Failing on all fronts

[Sloupann]

I feel like I’m failing on every front in my life since becoming a mother 8 months ago. Particularly after a sleep regression which has lasted nearly 3 months where I’m, at best, up every two hours.

Bad wife who just wants to go to sleep when her head hits the pillow, bad friend who doesn’t see or talk to her people enough, bad daughter who doesn’t call enough.

It all came to a head today when I messed up and have left it too late to sort out the process to getting our dog allowed into the EU for our holiday next month (add bad dog mum to the list). My husband is so disappointed and I feel so awful I’ve ruined our holiday before we’ve even gone. (To be clear we’d agreed I would sort this aspect of the holiday)

Will I ever stop feeling guilty? Will my brain ever work again? Will I ever feel like I’m doing enough? I feel like motherhood has sapped me of my ability to function properly as an adult human.

You are being incredibly hard on yourself OP.
You are not a bad anything.

Wee babies can be hard and exhausting work. It's the lack of sleep that makes things difficult to cope with.

Please stop being so hard on yourself.

Sleep deprivation is used as torture!!

You’ve got a very very hard job atm, I found the first 13 months brutal and utterly. relentless.

💐💐💐

From a man:

We're not very good at understanding the impact of childbirth on a woman - to our shame.

I would suggest you've got nothing to feel bad about. I reckon, at this time, planning a holiday which involves taking a dog abroad is too much to ask for a new mother. It's not your fault.

I mean it: it's not your fault.

Will you ever feel like you’re doing enough? Probably not but society likes to keep it that way. Likes to keep you feel you’re failing and you need to be doing everything. It’s bullshit. It’s not about doing enough because it’ll never be enough, it’s about doing the best you can with the time you have available. Recognising on different days, what you can deliver looks different. Some days you can be a 90% brilliant mum and wife. Some days you can be a 40% Okay-ish wife and mum. If you’re getting more low days than high days you need to work out what is pulling you down and what you can do to rebalance. Not so everything - probably the opposite, what you can drop so you can be more present. Guilt? See above.

Will your brain work again? Probably. It is still there, it’s a bit dusty but it’s also sleep deprived and holding way more information than it did before. It’s not going to work properly whilst sleep is poor. When you go back to work it wakes up a bit.

With time, I started feeling more like myself. It’s not waking up one day and realising you’re the old you. You just get a bit further down the line, look back and think that bit was a bit shit and you’re more like the old you but with some extra mum stuff thrown in now.

You might have agreed to do the pet passport but if your husband knows you’re only getting 2 hours sleep at a time, he needs to be doing some of the mental admin to remind you to do it. Had it been the other way around, you’d have been asking if he’d done it and carrying that mental load too. Rather than being disappointed, he should be recognising you’re knackered, giving you some time and working with you to work out a plan of what you do with your dog or getting the pet passport sorted.

Why do you say it’s too late re your dog and EU? Asking as I know somebody who does pet passports. In case she help?