How did you feel when you bought your baby home?

[Baggyjumper0121]

When you came home with your newborn, did you feel excited? Nervous? Lost?

My colleague recently had a baby and she talked about having an anti-climax feeling after the first day and she said it was like an empty feeling even though she had her baby with her but as soon as family/friends would leave after visiting she would feel very down. I hadn't thought about this

I am due in 5 weeks and I know nothing can prepare me for the emotional side of things but interested in reading your experience of the first few days with a newborn - emotions wise

Homesick is a very good way to describe it. We are 4 weeks in a desperately homesick still. He's beautiful and very sweet but we dream still of our old life and feel very distressed a out having 'lost' that. I'm sure we will acclimatise with time but it is a lot harder and more visceral than wenhad imagined - and we are very practical people! I just don't think you can comprehend the impact on your life until you go through it.

looking back it was a bit of a blur. We had a revolving door of guests coming to see the baby and I was exhausted! I was very lucky to have so many people who wanted to come and meet the baby and it was wonderful to see all the love they had for him.

I remember crying for no reason, self doubt, a dose of denial (it’s hard to explain but I don’t think the reality of having a baby had really kicked in on the first day), as well as overwhelming joy and relief. All the emotions! My husband was the same. We also had to process a difficult birth (which added to the whirlwind feeling).

I remember being completely overwhelmed at the amount of constant visitors we had. I felt like I couldn’t get into our new routine or enjoy our baby because for the first few weeks it was constant visitors. I was trying to breast feed too so just wanted privacy and some time alone as a new family. When I had my second I asked for no visitors apart from our immediate family for the first week or so and I felt much better.

It was lovely.
The house felt cosy and we bonded over the first few days.
I felt overwhelmed going out with a baby capsule and tired, family helped by taking me out.
It is so nice to be home in your own bed surrounded by the babies belongings and finally using it all.
The only thing is rest, eat well and habe no expectations on yourself except sleep and bond.

I felt completely content, I don't think I've ever felt so calm since!

I was very excited to come home with her but on day 4 the hormones and milk kicks in and you can feel very emotional and depressed for a couple of days. I remember just crying and feeling overwhelmed, like I couldn't cope. It gets easier but can be a shock to the system at first.

I felt quite numb and a bit underwhelmed.... had been in hospital for six days (EMCS) and DS had some health concerns which was obviously worrying but to be honest I wanted to do something non-baby related ... DH had invited his boss and wife to dinner (yes, really!) and although he was obviously going to prepare the (simple) meal, I actually wanted to stand up and do something! Baby was incredibly good sleeper so could happily put him down. In fact he was in a separate room yes, I know against all guidelines this was over 20 years ago whilst we were eating and suddenly heard some gentle whimpering and wondered what it was .

It was donkey's years ago but I can still remember that feeling 😂

We plonked the baby carrier in the middle of the lounge and both sat there staring first at the baby and then at each other, feeling simultaneously scared, excited and lost!

This is a very good question.
Years ago at an NCT class before the birth of my first the leader asked us to think about the time after the birth and I reckon most of us hadn't really thought about it much at all so that was useful.
One of my babies was premature and I had done a tour of the special care unit beforehand which helped prepare me too.

Sounds like the baby blues, your on such a high after giving birth that eventually you come back down again and feel like that, it passes and doesn’t happen to everyone. I had it with my first, had my second 4 weeks ago and have had a completely different experience. No baby blues, no anxiety nothing. Every birth experience is different so I wouldn’t cling onto what others say, I’ve had a totally different experience with both children to anything people advised or said was their experience.

Very very overwhelmed with my first. A large feeling of ‘what the fuck now’.
with my second I felt very very content and like I wanted to cocoon us all away for a while.
due my third soon and I will be cocooning us away for a couple of days afterwards, I don’t want visitors too soon.

We were both terrified we were going to break him! We both woke up multiple times in the night and rushed to check he hadn’t died in his sleep (he was prem, he’d had low blood sugars post-birth, and we’d had a stressful few days in hospital).

It was a bit of a blur, but once the anxiety faded it was amazing - I spent hours just gazing at this beautiful, wonderful baby I had somehow produced. I kept pinching myself. That stage lasted for weeks! Normal life kicked back in by about week 10, and I started to get into a routine and realised he was staying, and began to get out of the house and do more stuff.

I was buzzing and nervous. He was very chilled in my arm, we just stared at each other the first few night it was sweet. I have no idea how but I didnt suffer too much with being awake every two hours, but i was tired but it was a nice sleepy tired...cant explain it. We were nervous though, it was summer so the pair of us nearly had a panic attack when weather was saying it was going to be 40 degrees in a couple of weeks! As for the blues yes I was crying but it was because I had this feeling of dread...because i was so happy, the anxiety was strong, so i had that and the buzzing feeling.

3 months later now that is when the extreme exhaustion hit, i was so knackered and I felt a bit....hollow? Hard to explain. Felt Low aswell at times, and found it harder with waking up during night. After a year though a felt a bit more with it.

I just thought what had I done. Dd wouldn't stop crying and I wished I could put her back! Before I gave birth (elective c section due to transverse lie) it had been decided my sil would come and stay for the first week. I was living abroad at the time in dh's country. Anyway came through the door and she wasn't there - she had changed her mind. Dh had to go back to work and just deposited me and dd1 in the flat. There was no food in the flat and we had no telephone or car.

I did drop dd2 when she was about 9 weeks out when going downstairs at my dm's house. I was wearing slip on slippers of hers and we lived in a flat so I wasn't used to stairs with baby. I caught her leg before she hit the ground- never had such quick reflexes! She's 30 now with a baby of her own but a friend told me her sister had dropped her baby down the stairs and she was brain damaged so she /I was very lucky.

With my first I remember after an hour at home thinking "what have I done?" It was a horrible trapped feeling and nothing could have prepared me for it. I honestly felt like my life was over, she was very much wanted though!

I went through a really dark time with my first - I do think there is something true about the saying that your old self is replaced by "the mother" and it's a transitional period, it's not instant. I think maybe that's why I felt so bad for so long.

With my second, it has been like a dream come true. She's only four months old and I am absolutely besotted with her and just happy all of the time. I can't stop staring at her and marvelling over every tiny thing she does, I am very annoying to ge around right now.

Good luck with the rest of your pregnancy and the birth of your baby, it is different for everyone but made easier with supportive partner and family.

Aww many congratulations OP it’s a wonderful time. I can remember it well, baby was asleep when we arrived home, DH looked worried and said, what do we do when he wakes up 😂 I said don’t worried it will be fine, and it was DS1 was such a calm baby.

So for me- mum stayed for the first week. I actually felt relieved after the birth- horrendous pregnancy with pain and sickness and dizziness (baby was sitting on aorta and had issues since before 28weeks even when lying down). I had 4 days of indu tioon followed by a csection with little to no sleep in hospital. My mum for the first week sat in the nursery rocking the baby so I could get more sleep- normally between 2am and 6am. She left- I felt upset (we went back into yet another lockdown). But actually I was also relieved- hubby and I were both well, and so was baby and we were in the new born bubble for a good few months- although got bored of not leaving the house much....
About 2 months later I was struggling and mum came up- she had told me how she felt suicidal when we were that small, and how depressed she was- it made me feel that my feelings were valid and helped me work through them (health visitor and gp wouldn't see me about post natal depression due to lockdowns).... (i also was the only carer for my disabled husband and during lockdowns being locked in together for so long when his health was poor drove me to distraction)

I genuinely thought wtf have I done

In pain, confused and a bit well fuck me what do we do now

It passed, but it wasn't as fun and exciting as I thought

@TakeMe2Insanity I can empathise with this. We’d been trying to conceive for 5 years and then started IVF when I was 39 and had three rounds privately. Conceived on the third attempt when I was 40 and gave birth to our beautiful daughter at almost 41. The feeling of euphoria was like nothing else I’d ever experienced but also one of complete terror that we were in charge of keeping this little human alive!!! Crazy!! Just take it one day at a time. It’s a complete roller coaster of emotion.

What your colleague described sounds like the day 3 blues. Your milk comes in, your hormones go haywire and it can make you feel quite down and weepy or lost and lonely. Warn DH to be extra nice and supportive to you on this day, it should pass in a few days. If it's not easing up speak to your midwife or health visitor.

Please don't think I'm joking btw - actually warn him. I forgot to warn DH that it would happen (my second baby his first) and he got really worried that something was seriously wrong and I was such a combination of tired/exhausted/weepy/overwhelmed I couldn't explain it either.

There is a lovely lovely book called What Mothers Do - I really recommend this for the first few weeks and beyond.

I had my 3rd and last baby 3 months ago so I've had the experience so I'll go back to having my first, horrific labour that nearly ended in a C-section I was just turned 24 which feels young now I'm 33 lol I was mostly tired, not really overwhelmed as people left me alone the first week or two but I was so in love with this gorgeous girl I was on cloud 9. Didn't feel an anti climax with her or the other two, just relieved I didn't have to give birth again lol

Absolutely terrified and distraught, I was convinced we had made an enormous mistake. I wanted to take him back. I was extremely poorly, we had a traumatic time and I had pnd - but it's been 11 years and we are wonderful now. I'm writing this so that others now that it's ok to feel that way, the best thing you can do is speak up and get the help you need & deserve.

I thought that was just me. I remember sitting on a chair, holding my screaming baby, in the foreign maternity clinic in which I'd just birth (elective c section) and thinking what had I done! That baby is now preparing to welcome her own first baby and I hope she's better prepared than me!