Mamas with depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders

High stress

If you’ve had a super stressful pregnancy from beginning to end full of anxiety/ depression. Did your baby’s turn out “normal” and healthy. I feel so guilty for my trauma and I want my baby to come out alive. I’m 37 weeks.

in our community

Are they gaslighting me?

I’m 10 weeks having my first baby and I’m really not loving pregnancy at all. I’ve never been this exhausted in my life and still have to work full time. And my sisters, mum and partner have all said similar things like ‘you’re only a couple months’ and ‘it’s still early it gets worse’ trying to essentially say it can’t be that bad yet because you’re not pregnant enough. And I’ve never felt more alone in anything in my life. My partner is so supportive but when it comes to this he just cannot understand what I’m going through. So I have no one to vent to without feeling judged. When I talk about my pregnancy I see my sisters eyes all glaze over like ‘here she goes again’ as if it’s not the biggest change in my entire life. Just feel lonely.

Can't breastfeed anymore

Has anyone got any baby feeding things they can post like bottles and pumps ect please I'm so sorry but I can't breastfeed anymore, it's so so painful and I feel so guilty but I can't do it and I only really breastfed for finances as ours are really really low 😭 anything will do thank u xx

Does your 2/3 year old like playing touching their vigina?

She normally does it when she is naked waiting to be bathed or dressed. I am not so worried about her doing it at home, as it is a safe place. But i get worried if she does it at nursery or anywhere else... anyone else experienced this and what do you advise please?

Please help — colic / hours of crying every evening

My little girl is 9 weeks old and we’re really struggling with what seems to be colic. I’m hoping someone who’s been through similar can tell me what helped, or even just reassure me that it eventually gets better!

She’s generally much happier in the morning, but from around 5pm she can become really unsettled and cry/scream for hours. She squirms, tenses up and seems really uncomfortable. Sometimes it feels like absolutely nothing I do settles her.

Her daytime naps are also awful at the moment. She’ll often only sleep for around 10 minutes before waking back up, despite me trying everything to help her nap. I’m wondering if being overtired is making the evenings even worse.

She’s mainly breastfed, is gaining weight well and feeds plenty. I’ve tried burping, bicycle legs, keeping her upright, rocking, walking around, white noise, contact naps etc. Sometimes something works briefly, but nothing consistently helps.

Has anyone had a baby like this? Did anything genuinely make a difference — probiotics, changes to feeding, something for wind/reflux, changing your diet while breastfeeding, or working on naps?

And if your baby had really bad colic, when did you notice it starting to improve? I’m finding the hours of crying every evening really difficult and would love to hear from people who’ve come out the other side ❤️

Should I try sleep training?

I have an 18mo who currently cannot link sleep cycles without me. This has been going on for 3 months. Naps and night-time. So I have resulted in contact napping and cosleeping. I have zero alone time and ability to do anything for myself.

I can't let my kid cry it out. That's never going to work for us. She has a sleep association with my hair, she twirls it whilst sucking her thumb. She also gets separation anxiety if I leave her. I have ordered a lovey and will attempt to transition her from my hair to the lovey but I'm aware this could take weeks if she even allows for the transition.

How else can I look to sleep train her to sleep independently again and connect sleep cycles? When she did sleep through my husband was putting her down but now she almost has a panic attack if he attempts.

Any help/advice appreciated, from an exhausted mama 😩

At a loss

Hello,

My 11 month old has been waking like every hour and a half at night and I’m struggling, we co sleep and breastfeed , she cannot fall asleep without being latched onto me, kind of a bad habit I’ve let happen so my partner cannot help, she hates the cot we’ve tried multiple times, has anyone been in the same position and actually got more sleep? I’m mentally drained now :(