Baby blues - handhold please?

[RandomCatGenerator]

Help :(

I’m crying, again. I feel so hopeless. DH is asleep beside me. 8 day old DS is too. I’m so sad.

Please hold my hand and tell me it gets better. I didn’t have this with my first DC.

It's so hard and the hormones make it worse. It will get better, and if you want to cry, we'll just cry. Let us out, feel then feelings and process that intense wave of emotions. It'll pass eventually. I hope you are all well ❤️

Please speak to your GP or health visitor as soon as you can. It’s so so common but if you’re having dark thoughts then it really should be discussed with a professional. As others have said, it will pass, but this does sound like more than the baby blues.

Oh OP. I so empathise with how you are feeling.

DC2 is 4 months now but those first few weeks were the lowest and most anxiety driven of my life. I felt so overwhelmed, hit with the reality of now having a newborn again, convinced something would go wrong, stressed out of my head about breastfeeding, desperately missing my DC1. I really thought I had made a mistake.

It didn't suddenly get better for me I'm afraid. I restarting antidepressants at about day 8 as I recognised things were not good. And at some-point around 6 weeks I guess is stopped feeling so unbearably terrified and overwhelmed at all moments.

I was offered CBT but with a huge wait list, and who has time for that with a newborn? 😂

OP aid DOES get better, please talk to your nearest and dearest about how you feel and ask for all the support. Ask people if they could come and see you regularly on a (pick a day of the week) for the next few weeks while you adjust, so that you have some predictability and don't feel alone.

Try and get out for walks with the carrier or the pram, everything is better outside.

Try and find ways to get little chunks of sleep as sleep deprivation won't be helping.

You've got this.

Crying in bed again. Apparently this is just part of my nighttime routine now.

I don’t mean to drip feed, hopefully it won’t annoy people who have given advice as it isn’t that kind of thread - but I am already on pretty strong anti depressants. I can increase the dose, my psychiatrist would say yes, but when I’ve increased the dose before it’s led to two weeks of feeling utterly bereft and miserable. I don’t think I can deal with that and also function with two kids.

DH is definitely pulling his weight. He’s tired too.

I can’t even remember why I found one baby so hard. A baby and a toddler is just something else. I feel emotionally totally wrung out, and I want to just be able to hang out again with my sweet and lovely 2 year old who is now acting up and not being very sweet or lovely.

It’s so hard. More tears.

My family all live an hour or more away, ditto DH’s family.

My mum has offered to help but I have a historically very, very difficult relationship with her - we didn’t speak for several years, although she’s a better grandmother than mother, to DS1 and his cousin.

My close friends don’t live nearby. My best friend is in New Zealand. My other good friends live at least an hour away - and all have either just had babies, are having fertility struggles, or really don’t want anything to do with babies.

I don’t know who I can ask for help.

It is good to hear others’ experiences that this does just suddenly get better. I just didn’t experience this misery with DS1. He didn’t sleep much and didn’t really eat and we worried so much about that, but it didn’t feel all consumingly overwhelming and like my life was falling apart, like this.

It is normal, all your hormones are going up & down, your body has gone through a massive change. If things aren't any better within a couple of weeks, see your GP, don't be afraid to speak to your midwife or Health Visitor. Be kind to yourself, the lack of sleep from broken nights won't help, try to sleep when baby sleeps & eat well, are you breast or formula feeding? If BF, make sure you are eating & drinking enough. Try & find some time for yourself, even if it is just to have a shower or bath, get some fresh air as well. This will pass.

My pnd stated by day 2 & just felt like I had a huge back fog around me, I had no energy or motivation, I couldn't associate myself with this creature I had been sent home with. I felt like I would never bond with ds, if someone had said they would take him & not bring him back, I would have said yes. I couldn't think straight, I was constantly thinking that the world would be a better place if I wasn't there any more. My lovely midwife spotted that I was struggling & put me in her car & took me straight to the doctors where she insisted that a doctor saw me straight away, he put me back on antidepressants which I'm still on 19 years later. My mum came up every day for ages to look after me & spent time teaching me how to look after ds, she brought up meals for us, she held me when I sobbed, listened to how I was feeling, my doctor was amazing, he told me he was there whenever I needed him & told the receptionists that I was to be fitted in to see him whenever I needed it, he came out to see me at home once a week for the first 6 weeks. It took me 3 months before I started to feel better & a full year before I felt anything like normal. Don't suffer in silence.

OP I am a PP but name changed. please accept your mums offer of help. You don't need perfection from anyone right now, it's about survival/ you just need someone to take the toddler to the park/cook a meal/hold the baby so you can nap. And preferably reassure you that it will get better. Would you be in a position to buy in help? Mothers help, or put the toddler in nursery for a day or 2?

I promise you that I felt exactly how you felt 4 months ago. The mornings were so bad that I had to get dressed into the next days clothes before I went to bed so I had one less obstacle to compete with in the morning!

Be wary of people saying this is normal hormones, I hope that it is for you but it sounds like you are headed to PND. Especially given your previous MH history.

What would you do? ADVICE needed please on flying abroad early pregnancy.
I found out im 2 weeks pregnant. Control line was actually really strong.
anyway.. we have a holiday booked to visit a greek island, i will be 6 weeks pregnant by the time we fly. Im concerned about risks of food poisoning, everytime we go to this island i get diarrhoea and become dehydrated for a bit, but my husband thinks if i avoid the ice, salad and tapwater this time, i’ll be okay. What would you do?

Please start your own thread. I’m sure this was a
mistake and you didn’t mean to be insensitive.

Back to OP: @RandomCatGenerator given what you've said about your history it is absolutely urgent that you seek some real-life professional help today. Hopefully you were under the perinatal mental health team during your pregnancy and have not yet been discharged from their care. Did they give you an emergency phone number that you can contact today?

Please please reach out for support today. If you can't bring yourself to make the call then ask DH or your midwife. I really do not think that what you are experiencing falls within the 'normal' experience of baby blues and there is support and treatment available to help you.

Yes, agree with @ThanksItHasPockets . If you can't phone, just get to A&E. You deserve to feel better than this.

How's it going, OP? You know this time of night can be rough, but people are around - on Mumsnet, on the end of a phone, asleep on the sofa downstairs (at least that's where my DH is right now...)

How are you doing?

The weekend was bloody difficult. I feel a bit like I’ve turned a corner today, feeling happier - still had a cry today but it felt more manageable. DS1 was at nursery where he’s very happy and DH took the baby until midday and let me have a long sleep in.

Spoke to an infant feeding specialist and GP about my incredibly painful boobs too and that might hold the key to some of my sadness. I am deliberately trying to dry up for a few reasons - but it’s triggering lots of guilt and sadness that I couldn’t feed either of my babies naturally, as I tried so hard both times (last time to the great detriment of my mental health - I spent hours and hours pumping every day. This time I fed DS2 until my nipples bled so much he was vomiting blood). But both GP and IFS were really kind and supportive of my decision, gave advice on best way to dry up, and prescribed antibiotics for a burgeoning infection in one breast which is also likely to be making me feel run down.

I don’t need to go to A and E; I’m not in crisis, I’m not going to hurt my baby, I’m just very very sad. And then sometimes, like now, I feel quite stable and even happy. But the happiness is just a minority of the time compared to the sadness. I don’t think that’s for A&E.

All of your comments are so kind. Thank you for sharing your experiences; it really helps and gives me hope that it gets better. It’s hard to see that and keep perspective when I’m so low.

And I’m taking the advice of PP to just take whatever help is offered.

This sounds really positive. Well done. Take every win you get! Stopping breastfeeding sounds like the key to feeling much better.

Baby blues are the worst!Was weepy with the first, and second child, but was so much more in control with third baby, but suddenly the hormones hit me so hard it was aweful. Never felt anything like it for those few days, and can't even imagine now what it was like. But if you want to breastfeed or not, it's hard and you do whatever, and you have people supporting you.

Oh god, I am 4.5 months postpartum but those early days are vivid Lou imprinted into my brain. The physical pain, hormones all over the place, mastitis (I had this too early on), exhaustion looking after now two kids, etc etc it's so overwhelming. My husband and I had no help (no grandparents-won't even go there on this thread!) so really felt hard at the beginning.

What helped me:

Spending £10 on this: www.beyondbirth.co/
OMG lifesaver. Really call, soothing support I'd listen to whenever the babies crying/exhaustion got too much

Trying to find humour in little things- ok this is hard, but as pp has mentioned laughing at the ridiculousness of it all helps sometimes

Going outside every day!! Even if it's raining or you can only hobble. Just get some vitamin d. I'd sit on a bench and watch our eldest scoot around whilst holding the baby. Felt slightly better for it every day.

Focus on each day at a time. Don't look too far into the future or at "the bigger picture" right now as it's not helpful when you're in the fourth trimester. Be present every day.

Find teeny tiny joys every days. Ie for me it was one cup of tea with two sugars (I never normally have this) and I bloody loved it. Treat yourself to little things.

Book your second child into childcare if /where possible. We did this with ours- boooed more after school clubs- he loved it and meant we actually got a slight, slight rest as a couple! (My husband would come home from work and we'd have like 30 minutes just us and the baby a few days a week).

I don't know your personal circumstances but hopefully you can do some of the above. Either way I hope you feel better soon. You're really in the thick of it now and v normal to feel anxious, teary and overwhelmed. It will get better ❤️‍🩹

*vividly

God damn spell check

Omg I did the sugary tea treat trick too!

Only issue now is weaning off it 😂