Becoming a parent can be challenging for many reasons. These are some of the reasons parents just like you reach out for help.
Baby and You
You care about your baby but feel distant from them, looking after them feels a chore. You can do the practical things, but play and baby chat feel false and you have to make a huge effort to do it. You find yourself focusing on baby’s development and put a toy in front of them, keeping yourself away.
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Baby's Cries
It feels as if your baby cries all the time, that it is very hard to comfort them. Your baby’s cries go right through you and you can feel panicked.
Baby's Sleep
Baby struggles to sleep and you are awake much of the night. Baby’s night time cries feel very hard to hear and you worry about disturbing your partner. It feels difficult to be away from your baby, or that your baby cannot bear to be parted from you.
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Strained relationships
Strained relationships: Suddenly there are three of you, the attention you were able to give to each other is now needed for your baby. And what about all those daily tasks, who does what can become a battleground.
Mental Ill Health
Roughly a quarter of new mums and dads experience mental health difficulties. Since baby has come along, you might be feeling down, worrying a lot, feel upset, scared, easily frustrated, or quicker to anger. It might be hard to make sense of these emotions, especially if you had been so looking forward to your baby arriving.
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Childhood Memories
For many people, a baby can bring back difficult childhood memories and the struggles and disappointments in your relationship with your own parents. You may worry about how your experiences as a child will affect you as a parent.
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Traumatic birth
Memories of the birth leave you feeling shaky and the continued fears you have about losing your own or baby’s life keep you in a state of stress.
Grief
You have had miscarriages, or been unfortunate enough to have had a previous stillbirth or lost an older child. This can understandably make it all the harder to allow yourself to feel close to and love your baby.
Baby's Behaviour
You find that baby finds it very hard to be separate, protests and cries as soon as you put them down or leave the room. You’ve noticed that baby is unusually quiet or seems disinterested in what’s happening around them.