It's just the Baby Blues

Little A was such a good sleeper for the first few weeks… he napped lots during the day and woke up during the night but he would go straight back to sleep after a bottle.

We were starting to think we had hit the jackpot. I was getting some sleep during the night and Mr N was getting a lie-in and napping throughout the day. When we took him out he liked to sleep in his cosy Silver Cross pram that we’d spent a fortune on.. things were looking good.

Day 3 post birth I was the same as most women and felt tearful and emotional and this carried on for a few weeks which of course I put down to the Baby Blues (it probably was at this point).

Once Little A had recovered from the Birth, he suddenly found his lungs and would cry for hours on end. He also decided that whilst he liked to nap during the day he wasn’t so much a fan of sleeping at night. With Mr N being on Paternity Leave, I’d had the luxury of being able to sleep at night without worrying about getting up for the baby. This was to change once he went back to work… there was no way I could expect him to be on duty during the night and then do a full days work the next day. I think my body went into shock and I struggled with the constant attention that Little A required at night. Mr N is a night owl so we set up a night-time rota.. he would look after Little A until midnight and from then on we would swap and I would take over. It meant that we were both able to get a few hours rest either side of our shift. My shift (better known as the graveyard shift) was probably the worst. It’s the time of the night when your body craves sleep… it was dark and cold and I felt completely alone. I had been a shift worker for nearly 10 years and had assumed that my experience of getting up at all hours of the night would help me; it did not.

Little A would feed constantly during the night. I had read about cluster feeding and how this affects breastfeeding babies but it was definitely a phase that Little A went through too. Mr N’s Brother and our Sister in Law bought us a Tommee Tippee Perfect Prep Machine which has been a lifesaver and I would recommend to anyone choosing to formula feed. The only downside is that the minimum bottle you can make with the Prep Machine is 4 ounces and when Little A was small he wasn’t taking anywhere near that at each bottle so there was a lot of wasted formula. It was worth it though as within 2 minutes we had a bottle of milk made at the perfect temperature. We couldn’t have asked for more when Little A was screaming in the middle of the night. Our bedroom would be full of bottles in the morning all with different amounts of milk leftover from the night before. It was a mammoth effort getting them all washed and sterilised in preparation for the day ahead.

Mr N went back to work on a Thursday so I only had two days to survive before he was home with us again. I walked into town and met my friend (she had given birth 6 days before I had Little A). We had lunch in the pub; she had a Pimms and I had a glass of wine. It was just like it was before the babies came along. We had a gossip about all sorts and we confided in each other about how hard Motherhood was. My friend admitted that she had had some tough days and I said I’d been feeling the same. It made me feel so much better to know that I wasn’t the only one struggling.

We had signed up to do NCT in the early stages of my pregnancy in the hopes that we would meet a group of people that would go on to be our support network. We had a Mums WhatsApp group that became invaluable for all sorts of advice and tips. We would meet up regularly in the early days.. all of us in the same position. I remember confiding in a few of them one afternoon whilst drinking coffee at our local Sainsburys Café. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d got more than 2 hours sleep and I was exhausted. I broke down and turned into a blubbering mess. They were lovely of course and listened without judgement. Having that network of women who were at the same stage in their motherhood journeys was amazing. They could all understand and I realised that everyone had their own issues it wasn’t just me.

I would go on like this for weeks… surviving on very little sleep, struggling to get through the day and more importantly not feeling any kind of attachment to the baby that I had created. I would confide in Mr N, my friends, my Mum, the NCT Mums about the typical problems all new Mums face but I hadn’t at this point told anyone that I was feeling less and less connected to Little A as the days passed. It was a vicious cycle… the less I slept the less patience I had and the less attachment I felt towards Little A. I couldn’t possibly tell anyone how I was feeling not even Mr N… I plastered on a happy face in front of people and did everything I could to make it look as if I had bonded with my baby. I was worried someone would think I wasn’t fit to be his Mother and I was worried I’d be judged (that bloody Mummy judgement follows you everywhere).

I remember having a conversation with one of my Mummy friends over WhatsApp. She had her little girl 7 weeks before I had Little A. I was telling her how hard I was finding things and she told me she felt the same but she exclaimed that it was so worth it. I had experienced so much trauma giving birth, I was massively sleep deprived, Little A cried all the time and every part of me hurt. How could this possibly be worth it?? I was worried she’d think I was an awful human being so I agreed with her deep down knowing that it was a lie.

I spent many hours googling ‘Baby Blues’ and how long it usually went on for. Little A was nearly 8 weeks old and I was still suffering. According to most websites, the Baby Blues typically only lasts a few days but at most a few weeks.

As the weeks passed I felt more and more like I was drowning. I kept this battle to myself until two separate events forced me to face things head on and admit that I needed help.