Just not cut out to be a mom?

[Starlight32]

I feel like I'm not cut out to me a mom, mostly because of the night stuff.

I have anxiety when my baby wakes at night. She's almost 9 months.

My daughter was a great sleeper as a younger baby, after she stopped waking up at eat at night. She starting sleeping through the night at 8 weeks and only woke up a few nights until 5 months, then teething started. Teething pain lasted a week, then we had pretty good sleep until the top teeth came in around 7 months. Sleep was still overall good but I have noticed there are more wake ups now as an 'older baby' than when she was a younger baby (but past the newborn stage).

Now she wakes up a few times per week. Sometimes she will go back to sleep quickly, other times it's a struggle. But either way, I totally panic thinking when she's going to wake up again?

It's 853pm. She went to sleep at 7pm, woke up at 750pm crying, and she just cried our again (it was only for a second then stopped - sometimes she does that too. I'm a complete wreck wondering if she will wake up crying again. This doesn't seem normal.

 

[broodymrs]

Sleep deprivation is brutal on you. I've got a 'bad' sleeper. We've had battles with everything from not sleeping through, to not going to sleep and not going back to sleep when he wakes. You feel so powerless as there isn't really a great deal you can do other than ride it out. You can try sleep training at your daughter's age but personally nothing really worked for us. You are not a bad mum. Sleep is such a challenging thing to deal with, especially when you're tired yourself. My advice would be to speak to your health visitor (if you're uk) about possible sleep training, share the task of dealing with this with your partner and cut yourself some slack. It's hard, it's ok to find it hard. This is just a phase and it too shall pass.

 

[staralfur]

I think it's completely normal to be anxious about night waking when you're exhausted. I remember the feeling very well! Babies are hard. Everyone struggles at some point with something.

I also think that most good mothers question themselves and their abilities at least once (or a thousand times). Clearly you care enough to reflect.

Try to take it one day at a time. At some point your LO will go back to sleeping better (and then probably worse again at some point and then back to better...) so keep reminding yourself that this isn't forever. If you have a bad night then try to sneak in a nap somewhere the next day, either while your LO is napping or if you can have your OH take over for a bit. I often found that if I knew a nap was an option I stressed a little less about sleeping at night. Sometimes my naps were at 6pm after my DH got home from work but it was something!

Hang in there, things will get better and being exhausted and anxious about sleep is okay, normal, and in no way indicative of not being cut out for motherhood.

 

[Left wonderin]

If you have checked EVERYHTING , not wet , too hot/cold . Hungry ect .... All you can do is let it go and know that it won't last forever . Although at the time it feels like it !!!!

I've got an 11 month old who wakes alot !! I was getting so anxious " clock watching " and worrying about it all . Sleep and lack of it ... Cou ting it ect ..I was driving myself crazy . A friend of mine gave me brilliant advice to just " let it go " remove the clocks from the bedroom and just go with it for A while . It hasn't really changed LO sleeping but has had a huge effect of making me less anxious about it all . I now don't count how much / long I've slept or haven't . Couldn't tell you what times she woke at last night . I just dealt with it in the moment . after all does it matter if it was 10pm or 3am .. And I accept for now it is what it is.. Tough but won't kill me and will pass
From one zombie mum to another

 

[autumnal]

I feel the same way sometimes, I agree with taking the clocks out of the bedroom and just remember if you get 30 minutes of sleep before the baby wakes again that's better than nothing! Some sleep is better than no sleep

 

[xdxxtx]

I think you're doing great. I am an absolute mess if I have to get out of bed in the middle of the night for any reason - even to pee. If my sleep is disturbed, I have to get another 2 hours of sleep in order to not get a migraine and to not be miserable all day. So, sleep is a priority for me. My OH handles less sleep a LOT better than I do (and besides, I'm usually pregnant, and my OH isn't.), so if I don't need to nurse the baby, OH will tend to the baby and let me sleep. At a certain point, I will just let my babies cry it out a bit because soothing my baby to sleep more than once in a night is not worth me feeling sick and miserable the entire next day. Your needs HAVE to come first. Like the saying goes, you can't pour from an empty cup.

 

[noon_child]

You haven't done anything wrong. It is normal for babies and toddlers to change their sleep patterns due to things you have mentioned like pain and also developmental reasons like learning a new skill or changes In The brain.

My LO had never slept through at that age so I guess it was normal for me to deal with around three wake ups a night. Now that she is older and I'm used to her sleeping, if she has a bad dream I feel wrecked, like I'm going to throw up and then even after she is asleep again I struggle to settle.

Like others have said, there is t much you can do about wake ups so it might be easier to tackle your anxiety. Are you an anxious person in general? Does the anxiety you feel tap in to other existing worries you have? Could this anxiety be a symptom of other anxieties in your life? For example I know when I start getting increasingly creeped out by insects, I'm not really anxious about them, it is my general anxiety levels increasing and I have to address the real root cause.