@yuliia It is normal to question everything during the newborn stage for sure. It can be really, really hard. Life can just straight up suck during that time and it’s easy to be existential about it
What’s not normal, in my estimation, is how much crying she’s doing. I would try to talk to her about postpartum depression and take steps towards mitigating it.
What helped me get through it a second time was marking each day off a physical calendar until we hit the three month mark. Your baby will be so smiley and happy and a little chubby by then. I’m actually continuing until we hit 6 months because those are the two biggest shifting points in the first year I think. Life just gets significantly better!!!
@drazhenkoy Hi there. Thanks for checking in. Really sweet. Mom is much much more healthy mentally. Thank you lord above. She is much more attached, maybe more than me now. This is pretty wild to look back and read, wow what a sad dark time. We have come a long way and it is still very rough, but not like it was when I wrote this original post. We love our girl dearly but she is very tough on us with nearly constant crying with painful screams in between. Poor girl has colick bad and we have tried everything, 2 GI specialist, 2 chiropractors, we had a minor tongue tie snipped. We were desperately hoping and praying it would have been over, or at least lightened by now, but unfortunately, not much if at all. Maybe a 9 now instead of a 10. But thankfully we are mentally strong and so in love. We have her on a heavy dose of omeprazole, which maaaaaybe helped?? But we have our doubts and it’s hard to really tell. Every month, everyday and every hour we hope things will get a little tiny bit better. Thanks again for checking. Let me know if you have any questions.
@coffeeprince I agree about the calendar. I’m in the throes of newborn hood and the days feel long af but also somehow she’s already almost 8 weeks old?! I’ve started marking off the days and journaling about her progress. I’ve also started trying to schedule things to look forward to which really really helps.
@yuliia I was like that until about 3 months pp. I was very attached to my baby, but I was so exhausted and everyday I kept thinking about how much a mistake it was. I cried all the time, day and night. My husband was so worried about me.
Around 12 weeks things started changing for the better.
What helped me the most were:
Switching to formula, cause my lack of milk and the constant pumping were taking a toll on my mental health.
My husband handled the first wake window and nap of the day. Without a doubt, this saved my sanity. I could sleep a bit and take a shower, eat breakfast etc. If you work until the afternoon, try putting the baby to sleep for one nap a day, your partner will be so grateful.
If your baby only contact naps, you should embrace it. Don't even try to make them sleep on their crib, it's not worth it, lol. At around 2.5m I started getting my baby used to his crib, and a few weeks later he stopped sleeping in my arms.
Going for a walk almost daily. At that age I simply walked around the block, because when my baby woke up, he started crying so much and I needed to be close to home when it happened.
I'm almost 5 months pp, so my babe is still quite young, but it is so much easier now. He stays awake more, doesn't cry that often and actually enjoys going out.
@yuliia Here’s the link to all of them and then she could request to join. The January one doesn’t look active for some reason, I suspect they have the wrong length. She’d be welcome to request to join the December or February one. I’m in the months before and after my baby was born. They’re private but I believe you can request to join. If you can’t figure out how and I hear back from the mods of mine I can try to help you figure it out. They’re extremely helpful and supportive communities!
@katrina2017 i love the part 3… thank you! Everyone is tellinf m me to dont carry the baby so much… they will be so spoiled etc… she's only 5weeks 2 days old
@katrina2017 I agree about contact naps. I started trying to force crib naps but it just stresses me out because it takes forever and then she only sleeps for 30 min. I will eventually do crib naps but rn I am embracing contact naps. Especially because I can use it for me time and she is guaranteed to sleep at least an hour.
@yuliia Honestly sleep deprivation alone is enough to send someone mad. Make sure she talks to someone and has some time out. Those first few months are hard but what helped me was forcing myself to get out and about and do things out side the home. Even though I thought everyone had it easier or was better at being a mum than me, building bonds in playgroups made me realise over time a lot of people felt like the way I did and those friendships carry me now.
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