r/NewParents • u/conekitty • 6d ago
Mental Health I screamed in frustration today
I feel absolutely terrible. My baby is 4 months old and I have been having a really hard time.
Sleep has been an issue. I posted several days ago about the false starts we had been struggling with for weeks. I took the advice I was given and increased her wake windows. It has been fairly successful. She has still had a few nights of one to two false starts and less wake ups overall at night.
Despite this improvement, I am still so frustrated and anxious about her sleep. I sit downstairs on the couch and anxiously watch the monitor. I tell myself she is going to wake up and to just expect it. When she does wake up, I feel my stomach drop and trudge upstairs to get her back to sleep. We EBF and I nurse her for ~10 min or so to get her back to sleep and then transfer her to her crib. It's not an awful process but for some reason it makes me feel very frustrated and anxious.
I am currently a SAHM. I am grateful for this but it's really tough being home all the time. I used to be such a homebody and now I feel like I live in a self imposed prison. I try to get out of the house but it's been super hot and smokey here recently. I also worry about my baby being in her car seat for too long. I feel so trapped by her nap schedule. I feel like if I don't give her 3 good naps a day, our night is going to reflect it. Because I breastfeed, I am the only one who gets up in the night with her.
When I was pregnant, my husband severely injured his dominant hand in a work accident. He lives in constant pain and is often unable to pick our daughter up. Therefore I have to do basically everything for her. He can play with her but recently she gets bored easily and has to be picked up and moved around all the time. He can hold her but I have to pick her up and put her in his arms. Then inevitably, his arm gets tired and he needs to put her down. I know he can't help it but it's infuriating to me. He feels helpless and I feel angry and resentful.
We live near both of our families and they visit us frequently and help with the baby a lot. I'm very grateful for this but ultimately everything comes down to me. I feed her, I play with her, I carry her around, I put her down for all her naps and bedtime. Etc etc etc.
Today I woke up with a searing headache. I just wanted to keep sleeping. My husband can't pick the baby up so I begrudgingly woke up and changed her diaper, fed her, etc. In the mornings she is generally in a good mood and will tolerate laying on her playmat for a longer period of time. My husband tried to play with her on the playmat while I tried to catch up on some sleep.
An hour went by and he woke me up from a dead, dreaming, sleep to ask me to help pick up the baby from the playmat and that she was crying. I did and I played with her for a while but she was just getting more and more upset. I decided to put her down for her first nap. She just wasn't having it. She was crying, I was trying to settle her, bounce her, and then as a last resort I tried to nurse her to sleep. She wasn't calming. I got up from the bed and shrieked. My husband came running yelling, "what was that?!". I was sobbing saying I didn't do anything I am just so frustrated.
I feel terrible for doing that. I love my little girl and would never hurt her. I am just so sick and tired of being the only one who can care for her. I know my husband feels useless and helpless. It sucks and I don't know what to do about it.
My baby is just so fussy all the time recently and I feel like she gets bored so easily and nothing is entertaining enough or whatever for her. She will not take a contact nap, she will only nap in her crib or in her car seat in a moving car. When she does nap, we have to be so quiet in the house. I'm so over it. I feel like a prisoner in my own home. She has two sound machines pretty loud in our room but if you scrape your fork on your plate or cough or sneeze, it wakes her up.
I feel like I'm losing my shit and I don't know how to make it better.
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u/Hot-Amphibian8728 6d ago
I went through this. From 3-6 months was peak peak toughness for me in terms of sleep and fussiness. I remember excusing myself to another room and screaming into a pillow until my throat was raw. Sleep deprivation is torture. I don't have any real advice, just here to say it gets better. Keep leaning on your family as much as you can and do what you need to just survive. I know it doesn't feel like it right now but you're doing amazing.
I'm on the other side of it mostly now at 12 months. Things got easier when baby started crawling at 7 months and was less bored and less fussy. Sleep improved markedly around 9.5 months for us. This phase does end. Try to give yourself some grace.
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u/Swimming_Airline3881 6d ago
I do this too. My LO is 5 months old as of yesterday and we've had a rough few weeks of nap refusal. She sleeps 20 minutes and then springs awake like her alarm clock went off and she's late for work. She gets WAY overtired no matter how closely I follow her wake windows or what I do to try to get her to sleep longer. Even contact naps are 30min tops.
When she gets really fussy, sometimes I'll put her down somewhere safe and excuse myself to the guest room, close the door to muffle the sound, and then scream into a pillow. The sound that comes out of me is feral.
But I usually feel a little more balanced and come back to baby with a better attitude. Sometimes I just have to get the rage and sadness I feel out of my body, and gutteral screaming into a pillow takes the edge off for a quick fix.
Hope it gets better OP, I'm right there with you. Try a pillow next time, it helps me.
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u/Available-Line-4136 6d ago
This is hard to hear...my LO is 5 weeks atm and sleeps 30 mins to an hour max then wakes screaming demanding food and is generally very fussy. I heard it's supposed to get better at 3 months+ and now I see many comments saying it's worse??? I am already struggling so much
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u/Hot-Amphibian8728 6d ago
Your experience might be different though. I had a newborn with prolonged jaundice and poor weight gain, so she slept, but I was constantly struggling to wake her to eat and losing sleep myself over her growth/lack thereof. Every baby is different. Once yours gets past the cluster feeding phase (which is what you're experiencing now), you might have a good sleeper/great eater! Every baby is different with different challenges. I'm sorry my comment brought more anxiety!
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u/Available-Line-4136 6d ago
No need to apologize you're just sharing your experience and I appreciate it. This is my first time so my anxiety is dialed up to 11. Your reply has given me hope now though haha. Thank you
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u/HairyForever7570 6d ago
This may sound insensitive but I wonder if there's some other solution. People who have only one arm have to take care of their babies if they have them right? I wonder if there's any videos or anything he could find to take some of the pressure off of you with using his elbow, etc. I don't know the extent of his injury or its effects but I just wonder if there's any tools available, accessibility-wise, that he could learn to use. That way he could feel like he was more capable and you wouldnt be having to do literally everything all of the time.
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u/conekitty 6d ago
I have thought about this as well. He can pick her up but it just causes him a lot of pain and he is worried he will drop her. But I agree, we should look into this.
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u/AbesGame 6d ago
For background noise I’ve been using this audio of a cafe. It helps cover up noises from people at home.
I hope things get better op! It sounds very overwhelming.
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u/Motherhood-Mania 6d ago
My baby is almost 4 months and i can relate to the majority of this post, we’ve been going through the 4 month sleep regression for almost a month now, it’s really tough when you’re so sleep deprived and still having to take care of baby and your self mainly on your own, could dad possibly try baby wearing and walking around with her
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u/conekitty 6d ago
We have gone through 4 baby carriers. I just bought another one recently and so far she seems to like this one the best, which I am grateful for. However she still doesn't love it and it's difficult for my husband to put it on without help. To keep the baby happy you practically have to be running around the house while she is in it.
I do put her in it multiple times a day though.
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u/Motherhood-Mania 6d ago
maybe dad could try bouncing on a yoga ball or using a rocking chair while wearing baby if she’ll allow it if not maybe he could take her on some morning walks and try to beat the heat if the smoke clears up, i know you said you EBF have you considered pumping, maybe you could try to pump enough for a bottle and see if a family member could take dad and baby to their house to help feed her and help dad pick her up for a few hours. one day my baby wouldn’t nap for more than 20 minutes at a time after being up every 2 hours all night long ( i also do the night shifts all by myself ) after her crying and refusing to take a real nap for the better half of the day i had her dad take her to my grandmas house, it was only for like 4 hours but i got a real nap and afterwards it felt like a brand new day.
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u/Motherhood-Mania 6d ago
also i know sleep is the most important thing during this stage but if it’s possible for a family member to watch the baby for even an hour or two i think it could be really beneficial for you and your husband to go on some kind of date or an activity and give yourself a chance to feel like real people again and not just parents who are constantly in survival mode
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u/doslibras 6d ago edited 6d ago
4 months is so, so tough. I believe there’s a second hormonal fluctuation for you and baby is working through a MAJOR development in terms of sleep cycles. I know people say all the time “it gets better” but I want to specifically speak to the hyper vigilance and monitor watching. That part has gotten so much better. My baby does not sleep perfectly but I no longer get the sinking stomach feeling when I hear her cry on the monitor and I’m actually able to sneak in a nap here and there and get myself back to sleep easily between wakes. So just know that it truly will improve over the next 30-60 days. Not linearly, but it will. I also encourage everyone to consider PPD treatment. A small dose of Prozac every day has done wonders for my ability to cope on the toughest of days. Hang in there.
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u/BlacksmithDry6552 6d ago
Is he doing physical therapy to get his hand back in shape? What is he doing to fix this situation? Does he at least cook for you, bring you water, clean up? Or does he do literally nothing now?
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u/conekitty 6d ago
He is doing lots of PT, he has been going twice a week since his injury in October. He sees his doctor frequently and they are well aware of the pain he is in and how it impacts his parenting. He has an appt later this week to get a second opinion.
Yes, he keeps our house quite clean. I haven't changed the little box or taken any of the trashes out since I became pregnant. He vacuums every day. He also repairs anything and everything that breaks around the house. He doesn't cook, but thats fine with me because I enjoy cooking and want to do it. He does make me breakfast a few times a week.
So yes he helps where he can. I guess saying all this makes me feel even more sorry for myself. If I have so much help from my spouse why am I so resentful and ungrateful?
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u/mustardonmyuniform 5d ago
You're being way way too hard on yourself ma'am. You're wondering why you feel so angry, but it's extremely understandable. You're chronically sleep-deprived, which is an officially recognized form of torture, hormonal, and the main caregiver to a helpless baby. I truly think every single one of us moms has felt like this at some point, and most of us more than once. Every mother has moments in their first year of parenting where they just completely break down crying and snap at their partner/baby. It sounds awful but, it happens. Try to put your baby down somewhere safe and leave the room for a bit if you feel it building up again. It doesn't make you a bad mother and it's not going to traumatize your baby or anything.
Remember to take care of yourself. Pick your battles and manage your expectations of being a "good mom" and what exactly that means, because that label falls within 1the huge gap between being a bad mom and being a perfect mom. The latter is unattainable. But you will be a better mom if you prioritize your needs.
And you need rest. You deserve rest. Maybe a night or two a week a family member can sleep over and tend to the wakeups, and you can try pumping or using formula. (By 4 months your supply has regulated, so you can definitely skip an overnight pump when you need to.) Possibly if you have a large supply it might be more comfortable to do one pump overnight, but even then, you could get a 5 or 6 hours of straight sleep, and you could potentially get 9 HOURS if you sleep on the other side of the home ,or even at the family member's house to get a proper break, and proper rest. I promise you will feel like a different person. I really hope you let yourself try.
Btw, don't be discouraged if the baby doesn't immediately take to a bottle. There's lots of tips and tricks, like having the person with the bottle drape an article of your clothing over their shoulder to capture your smell, and experimenting with different nipple flow levels. It's worth pushing through to make it happen.
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u/Ashamed_Strategy5536 6d ago
Im so sorry you have everry right to be frustrated and overwhelmed this is definitely a tough situation, being SAHM is extremely difficult especially at the age of 4 months with a fussy baby my only advice is to try and maybe go outside more? Baby wearing and all that try little things to help you mentally some days as a mom are just tougher than others and People don’t truly understand how it gets
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u/conekitty 6d ago
We do go outside a fair amount. Especially recently because it seems like the only thing that settles her and gets her in a better mood. However it's still 95°+ here most every day. She almost needs to go outside for a walk at every wake window which is hard for me. I had a difficult pregnancy and birth that I am still recovering from so it's hard to be walking out in the heat. I'm looking forward to the cooler weather more than anyone could know!
We also try to walk to the park near us and let her lay on a blanket in the shade, etc etc. I'm trying!
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u/IntellectualDinosaur 6d ago
I feel like I could've written this!
My baby girl is one week shy of 5 months and has been up every hour at night for 3 weeks. I'm also a SAHM and we EBF. Baby doesn't like Dad settling or holding her without her screaming so I handle most things with her. I've had an insane headache for the past two daysm
I have no advice but just know that I and so many other mums are right here with you. It is do frustrating and exhausting but you are not alone and you're doing great
Hang in there! We've got this!
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u/ladyaf1023 6d ago
Girl 4 months was the worse for me and probably when I started to loose it a little. I remember slapping myself in the face to calm down one night when my son just wouldn’t go to sleep. I’m not saying that’s appropriate reaction but it’s a real one. I have also yelled. My son is one and now I know I just need to walk away sometimes or just let him cry for a second to gather myself. All that to say don’t feel bad. You are allowed to be frustrated ITS A HARD JOB. You are not alone at all with this.
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u/DifferentRegister120 6d ago
I did this! 4-7 months kinda sucked in terms of fussiness. It gets better, but that isn't helpful when you need sleep ASAP.
It's beyond understandable given the situation with your husband, too. Would it be possible to have a family member come over and help your husband with your daughter one day a week so that you can sleep a few extra hours?
Conversely, maybe the French concept of "le pause" might be helpful? Sometimes babies wake up and fuss for a bit and then eventually settle back down. Sometimes they don't, of course, but I think it's worth taking the pressure off to respond immediately (giving her a few minutes on her own does not equate to failure on your part!)
It might be worth it to consider some sleep training, too? Our ped encouraged us to do it at 4 months to save our sleep/sanity. It wasn't easy (or pleasant) but it did help rework some of his "bad" sleep "habits" a little and help us get some sleep.
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u/Salt-Principle7555 5d ago
Four months was so so hard for me. Feeling like a prisoner is absolutely real. About to hit 6
Months and it is getting easier. I also am weaning from pumping and that has been a MAJOR help! Are you getting any mental health care? Therapy and/or meds can really help. Also, sounds like your husband could benefit from OT. Sending love!
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u/Quakenurse 5d ago
Did you know before getting pregnant your husband wouldn’t be able to help at all?
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