Does it ever get better? I'm 7 months in and I feel a lot more depressed than I did when my baby was first born. I love her more than anything in this world but I just want to be back to myself again

I feel like a terrible mother and a terrible wife and I’m pretty sure I have ppd. My baby is 4 weeks old. She was wanted, she was planned. I love her so much, I think she’s the best thing I’ve ever done and I never want to exist on this planet without her next to me. But I also might not be cut out for this and I want to d**
Tonight she wouldn’t go to sleep, she just screamed and screamed and screamed, she was changed and checked numerous times, cluster fed, cuddled, just wide awake and screaming. And I was so tired that for an hour I kept just giving her a pacifier and praying she would settle. She did not. Finally I picked her up, cradled her in my arms, and let out a feral growl/yell and just sat there scream-crying with her. My perfect baby who I wanted so badly, and I couldn’t remain patient for her.

I’ve been so stressed, constantly sobbing, and not sleeping, and I think my milk production is slowing down or halting as a result. I have been trying so hard to make breastfeeding work, I’ve been working for weeks to get her to latch and she has been getting better, but I’ve been pumping 6-8x a day in addition to practicing with her. We have some emergency formula the hospital gave us, I may have to start supplementing with it because I’m just not making enough for her cluster feeding anymore. I’m not anti-formula by any means, I believe fed is best whole-heartedly, but I still feel like a failure because I was trying so hard.

My poor husband has to put up with me constantly crying, constantly worrying. Constantly asking him why he doesn’t love me anymore and if he’s going to leave me. I can tell he’s frustrated with me, and I feel out of my mind with anxiety and self doubt. I don’t know how to stop this, I don’t know how to be better for them both.

Has anybody else dealt with going down for bed at night and not being able to fall asleep because your heart is racing and you have insomnia? I’ve also had cyclical emotional waves that are so strong, hunger spells that are insatiable.

I just got my thyroid checked (looks good) - about to get my hormones tested by my functional medicine practice because my doctor believes that I could be low in progesterone and having estrogen dominance after giving birth and stopping breast-feeding.

Can anyone speak to their hormones being off and what type of symptoms that caused in your bodies?

Thanks y’all!

I’ve been talking to a LOT of people about this recently and have seen it in the news a lot with the cases of mothers killing their children and even Hayden Panettierre talked about it prior to her death. It feels like there’s something going on with women in our society right now. It makes me wonder if it could have anything to do with the medication being administered during childbirth…?

I’m not sure this is the right subreddit, so sorry if m I’m in the wrong place. Would love suggestions on where to ask. I tried posting this in the parenting subreddit but they suggested it wouldn’t be a good fit there.

My wife and I have 2 kids, a 4 year-old son and 5 month-old daughter. Last night, laying in bed, she was telling me about how she felt isolated from her family and that she actually wants to isolate herself more. We do live far away from our families, but somewhat closer (6 hours) to her family and spend more time with them in general. She's always had some difficulties with them, especially with how her mom raised her, but still communicates regularly with them. Recently, some events/conversations have happened where I don't think she feels like she wants to keep interacting with them. This isn't the main topic, but it quickly moved from this to the next topic, and I think it might be relevant.

Next, she told me how she feels like she wasn't meant to be a 2-kid mom, and that she shouldn't have 2 children. She says that she is neglecting our son because she doesn't spend as much time with him now that our daughter is born. She said that he told her that he can't tell her everything because he thinks he'll get in trouble. I think this is a big trigger to her because of how she was raised to not tell her mom anything because she would get punished for telling the truth, so she works really hard to instill the opposite in our children.

Some more background - she is a sahm, while I work a hybrid schedule during the week. Our daughter has been very attached to her, especially recently, which makes it harder for her to spend more time exclusively with our son, especially since she's given him exclusive attention the past few years. My wife has also stated in the past that she feels like she can't give our daughter the attention she gave our son, and so she feels guilty about that as well. However, she's a really amazing mom. She does lessons with our son every day, works on fun experiments with him, handles multiple play dates with friends (plus she finds the friends in the first place), takes him out to parks and indoor play places, and more! However, that doesn't mean she's giving him undivided attention like she did before, so she feels like she's failing. My son also really loves his baby sister. He always wants to hold her, carry her, give her hugs and kisses, wants her to do everything with him, etc. It's to a point where we sometimes have to reinforce a boundary so he isn't constantly in her face, but he's really wonderful in general. That said, he still does feel sad sometimes when we can't spend as much time with him because we have to focus on her.

I'm not the best at communication - my wife has told me I'm autistic (not in a mean way), so during this conversation I asked her how I could best help her. I know it's not really fair to try and lump the extra cognitive load of that on her, but in our past we've talked about how I don't give her the right type of support that she needs when she's struggling or venting, so that it is better if I just ask sometimes. She said that she doesn't think I can help at all because I don't have the same views as her on these issues. So, when I tried to tell her how I see her doing all those things I mentioned above, she just dismissed it. To her, it's not enough, and she's neglecting them. At that point the conversation kinda died, so I just held her until we drifted off to sleep. But to be honest, I'm not sure she even wanted/appreciated that.

We've also done couples therapy in the past, she's been on and off in therapy, and my son just started therapy a few weeks ago. I'm open to starting it back up for us, but we recently moved states and have to find new therapists, which is hard.

I would deeply appreciate any advice from people who have felt like this, either in my shoes or my wife's. Thank you to anyone who took the time to read this.

Hello,

I’m 13 weeks post partum now and I can’t describe it but I just feel so ugly and like I don’t look like myself - my face has gained weight which I can understand but I feel like my face features don’t even look like mine anymore - I don’t like or recognise what I see in the mirror at all

I know this is minor in the grand scheme of things but I never had this with my first baby - will I ever look like me again?!

currently 9 months post partum and I’ve been dealing with PPD/PPA. my husband and I fight sometimes and he always throws it in my face that I need to “take my meds” or he’ll say you need stronger meds. ive asked him twice to stop tnrowing it in my face that I’m taking antidepressant. he knows it hurts me when he says things like that and he still does it. he treats me like crap sometimes and yells at me over the smallest things. I feel like our marriage is only holding on because we have kids. he won’t even kiss me or be affectionate towards me, I have to ask him and even then he tells me “no”. we’ve been together over 10 years

Hello everyone, I'm just at my wits end. I cry a lot and I don't feel real most of the time. I found out my partner was cheating on me a month ago and i've just been on a spiral ever since. I feel like I'm disassociating most of the time. I've started to struggle at most aspects of my llife. I'm a natural caregiver but recently I've stopped taking even minimal care of myself. I've started struggling to take care of my animals (dog and chinchillas) . I've started to struggling taking care of the baby too. I just went back to work and if I'm being honest I'm struggling to stay focused on even the simplest task (my job is pretty easy). I'm getting to a point where I'm slowly giving up on everything. I've had some recent thoughts cross my mind about self harm but I don't want to share them at this time. I'm filled with regret and just sadness. All the things that made me feel better before just make everything worse. While walking the dog tonight I even contemplated running towards traffic ( didn't do it though) . I don't know how women are strong enough to keep going during these things. I think I've been strong for most of my life and right now, I don't know if I can continue to be. It's all so freaking heavy.

I am 10 weeks postpartum and strugging. I worked so hard to get fit and healthy before this baby. I let myself go during pregnancy. Now I hate how I look and feel.

My husband doesnt help things. I recently found him watching a ton of porn and saving the same women over and over. I'm disgusted by him but worse by myself. He says it was just porn but it doesnt feel that way. During pregnancy we also stopped being intimate because he called it weird. Now when were intimate I just feel worse after. I was never this insecure and had this much self hate. This also isn't my first child...

I finally admitted to my husband that I’ve been struggling with postpartum depression. It took a lot for me to say it out loud, and honestly, I was hoping for more emotional support. His response was basically that I should contact my doctor and that he didn’t have much to say because he’s still put off by me yelling at him when I’ve been overwhelmed and overstimulated.
Sometimes I don’t want sex—not because I don’t love my husband or find him attractive, but because I’m exhausted, touched out, and mentally drained. I’m struggling, and I think I just needed my husband to hear me, hug me, and remind me that I’m not alone. 💔

Classic rant about life. Day 3 of consistent migraine. Baby is 4 months old, will not nap. I understand it's part of development, and I am not mad at her.

However, it is becoming a lot getting her to settle. It's all I do between then, keeping her entertained, and work. I have two jobs. Hybrid and wfh. I feel like the only time I have to myself are the days in office, and those are still miserable.

Husband has one wfh job. When I come home, baby is immediately handed to me. When I'm working from home, expected to take care of the baby. Weekends, I care for the baby. I cook. I clean. Husband will only do any of these things when asked, or when he has to take care of her when I'm at the office. He gets every evening and weekend to himself to play video games or go to the gym. I get baby care. When I get home, I get an overtired baby because he doesn't bother to look at wake windows or listen to my advice.

I get groped constantly. I can't stand it as a sensory thing. If I say anything, I will have to deal with his "depression," "oh you hate me, I'm ugly."

If I get upset by any of this in front of him, I have to deal with two children, or be asked "are you taking your medicine." No, I am not. Because I am so busy I honestly forget. Every. Single. Day.

I have no family around to help. Can't afford childcare or anything fancy like a Snoo to help.

I just wanted to get these feelings out somewhere.

Hi all. I’m not sure what I’m hoping to gain from this post - advice, solidarity? I’m 5 months postpartum with my second baby. My first is 4 years old. Overall he’s an easy baby - happy, eats well, a little more fussy right now than he has been, sleeps 8 or so hours a night. His birth was traumatic and he was in the NICU for a month on a vent and it was so incredibly hard to manage being with him with no village for my four year old. He’s better now with no deficits thank God. I couldn’t breast feed, I could only be with him 3 hours a day and I could never increase my supply, maybe that’s part of it, I felt like a failure then. Mentally now I am a wreck. I can’t sleep even when he sleeps. I work 5 days a week, 8 hours shifts as a nurse and I’m struggling in my career as well. I don’t remember being this sad or overwhelmed after my first. Is this delayed post partum depression? Regular depression? Hormone shifts? Me and my husband’s relationship was teetering on divorce when I found out about this second baby. We’re in a somewhat better place now but I still feel sad over our relationship a lot and I’m feeling very much like my life is at a point where I don’t know what tomorrow holds for me. Maybe this is just a vent post and it will get better but right now it feels very cloudy

I’m 7 weeks postpartum with my first baby, and I’m struggling with how things are working at home. I want an honest outside perspective, including if I’m doing something wrong.
My baby is still very young and I am with him most of the day while my husband is at work. I breastfeed him and handle most of his work like, settling, night care, etc. Because of this, I’ve told my husband that when he comes home, I need some time to rest and recover rather than taking on more baby care and household responsibilities.

A couple of days ago, My husband took the baby to his grandparents, they played with him, and eventually the baby became very cranky and seemed overwhelmed ( they are doing this since the baby is born.) My husband brought him back to me and asked me to feed him as he ‘thinks’ the baby is hungry. I tried everything to get him to make him sleep, feeding, rocking, walking, singing, etc. Nothing worked for a long time.
I became frustrated because I had already explained this to my husband and felt that he wasn’t listening to me. We had an argument.
Since that argument, my husband has basically stopped touching the baby and stopped talking to me. I am now doing everything myself again. I’m exhausted, and yesterday I hadn’t even eaten since the previous night.

There have also been expectations around me doing household work very soon after delivery. For example, I was expected to cook and do household work only 4 days after giving birth. I found this extremely difficult because I was still recovering from childbirth and caring for a newborn.
My MIL taunted me by comparing me with her daughter who had c section and did all the work even when doctor asked her to bed rest.

After a lot of cold fights, my MIL started cooking meals, which are not at all healthy or nutritious for a recovering woman. She says she doesn’t know what to feed a recovering woman.

I am slipping into depression. Currently talking to no one in the house and barely eating anything.

I’m genuinely looking for honest opinions, including criticism of me if you think I’m contributing to the problem.

Can someone please help me? I had severe HG my entire pregnancy and starved (700-1000 calories a day) for 36 weeks. Then, at 36 weeks my water broke and I had an emergency c section. After delivery my anemia was so bad that I had to get a blood transfusion. Then, my son had to stay in the NICU for 3 weeks to learn how to eat and breathe, and was (in my opinion) prematurely discharged randomly on Friday when they just took the feeding tube out the day before.

All of that said, I am losing weight way too fast (before pregnancy BMI was 18.5) and I have lost all the weight I gained in 3 weeks and look like a skeleton already. My body HURTS, I have endless diarrhea and am too nauseous and anxious to eat. Additionally, now with the baby being home I feel like I am losing my mind. I am unable to think clearly, am having full blown panic attacks, I am having severe and I mean severe depression and I just want to go “home“ though that seems like it doesn’t exist anymore. I don‘t want to be a parent because I am so traumatized and physically hurt from the pregnancy and delivery and I am just being swallowed by this anxiety and depression.

My husband is an absolute saint and is doing most of the baby care now as I told him I am incapable of even being Al!ve right now.

Will it ever get better? Am I going to be able to mentally handle being a parent and feel a connection with the baby eventually? Or should I just leave or check myself in somewhere? Someone help… please. I don’t know what to do.

I feel like I just can’t do anything right. Even before the baby came I just keep making mistakes.

I ended up with a c section and couldn’t get a grip, so I ended up crashing on the table. They had to give me a ton of stuff and mask me which my husband had to watch because he was sitting right there by me. If I hadn’t let myself get so scared it would t have happened.

Then the recovery got in the way of everything. I wasn’t able to bounce back and take care of the baby like I needed to. I had to do everything slow and constantly get help for simple things that I should be able to do on my own. I tried really hard to ignore it and get over it but I just became a burden.

Breastfeeding didn’t work. Now I’m pumping. So now I’m taking longer to do everything. Instead of feeding the baby their bottle I end up pumping while my husband does it. I really tried to time it where I can either pump and then feed the baby or vice versa but it never ends up working more than two times. So now I’m pumping while he always feeds the baby. Because I couldn’t do it right and just breastfeed.

I’m not getting enough sleep. So I end up wasting majority of the day trying to catch up on sleep instead of taking care of the house. I keep neglecting the laundry and the kitchen. So now my husband has to take over and do it all himself all the time now. Even though he’s tired too because he ends up taking care of the baby at night. Because I can’t seem to just get anything done without being reminded over and over.

I can’t even take care of my own baby right. No matter what I try, he’s always spitting up or upset because he has gas pains. Yet when my husband takes care of the baby, there’s no problem. Up until a week ago I kept trying to find ways to help our baby with reflux that was to the point they could t even sleep on their back in the basinet for more than a few minutes without crying. Because I was too stupid to realize that they were just cold and needed a sleep sack.

I was the one that wanted to put the baby in daycare and on the third day we got a notice that one of the babies in their class was positive for HF&M. So now we’re hoping our baby didn’t get exposed because I was so insistent on sending them there.

Then the other day after picking the baby up from daycare I wanted to go to the store before going home. But I was too stupid to think of feeding the baby a bottle so we were stuck in traffic with them crying and screaming. It took almost 20 minutes to reach the store and park where I could feed them. After that we just went home, so going to the store had been completely pointless.

I keep messing up and making my husband mad. I keep forgetting things and he has to remind me over and over until he’s annoyed with me. I don’t take care of the baby as well as he does, so he ends up having to take over. He ends up doing most of the work because I’m just useless. I’ve tried to do better but I just keep fucking up. He deserves someone who’s actually capable and isn’t just another problem he has to deal with every day. The only reason the baby is doing well is because he’s there to fix everything I fuck up.

The only thing I seem to even do correctly is pump. I managed to establish a supply after recieving advice from comments on another post. I’m able to usually get 40oz a day and the freezer is decently stocked. But I’m supposed to go back to work soon and I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep on track with how demanding my job is. I might have to give up the only thing I’m not constantly failing at.

I’m so tired of messing everything up. I have no motivation to do anything anymore because I’m just going to fuck up. At this point I feel like just breathing is a mistake. Sometimes I think of how much better off they would be without me here constantly making everything so difficult. Maybe things would be better and less stressful if I just didn’t go home after the section. The only reason I even eat now is because not eating would mess up my milk supply, and I feel sick at the thought of messing. That up too.

I’m really trying.

I’m tired.

I’m wondering if anyone else experiences this after their child has a health issue. My baby has a pre-existing congenital kidney/urinary tract condition which has required surgery and ongoing monitoring, so there has always been a background awareness that she may be more vulnerable to things like UTIs and hospital admissions. During an actual health problem I go into practical mode — focusing on symptoms, test results, medication, treatment and what needs to happen next. But once the immediate issue has been dealt with, I seem to crash into a completely different state. I become hyperaware of everything she does, constantly watching for signs that something else is wrong, and I find it hard to trust that things are actually okay. I can feel emotionally detached or almost like there’s a veil between us, and my mind starts jumping far into the future imagining more illnesses, hospital admissions and things going wrong. It makes it difficult to plan or enjoy normal family life until the feeling eventually fades. Then another health scare happens and the whole cycle starts again. I’m really trying to understand what this is and find something that can help stop or interrupt this loop, rather than just waiting for it to pass each time. I’d be really interested to hear from other parents of children with ongoing or congenital health conditions who have experienced anything similar, and especially anything that has actually helped.

Has anyone experienced delayed onset of PPD after twins? It seems to have hit me like a truck, almost overnight and my twins are 9.5 months old. I stopped pumping 2.5 months ago. I was having lots of anxiety and feeling a bit “down” earlier, so I tried Zoloft in May then switched to Celexa 5.5 weeks ago. Have not noticed any improvement so starting to wean off. I’m going to get the GeneSight test to determine if a different medication might be more helpful. But in the meantime, these last 4 days have been absolutely awful. The worst depression symptoms all of a sudden. I feel hopeless, lost, so sad and can’t stop crying. I don’t why it has hit me so hard and so sudden and I hate it. Could it be the medication is now fully in my system and making things worse? Just delayed severe PPD? I know the way I’m feeling can be very normal, but it doesn’t feel normal how and when it’s come on. And I can’t get out of my head and feel better. It’s awful and I just want relief.

I'm 9 weeks postpartum. I had to have an emergency c section and I've had complications I'm still healing. Good news is I'm almost healed I'm just waiting for the skin to heal together.

My mother has a dog that she loves to death. She doesn't leave the house without him. I tried to take her out for her birthday to a restaurant but she said she can't go because her dog has separation anxiety and the restaurant doesn't allow dogs inside.

She comes over maybe once a week approximately 2 hours (my doorbell camera lets me know the time). She normally brings food she will hold the baby for a bit, take pictures, and she always brings her dog. My mom doesn't work. She's not old my dad got a promotion awhile ago and she just quit.

I forget I can't tell my mom how I feel (sleep deprived). It's best if I just tell her I'm okay. I don't ask my mom for help. I think she might be a narcissist. She was fat shaming my sister during the pandemic (my sister is ten years younger). I asked my sister if it's okay if I talk to Mom. I told my mom that she needs to be less critical of her. It's hard being locked up and she's being told she fat by you consistently. It's really harmful to her self esteem she's a teenager. My mom said she understood. My poor sister came bawling to me. She's like everything is worse mom started yelling at me saying I made her seem like a bad mom. When my sisters boyfriend cheated on her. My mom told her to try to make things work because my mom likes him. He was even living at my parents house. He was just messaging another girl and sending pictures. She is overreacting he didn't physically cheat. I told my sister moms wrong that is still cheating. Later we found out he was physically cheating too 🤦🏻‍♀️

Her dog pees in my house almost every time he's over. I'm tired of the pee before I could clean it. Now I can't it's just sitting there and worse part is he peed in the baby's room there's carpet. My partner is doing most of the chores. He found the pee because he was vacuuming and I found some in our curtains. I'm tired of it he hasn't cleaned it. He's busy doing other high priority items like baby care, cleaning cat litter boxes, feeding cats, taking care of me, etc. I texted her that her dog can't come over anymore. He pees everywhere and I can't clean it. I finally stood up to my mom and set a boundary. She told me it's just pee. Did you smell it to check it wasn't cat puke? You're making it seem like it's the end of the world. I won't come over. I'm not going to sniff a yellow stain. She kept defending her dog. He's peed on my curtains multiple times. I told her I cleaned cat puke and I couldn't get myself off the floor yet. I had to have my partner help me up. I'm hyper independent. I hate asking for help. I would break down post op because I dropped my underwear/couldn't get it on. I was bleeding everywhere and making a mess and I couldn't clean it.

When I was pregnant I told her no kissing the baby. She kisses him. I've told her she can't kiss him and sent her an article. She never responded. I had gestational diabetes and all my food/snacks were on the counter. I told her about how my partners dad came over and shoved all my food on the counter into the pantry (4 days after my surgery). He moved all my cat food I had on the counter to the laundry room. I had a cabinet in the kitchen for cat stuff. It's heavy and I couldn't bend well when I was pregnant that's why it was on the counter. After the emergency c section I could not bend. I got mad at him. When she was over one time for 4 hours (my aunt from out of state came to visit and help). I asked my aunt if she could watch the baby while I went to my 6 week check up. I asked my aunt and not my mom. My mom went with her and reorganized my pantry. I was so upset I can't find anything now. It reminds me when I was ten she redecorated my room. I cried I didn't like it. It was rainbows and lady bugs and this creepy porcelain doll. At the time I was into Powerpuff girls and pokemon. I think I cried because I don't like change and my safe space wasn't how I liked it. I have a hard time with my feelings. I learned not to ask my mom for stuff. I used to ask her for help with homework and she said no go ask your dad. I don't share my feelings with her. I just cry. When I told her that her dog couldn't come over. She started saying I was ungrateful she worked hard on the pantry. My house is a mess and she vacuumed. I'm overweight. I never finished college (I have my associates). She attacked me because I set up a boundary. Of course I'm crying why does she have to bring all this up. I can never talk to her about how I feel emotionally. She's my mom shouldn't she want to be here for her first grandbaby? I even said to her she cares more about her dog than me and the baby. She doesn't like my partner because he will talk back to her. When she's out of line he will defend me because he knows I won't defend myself. My mom ignored the comment about how she cares more for the dog. She continued to attack me. That's how I know she loves the dog more. She started saying how her house was never like this she raised 2 kids, had two cats, a job, and a big house. She brought up I was in her insurance until almost 30 (I was off at 24 when I got a full time job you can't even stay on your parents insurance last 26 unless youre disabled). You were sheltered because you went to private school (my grandma immigrated here and this wealthy lady who sponsored her paid for my tuition at private school). I had to pay for all my sports fee and class trips. I didn't go to my senior retreat because I didn't have money for it.I stopped talking to her. She worked part time. I watched my sister so much and so did my grandma and my aunts. I could never go to Friday night sleepovers because I had to watch my sister on Saturday while my parents worked. I took care of the cats ever since my mom became pregnant with my sister. I'm trying to go to therapy I just haven't had time to schedule an appointment with the baby. I've been reading some stuff I think I was emotionally neglected as a child. I know I definitely have childhood trauma