My experience of 'Baby Blues'

I have ummed and ahhed about whether to write this blog for a while. It’s not what I would usually write about; in fact, it’s not about hypnobirthing or even birth. But I think it is important, so here I am writing it. This blog post is about the ‘baby blues’. I have written this blog to try and share my experience – and that’s all it is – one random person’s experience. Everybody’s experience is different, so I wouldn’t for a moment like to say this is typical of what to expect. But I wanted to share it, not to scare people about how hard things can be, but to promote a sense of tolerance for what is difficult, if that does turn out to be your experience. The peak of difficulty for me lasted just under 2 weeks, and then I was absolutely fine after a month of being a mum. That’s not a long time!! However, it seemed like it would never end at the time and that I was the only one. So, to summarise; it does end, and you aren’t the only one.*

Until I had my son, I don’t think I had ever heard of the ‘baby blues’ before. Maybe I had been told and warned about it in great detail and just not listened and shrugged it off. Maybe when I heard the term I just heard ‘postnatal depression’ which I know a fair amount about as a Clinical Psychologist. Maybe I didn’t hear about it because nobody around me spoke about it. Either way, I was not prepared. So, I wanted to share my experience, as I think if I had been prepared; it would have been an easier period in my life. If this post removes a little stigma or hesitancy to talk about it for one person, then I’ll be very happy.

I would like to start by telling you some of the things I said in the first two weeks of being a mum:

• In response to my husband thoughtfully lighting a lavender candle in the bedroom to release a calming scent whilst we got ready for bed “Blow out that candle – It will use up the oxygen in the room and make it more likely that he will die of cot death!”
• In a response to my husband offering to take the baby out for an hour or so’s drive he needed to do on an errand; so I could get a bit of sleep: “No, I’ll keep him here. I don’t want him going on any car journeys unless absolutely necessary in case there is a crash.”

Funny right? I was deadly serious at the time. I was soooooo tired.

Even though I had done copious research into bedsharing and was very happy about how to do it safely and the safety statistics; I ‘slept’ for a week in two fleecy onsies to try and keep warm as I was shivering with anxiety about it and the (alleged) link with SIDS.

The first couple of days of being a mother was a dream, running on oxytocin I suppose. Then day 3 hit, and hit me hard. On the first couple of days I got weepy at about teatime as I thought about the night ahead with dread. On the following couple of days, I got weepy in the afternoon about the thought of getting weepy at teatime at the thought of the night ahead. On the following couple of days, I got weepy at lunchtime at the prospect of getting weepy in the afternoon about the thought of getting weepy at teatime at the thought of the night ahead. And the day after that, I was fine…totally fine! (well mostly fine!). It’s also worth noting that whilst this little chain of weepiness played out, the nights had got a bit better/I had got used to them and they weren’t even anything to dread anymore!

I had a lovely birth, which wasn’t exactly as planned, but was a wonderful event that I can genuinely say I enjoyed. My son took to breastfeeding like a duck to water but even though breastfeeding was painless and gained weight well, I was obsessed with the idea that the latch was wrong ‘because it was too easy’. He didn’t suffer with reflux or colic, so I had it pretty easy compared to some. But the best way for me to describe the first two weeks of being a mother was a physical and mental assault to my system. I remember walking into my community one day and being asked how I was by a few new mum friends and just breaking down and crying. Their days of having a first newborn were long gone but in response they told me stories of near identical emotional outbursts they experienced those years ago during the first few weeks postpartum.

In some ways I felt very prepared for motherhood, I had read up and both my partner and I had decided what kinds of parents we wanted to be. We knew we were going to be tired for a while; but I don’t think I really realised just how tired to begin with! I remembered that when I was pregnant people would say to me ‘oh you get used to it’ or ‘that will be you for the next 18 years’ when talking about tiredness with a smirk or wry smile. These words really stuck in my head at 3am in the night, when I’d had cumulatively about 2 hours sleep, and with the knowledge that I would be lucky to get another 2. “I can’t get used to this – this is unbearable!!” “I can’t handle this for the next few months, let alone 18 years.” What I now understand is that when people say you get used to being tired, they don’t mean you get used to feeling like absolute s*!t, they mean your body adjusts to feeling ok with less sleep and you start to feel human again. And when this process starts to kick in, you baby does actually start to let you sleep for decent periods. If I had a pound for every time I had googled “At what age does you baby sleep through the night?” or “How to make your baby sleep through the night”. From the literal and figurative dark place of 3am, my baby sleeping through the night seemed like the only way I would ever feel ok. So, when I read that unless you wish to sleep train with controlled crying or similar, your baby will not sleep through for a long time, I sunk deeper into despair. Now I feel more rational, I know that I don’t sleep through the night and never have (small bladder!), so why would that be an aim for my baby. If my baby wakes a few times and I give him a quick feed (whilst still lying down as we cosleep) that is just fine. I had an unrealistic destination I had to get to to be ok; actually a few more hours sleep was all I needed, and I got that once the baby was 6 weeks old. Now at 7 months, we are a long way away from sleeping through the night, yet I don’t wish for any more sleep.

Another thing that really bothered me during the first few weeks of being a mother was a feeling I had not sufficiently ‘bonded’ with my baby. I had internalised a story told and retold by society that I would suddenly feel this mad rush of magical love that could not be imagined before having a baby. I didn’t. I felt a clear wish to protect and nurture my baby; and a sense of happiness that he was now with us. I also felt very tired! I frantically googled about bonding with your baby and tried to force it; which only contributed to my sense of intolerance for how I was feeling causing anxiety and sadness.

Looking back now, with much more sleep under my belt, and a normal amount of hormones running through my body, I can clearly see that I loved my baby in the way that I love from day one. The issue was the expectation that my experience would be qualitatively different to anything I have experienced before. I personally am often a bit of a slow starter when it comes to relationships; I take a while to warm up to people – it took me 10 years to fall in love with my husband! So, why I was thinking I would get a magical surge of overwhelming love that was totally different to what I felt for any of the other special people in my life, now seems absurd. A have a close friend who cries with joy when she watches someone open a special gift she has bought them, she loves those special to her with her heart and soul without inhibition. Now, when she became a mum, I’m sure she felt a magical immediate surge of love for her baby; but only because she experiences similar feelings in her day to day life. And like most things, life moves on; we both have wonderful pre-toddlers now, who we both love more than anything in the world, we just felt that love in a different way in the early days and that’s ok!

When not on maternity leave, my full-time job is as a Clinical Psychologist, and I practice in a therapy called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). This is all about accepting periods of difficulty and uncomfortable (but inevitable) feelings in service of a rich, full, and meaningful life. As I like to practice what I preach; I usually see myself as very tolerant of difficult feelings I have, but the post-partum period really threw me a curveball. I threw all I knew about nurturing my own mental health right out the window and did all the things I knew I shouldn’t: I constantly searched for signs of change for things that were out of my control, I wasted hours and so much effort hating how I felt and judging myself for it. If I experience this again, I shall just remind myself it is a brief phase in time that will pass and accept it for what it us.

I now have a living reminder of the effect tiredness can have on your mood and reasoning. My son, who loves eating and finds getting undressed the funniest thing ever, when tired finds these activities torturous and rage inducing. So, in that context, my ‘madness’ was a bit more normal in the context of the first few nights of sleep deprivation. And that’s without factoring in all the build-up of pregnancy hormones that your body has adjusted to suddenly up-and-leaving your body; and the existential identity shift that being a new parent brings with it. When you put it like that, seems obvious that you might struggle a bit!

There was a moment the other day when I was flicking through my little one’s red book and written on the ‘new baby review’ page by my wonderful and supportive health visitor was, amongst other things, “tearful – baby blues”. I got a twinge of regret as I mentally fast-forwarded to when my son was older and wanted to read his red book – what would he think of me? Then I thought, no, that is how it was. I am a strong woman, an excellent mother, and I found the first few weeks of being a mum difficult. End of.

                                                                                                                                 

*There are, of course, some occasions for a significant minority of women (and men) where baby blues stay around for longer in the form of post-natal depression, and more help is needed. Speaking to your health visitor or GP is usually a good place to start to get help with this.