it is forever. Try to take it an hour at a time, then a day at a time, etc.
Do not look at it as a forever.

But try to get the 1 or 2 cigarettes in the evening were the one nice thing, the one treat I had that was getting me through the day out of your mind. You obviously know that cigarettes aren't nice and aren't a treat really. Try to prime your mind that they are bad for you and bump, but don't feel like a failure if you cannot go for longer than x time without one. Do keep trying to stop though.

Good luck to all of you. I can really recommend the GP stopping smoking things.

Thanks poppy, you're right, that is a terrible way of looking at it and I'm trying desperately to shake it off! I did manage yesterday, which will be my first day without cigarettes in... oh... too many years to think about! So that's one good thing, at least.

I got told to pamper myself the first few nights I cut out the final cigarette i.e. friends who have managed to quit said they had lots of chocolate etc to distract them. Does anyone have any suggestions for 'treats' when food is still generally off the agenda due to sickness?

Livin - how are you doing?

Hi Bella totally know what you mean about a cig bein the one nice thing, its the only nice thing i had left that i could enjoy. I happily have given up drinkin alcohol with not even a second though. And I have long ago before getting pg given up recreational drugs. So the cig was the one thing, my one vice.

I have to say i have not been able to quit completely, I got off to a good start, but certain situations i have given in and had one. One really bad day i even had 6. But I had my first scan yesterday and now i'm really battling with myself to stay off them. I will be talkin to my doctor again next week and hopefully he can give me some help.

Seriously though i think if i could lock myself in my bedroom for a few days and have food and water delivered to me through the window with no supply of cigs, then i think i could quit!! Lmao, if only i could do that. Haha!

Livin - it's nice to hear someone else say that! Sometimes I thought I was being the world's most selfish, awful person, rather than more realistically seeing it as just struggling with giving up an addiction. Like you I'm still having the odd one. Of course it's bad for the baby but on the flip side there are dozens, hundreds maybe by now that you haven't smoked since finding out you were pregnant - I find if I get too focused on still having the odd cigarette and feeling awful about it, that makes me so stressed that I then want more, very vicious circle, grrr...

Good luck! Focus on all the many, many good things you are doing for your baby, talk to the doctor, and you will get there. Have you tried any NRT products at all? They are at least a lot less bad for your baby than an actual cigarette is. No one said this was going to be easy (otherwise none of us would be smokers in the first place) but you will be able to do it

Tons of luck to you!!! I had IVF and so spent 6months working on giving up before I got pregnant... It's so bloody hard. Here's what I'm telling myself...as soon as baby is born i will express some milk and have a fag! I probably won't but it helps to not think it's forever .... Keep it up though! Those last two are the hardest to kick you're amazing for getting this far....

• bump * - how is everyone doing?

Well, not so good TBH.

The sickness seems to have subsided which is fab. But I went out and bought a packet of tobacco at the weekend :(

I don't know where the hell it's come from, but I feel utterly shameful. It started off as one, then three and today I've had around 6 or 7.

I have my 20 week scan in two weeks, and I'm so worried that I've done some damaged. So the stress of worrying is making me want to smoke more.

I wish I never started all those years ago.

would just like to add that you have cut down to 2 so dont beat yourself up I believe the stress is worse for you.

My only advice would be stop worrying about it you have done your best and thats great.

I know people (believe it or not ) who never knew they were pregnant and smoked and drank all way thou and fine! Babies are stronger than we think.

Obviously you know its better not too and I know I had a struggle as I stopped taking my anti depressents and had the depression come back and also had heavy bleeding every 3 weeks or so and was in a state I found the 1 or even half a cig a day helped me and actually midwifes and doctors didnt seem too concerned about it.

Its got to be better than being stressed out all the time.x

Nooby - I'm so sorry to hear that. If it's any consolation I went away last week without my cigarettes, managed about 5 days of no smoking - and then as soon as I came back home I remembered I had some left in a pack, smoked 4 on Sunday, 2 Monday and 2 yesterday...

As pregnantmimi says, don't stress about it. It is unbelievably hard to give up smoking and you have done really well to cut down previously. Focus on how well you did then. If you can go another half hour, or an hour, or maybe even longer before you have the cigarette you want than that in itself is a victory, and maybe you'll even manage to start missing them out again.

But above all, don't beat yourself up about it and don't get stressed about it. It's probably an enormously unpopular viewpoint on a forum like this (please don't shoot me!) but I can't help reassuring myself, when I do something bad like have a cigarette or some raw-ish steak, that what babies survived and thrived through in previous generations is a lot worse than the odd cigarette or raw-ish steak. They are hardy little buggers! Yes, hearing about all the woman who smoked like a chimney throughout their pregnancy in no way means it is a good thing to do, but at the end of the day their babies were ok. If we can all cut down or quit that would be best for both us and our babies, but if it is a struggle then we just need to take it one day at a time.

Hi ladies, just checkin back in here to update. Since my last post I've quit and caved in a few times. Have kept it to 1 cig a day, but its so hard.

The last time i quit earlier this week i had a screamin row with DP an then i started crying. So he gave me one of his to calm me down. To be honest I think i started that row on purpose as an excuse to have a cig. God how addicted am i.

So yesterday i quit again, have not had any at all so far. So fingers crossed ill keep this quit.
But if i fail and have one, so what, ill try again.

Best of luck to all you quitters and cut downers out there xx