26 weeks - tips on how to handle antenatal anxiety

[magicclaw]

Hi everyone,

I’m 26 weeks pregnant with my third child and going through an extremely anxious phase and am looking for tips to manage it please 🙏🏼

I’m not necessarily anxious about my pregnancy or the baby, although I do have concerns about how I’m going to manage three children. Instead I’m worrying constantly about my second child’s development (he’s nearly 2) as his speech isn’t great, his eating has also become really fussy recently and he is generally just hard work. Maybe it’s guilt from having a third child but I am obsessing about it and it’s taking over all my thoughts. Any ideas how I can chill out? My mind is always racing and I never feel relaxed :(

This sound so hard @magicclaw
Ive just had my second baby and I must say the anxiety and guilt I felt were awful. I was really worrying about how life changed. My toddler is the same age and she has also been very fussy with her food, almost to the point where I don’t know what to make her now. I spoke with my hv and they said it was actually a fairly common stage for little ones to become fussy as they are learning to test reactions and are building up their flavour/ texture profiles.
If you have a hv then I’d reach out and speak to them about their concerns.

I think you’re right that you’ve realised you’re worrying about how you will cope but the remind yourself that you probably thought this way before having your other children and you’ve survived it!
Yes it will be hard as first but you will take some time to get into a new routine and things will begin to go more smoothly. Do you have a good support network of family/friends you can talk to?

Thank you so much for your reply. Yes I do have a good support network but I feel a bit of a broken record at the minute and don’t want to burden them!

I’m definitely going to speak to my HV about it and see what they say. I’m also speaking to my GP about a referral for his hearing. I just want to make everything ok but realise this isn’t always possible!

In my area you can self refer for mental health support and you are fast tracked in pregnancy. I had talking therapy over the phone. I hope there is something like this for you.