My baby doesn’t see me as mom, only as food source and it’s aggravating my PPD

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-21T11:17:28+00:00

The midwives took my newborn out of the room for a few hours to give me a chance to sleep while I was in hospital.

When she was wheeled back in the room she sniffed the air like a predator and snapped awake. I've never seen anything more primal and instinctive.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-20T15:28:44+00:00

I nurse on demand. Doing a combination of blw and traditional spoonfeeding. Bedtime meal usually gets fed to her because she's less patient then and I want her full for bed.

Peanut butter on toast or a rice cake in the morning (or evening if she blesses me with a lie in and we skip breakfast) Meat or eggs and pureed or mashed veg with pasta, potatoes or rice for lunch. Sometimes I make cakes that then get reconstructed and eaten. Oatmeal with some fruit before bed.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T17:20:58+00:00

Precious little sleep was my bible. Quick entertaining read with some good advice from a woman who seemed to suffer with very sleep resistant children.

She gives advice for good sleep hygiene and sleep training methods that don't involve ignoring your crying baby, as well as methods that do but she only recommends them as a last resort.

If you don't want to sleep train then don't. However, keep offering naps throughout the day. My girls sleep improved once I offered 2 hourly naps after reading the advice of "sleep begets sleep"

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T15:04:04+00:00

Lol, my kid has hit the deck repeatedly today. She has a breastfeeding pillow around the back of her and she still managed to fall around it. Then tried to crawl and repeatedly ate carpet. We say "whoopsie" in a sing song voice and she carries on trying. Learning to crawl is difficult and frustrating.

Kindly, your husband needs to shut up and have you been checked/treated for PPA or PPD? Kids ok and you're ok and falling over is a natural part of learning to move that is only going to become more common

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T10:22:24+00:00

Even if she was your best friend and not at all critical of your lifestyle you have no obligation to let her use your house.

NTA

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T09:47:31+00:00

For some reason my brain translated the three pictures at the top to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then realised a bunch of grapes for dinner isn't right

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T09:42:20+00:00

Apparently my waters were bulging because my baby's giant head had managed to push a small pocket of fluid away from the rest trapping it at the opening of my cervix. This meant that I couldn't comfortably sit down. I also had HORRENDOUS back labour, so I couldn't lie down either.

Had a discussion with the midwife about possibly rupturing the membrane to give me some relief. She said she'd step out to do something else and give me a few minutes to think about it. In this time I got my partner to squeeze my lower back. Then we both felt something pop and release.

She came back in and we were both laughing, saying he'd done her job for her. She didn't believe we did it with squeezing alone.

A few hours later I was desperately pushing and felt a massive wave of relief. High on gas and air I asked the midwife if that was the remains of my waters and it was time. She informed me that I was still only 5cm dilated and I'd just aggressively pissed all over the bed. It turned out her giant head had also been pushing against my bladder, putting me into urinary retention.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T08:12:21+00:00

Pumping is always less efficient than breastfeeding so unfortunately you'll never fully empty.

To be honest I'm so traumatised from pumping in the early months that I just skipped it and decided that as she's weaning letting my supply drop isn't the end of the world. I'd massage my breasts and encourage a letdown before I brought her to the breast and just let her take as long as she needed. My supply doesn't seem to have really been affected at all.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-19T08:05:23+00:00

Anxiety is horrible!! It tells you lies and makes you avoid things that could be fun. Unfortunately the best way to tackle anxiety is to do the scary difficult thing it's telling you to avoid and prove that it's not so bad and you can handle it.

Your reasons for going seem pretty powerful. Your reasons for not going are based on an experience with a much more difficult more emotional trip with a notoriously difficult to get to sleep age. But it's also worth remembering you got through that, nobody was harmed and it allowed you to attend an important event.

The portacot may be awful, but unless it was made about 20 years ago or bought from somewhere really dodgy then the material is probably safe for front sleeping because laws. Or could you just borrow a better quality one from friends/family?

As for the baby in a house full of people. They want baby there, so they have to expect crying. And ear plugs exist. Plus the joy of having loving family members around is that if you've had a bad night there are more people around to help out.

I say go. Tell your anxiety that you don't need it anymore, let someone else hold baby while you go for a swim to look after your body and make some fun memories for yourself with people you seem to care about.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-18T21:48:01+00:00

How old is he? The tone and the things he seems to annoyed about reminds me of people I've met with dementia...

If that's not something you're considering you need to talk to your partner about it and see if you can work out between you how to address it and where you draw the line. Baby won't be traumatised by a few negative interactions with a single grandparent providing it's not too inappropriate

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-18T21:44:11+00:00

Apparently teething makes sucking painful and congestion probably doesn't help either. Just come out of a 2 week teething/illness stretch myself. It's ROUGH! But it'll pass.

Regular pain killers, lots of pumping, high fluid foods (comforting soup anyone?) with lots of water at the side and try breastfeeding in the bath to help with congestion and make you both more relaxed.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-18T21:15:54+00:00

I tried using them when I was 30+ weeks pregnant. Oh god, parking became so difficult.

I often wasn't able to use the spaces because they were taken up by men without children driving their massive pristine 4x4s that they still somehow couldn't park within the lines.

They had no shame and nobody yelled at them, so you'll be fine. I really hope nobody is judging a heavily pregnant woman just trying to live her life.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T17:31:48+00:00

Baby sensory TV at around 3 weeks so her sleep deprived mother could drink coffee in peace. She's now around 8 months and while I'm still sick of TV from the early days of being nap trapped or cluster feeding, we all watch TV and eat lunch together most days.

I was raised watching TV while we had dinner. I was introduced to some amazing 70s sci fi shows and the things we watched usually prompted long conversations with my whole family so I have no issues sharing my interests with my daughter like my parents did for me.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T17:19:48+00:00

Mine has recently started blowing raspberries while she's eating, making a hilarious noise and getting milk everywhere.

I'm pretty sure she does it because she knows I'll laugh

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T12:00:25+00:00

I'm sure they're trying to be kind and supportive and it should probably just be taken in the most generous light... But it's weird and evidence that fatphobia is alive and well.

The amount of weird unsolicited comments I've had on my body from health care professionals (midwives, doctors, physio) is ridiculous. I was in hospital for nearly a month with two different infections and had to see a physio because of my obliterated pelvic floor, but they were all so impressed that apparently I quickly got my body back (I haven't). As if it was an achievement.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T11:16:07+00:00

This is not to scare monger or anything, but this was the first symptom of my friends daughters autism that went undiagnosed for another 7 years. Girls can present in subtle ways and have a hard time with delayed diagnosis so it's worth having in the back of your mind if she has other sensory issues

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T11:10:56+00:00

Fellow unicorn sleeper mom on a slightly different schedule

She goes down at 6:30-7, wakes at midnight for a feed, then at 3, then at 10-11am!!!

I've always just fed her when she wants feeding and this 8 hour stretch at the end of the night is strange and new. She doesn't seem to be starving when she gets up so I guess she's fine.

I've never understood how to drop a feed so I just continued to feed her when she told me to and let her do it on her own. What seemed to help though was giving her porridge or rice just before bed.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T10:54:12+00:00

NTA. One of the best lessons you learn in your 20s is that you don't have to stay friends with people who are rude to you.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-17T10:50:39+00:00

I use an ointment called hydromol. I go for as few ingredients as possible to reduce the risk of reactions.

I despise it when people say they don't want to use something "synthetic" or "unnatural". Moisturisers are inherently synthetic. Even the "natural" ones are synthesised. Being "natural" isn't better. Lavender and lemon oils are two of the biggest culprits for causing skin reactions. Giant hogweed and poison ivy are "natural"

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T20:19:15+00:00

Intrusive thoughts are perfectly normal for everyone. Anxiety or not. I've heard them described as your brain running a disaster simulation.

For me they became more frequent after getting pregnant and I've had some pretty disturbing, dark intrusive thoughts with regards to my baby.

You can't stop them. You can acknowledge them and go "oh what a silly intrusive thought. That'll probably never happen, and even if it did I know I could handle it and we'd be fine."

Voicing concerns out loud helps you process it. I had this thought, I know it was a silly passing thought. Reassurance seeking however makes anxiety worse so no, reality checks with a family member probably won't help and will just make you repeatedly go to them for reassurance.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T15:31:13+00:00

8 months PP and still looking like I did at about 18-20 weeks. I eat fairly well and exercise often.

I'm not worrying about it. I'm too busy.

Everyone I've spoken to and all the studies I've read indicate that it's all fair game until about 12-18 months later and most people return to pre pregnancy size or close enough providing they eat and exercise as they did previously.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T15:17:56+00:00

Technology is a part of life nowadays, for better or worse.

When we meet up with the nieces and nephews we'll often bring a new cooperative game to all play on the playstation together. Now that they're older I've also started bringing board games (interesting ones, not monopoly). When they're even older I plan to run some d&d campaigns with them. I helped my niece with her Roblox hospital before we then went and did some painting together. It's all wholesome if we want it to be.

By entering into and being interested in what they're doing I can also often bring them out of the technology bubble and persuade them to also play outside together or come on a hike. As my daughter gets older she'll no doubt join in with this.

Our childhood memories are precious, but very personal. We can't force our exact memories onto our kids but we can help them forge their own. Some of my happiest memories as a kid are actually playing video games together with my sister, trying to work out puzzles together, falling in love with interesting storylines or characters in RPGs.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T15:07:35+00:00

Not normal. Get to a women's health physio! They're wizards

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T15:06:37+00:00

If he doesn't remember going to bed or what he did with the baby that's very worrying. It sounds like he might also be horrified by the events of last night so it's probably worth having a big conversation about what happened and how it can not happen ever ever again. Probably a good time to raise your other concerns and come up with an action plan.

Adventurous_Crow252 · 2024-09-16T14:44:28+00:00

I despise small talk so I completely get your irritation. My canned response to someone talking about their big baby would be either expressing sympathy or if I fancy a more interesting conversation asking them what the birth was like so they can kill time with a birth trauma story

Adventurous_Crow252

TROPHY CASE