I don’t want my baby

[JennaC17]

This is going to sound awful but I need to share it and hopefully find people who have felt the same or someone will have good advice.

My LO is 5 weeks old and I really can’t cope with the sleep deprivation anymore. On a rare good night he will sleep for 2 x 3 hour stretches, but often he will cry all night with half an hour pauses at best. I’m the type of person who needed a solid 8 hours to function pre baby. Now I’m getting maybe 2 or 3 if I’m lucky. I’m not enjoying the baby, I’m not enjoying my life anymore. Every night I lie there trying to think of ways I could get rid of him. Adoption maybe, but that would never go well with my family. Maybe if I break up with my partner he will take the baby and I’ll be free of him..(which is terrible as I love him dearly). I know these thoughts are awful but I’m having them and I don’t know what to do. I really don’t want him anymore and it isn’t fair on him as my resentment is showing.

My partner is working full time in a very stressful job, but once I shared my thoughts he sent me to the guest room and said he would do the “night shifts”. Annoyingly the baby sleeps great for him, waking once or twice for feeds then going straight back to sleep. I felt better after a few decent sleeps and so said I would start sleeping back in the main room. Instantly everything went back to how it was. Him screaming all night, me crying all night and everyone feeling awful. My partner looking after the baby at night isn’t feasible long term with his job, but I can’t see how I can go on like this. I’m not sure what the solution is.

@burritofan It was a combination of things I think. I think the more chilled out I got, the more chilled he became. We started giving him a bottle before bed (breast feeding otherwise) and that definitely made him sleep longer and helped my sanity. I would do a final boobie feed around 6/7 then go straight to bed - my partner would put LO to bed around 9 with a bottle of formula. Then he wouldn’t wake for another feed until 1ish - so I’d get a solid 6 hours, and even if he was then up more after 1 I was semi refreshed and feeling better.

By around 3 months he was sleeping from 9pm through to 4/5am with the pre bed formula. So I could go to bed at a more reasonable time and enjoy my evenings. My life started feeling more like mine around this point. We introduced a routine of bath, story, then bottle and sleep - and with that we’ve managed to bring his bed time forward to 7/8pm, I feed him at midnight before I go to bed (so me and DH get a good 4 hours alone time each day now) and then he sleeps to 7/8am.

Establishing routine naps saved my days too - I noticed he was getting tired around mid day and then around 4pm - so I would get him in a quiet space, feed him, then let him nap at the same time every day - making sure nothing woke him until he woke naturally . Now he consistently has two naps a day at around the same time, giving me time to clean / do my own thing. I always have a walk to the shops after his first nap as he’s in the best mood then and he lets me get on with whatever I need to do.

He’s my first so I think not having this faith that things would inevitably get better was what made things so difficult for me back then. I regret not appreciating those tiny months more but I’m glad things are now working out well - this thread definite helped me out so much!