Mamas with depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders

Struggling

So I was diagnosed with BPD/EUPD years ago and was feeling miles better about a year before I got pregnant, to the point I was off of medication and stopped self harming and everything. During pregnancy I felt shit but put it down to hormones and my partner was super supportive. Again, when I had my baby I felt awful but again was like ‘okay hormones, ride it out’. I’m over four months postpartum and I’m definitely relapsing to the point I want to self harm again (but don’t want my baby to grow up seeing that so haven’t and intend not to) and have been having suicidal thoughts. I don’t really know what to do tbh. I’m in touch with a perinatal team and have appts for medication and assessments coming up. I just feel so guilty for feeling so awful like I should be enjoying this time. I’m really trying but just feel like my baby deserves a mum that is happy and healthy and that just isn’t me. Just don’t want to have to go through this all again when I worked so hard to get better you know? I don’t really know why I’m writing this I just don’t know what to do really.

in our community

no screen mums!!

are you absolutely 0 screens household? my boy is 6mo and me and my partner agreed no screens till 3yo, but I'm a sahm and showering is HARD when I'm alone, I've been thinking about recording myself singing the songs he likes and showing it to him for being able to shower.
What do you do?

Feeling guilty for co sleeping

My 6 month old has suddenly started to do abit of co sleeping in the night. She sometimes go back to her bed but alot of the time it’s out of pure exhaustion from me that I just let her sleep with me. I haven’t got any energy to be rocking her back to sleep and putting her down with possibly failing the attempt. But for some reason I feel a sense of guilt like I’m going to have problems later on if it continues. Someone put my mind at ease please?

Should I wake baby up to feed?

First time mum here, my baby is 2 months old today. Should I be waking her for night feeds? During the day she feeds every 2–3 hours, but at night she usually sleeps from around 11pm to about 3am, and I’ve been waking her then. Is that okay, or should I let her sleep?

Birthday postpartum

I’m due to give birth to our second child weeks before my birthday. My partner wants to know what I want to do but I don’t know what would be possible so soon. I already get things like facials and my hair and nails done and it’s been made clear none of those qualify as a present for my birthday 😅 I don’t know what more I could possibly do 😅 there’s no way I’m going to want to go on a day out 😂

Feel like I’m solo parenting

I’m so sick of arguing with my husband over this.

My daughter is 11 weeks old, and my husband works Monday to Friday. I look after her all day every day, and on the weekends and some evenings he goes out cycling. I don’t mind this, he gets extremely ratty and stir crazy if he doesn’t go out, and it drives me mad.

Lately. My daughter’s sleep pattern is all over the place in terms of the second stretch. She tends to go for 6 hours, then has a feed, then either goes for another 4 hours, or starts to fuss at about 5:30 am. (I realise this first stretch is a dream, please believe me I’m not complaining about that.

My husband starts work at 7 am from home, or leaves at 6 am if he’s going into the office.

This means that he comes home, feeds her once while I’m in the shower, while I handle all of the other feeds/ settling her off at night. I rarely go back to sleep after as I’m so wired. He also struggles to sleep once he’s awake, so when she fusses for her night feed, he’s up from around 4 am regardless of feeding her or not.

I see him for around 3 hours a day apart from weekends, and in that time I cook, he does the dishes and cleans the bottles. We then bath/wash LO, he feeds her, then we watch a film or show until her next feed at 9:30 pm.

He has gone up to bed early to try and get more sleep because he feels like he’s exhausted to the point of headaches. (I am too, but it seems like this isn’t as important because I don’t go to work. He acknowledges that it’s hard work looking after her all day, this isn’t the problem). I have stayed downstairs with her, because to me, disturbing a sleeping baby only to put her in a crib for 30 minutes after settling her again, to feed her and then have to restart the process is ridiculous when she’s asleep already.

I feel like I do everything. I feed and settle her every time. When he can’t calm her down within 10 minutes he passes her back despite me having her all day and him not seeing her.

I love my daughter more than anything, and my husband is lovely, I swear. It’s just a really tough time with her sleep, and I’m struggling to cope. I’m so, so tired. And he doesn’t seem to realise this, because he is. We have talked about this so many times, but it just turns into an argument. Please tell me this will pass?

When did your child stop taking naps?

My son is almost 3 and just been moved to a big kid bed (out of crib) and isn't napping. No surprise of course with the big change. It took him a long time to get to sleep last night first sleep in there too. My husbands coworker said when they switched his toddler out of the crib into first big kid bed he stopped napping that day. Wondering on other's experiences. Thanks in advance!