Is there a light at the end of the tunnel??

The moments of despair as a new mummy

Lorah-Kelly Beard
Mother Duck
5 min readJun 8, 2016

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Yesterday was tough. It was one of those days where you feel like there is just no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps I could see a faint glimmer of light in the distance — but the very far distance. Like years into the future, when Emily is old enough to take care of herself!

I had one of those days that not many new mothers would post about on Instagram or Facebook, because it wasn’t all beaming smiles and feeling overwhelmed with joy. But I feel it’s important not to only show the good times, it’s important to stay real. Yesterday was very real!

Emily has been a bit of a needy baby recently. She has gone from a super sleeper, waking once in the night (or early morning) to twice, sometimes three times a night! I need my sleep, ask anyone who knows me! So this has been really difficult.

At the beginning on Emily’s life I would just sleep as long as I needed to in the morning after Sam went to work as Emily was quite happy to continue sleeping in bed with me, but these days I have been getting up at 7.30 to spend some time with with my husband before he goes off to work. You see, he used to leave at 6.30 and come home at 3 so I hardly noticed he was gone some days! But now I feel his absence as he has changed jobs and is now a 9–5.30 man, meaning we stay up later in the evening to make up lost time! Which as you can imagine is not great, when bedtime for me only means a short nap until baby wakes again.

I suppose I could go back to bed in the mornings, as I used to, but I really feel like I would like to get some of my life back during the day! I run my own business, and I love it! I definitely feel the loss of not being able to run with it, although I would give it up in a heartbeat for my little girl. Some major conflicting feelings there…makes a tired mind as well as body. I am sure I can’t be the only new mother who feels this pressure to continue with work as though baby doesn’t exist? Although I know I put this on myself, as in reality no one is expecting me to carry on as normal...I hope. But for some reason, my immediate response is to pretend that I don’t have to run around cleaning up and feeding and entertaining a 4 month old baby. What is wrong with me…

Yesterday (and today in fact) I was working toward a project deadline. So baby was in her play gym, and the tv was on. I still have the songs stuck in my head and have even managed to corrupt my husbands mind with 5 little ducks went swimming one day… I don’t feel bad about letting her watch nursery rhyme videos on youtube, but the reason I was doing it yesterday was because I couldn’t even face playing with her. I was exhausted! When she moaned for my attention I wanted to run away, to a quiet room, and just sleep. by myself.

By the time Sam came home that evening I was through. I was so relieved to see him there so he could relieve me of my duties! But as I should’ve known really, the day doesn’t stop there. There is still dinner, laundry and dishes to do. And Emily’s bedtime. And as much as I’m sure he would love to, Sam just can’t relieve me of my baby duties. She needs me for food, and cuddles. Yes she gets cuddles from daddy, but a baby needs both mummy and daddy cuddles right?! ;) So we didn’t get dinner till around 8.30 when Sam finally managed to get me off the sofa and helped me put it together. He got Emily ready for bed while I did the dishes, and then time to put Emily to bed.

It’s now somewhere around 9.30 and I have fallen asleep whilst feeding Emily. Thankfully she is asleep too when Sam comes to wake me, so it’s off to bed with her. Sam made us some tea while I did the laundry. Drink Tea, watch TV. Day is done, and it’s 11pm.

At some point in this evening, possibly before dinner was made, I am telling Sam how I feel. I feel exhausted. Although I love Emily very much, she was just too much for me today. I felt a great moment of despair when I realised, even though she is currently asleep (short evening nap), she is going to wake up again. Then even when it is bed time, and we have the evening to ourselves, it’s not going to end. This is forever.

There is no reset button. No recharge button. I don’t get to recharge. I just keep going, living on what seems to be small naps in the night. Before having a child, if I got tired like this, I would just have an early night. Maybe even take a day off to reset and to recharge. But now I can’t, and I don’t see how I can go on like this.

So we finally get into bed around 11.30, maybe fall asleep around 12. Emily wakes up around 1, but I am too tired to deal with her, so dummy in and back to sleep. 2 o’clock comes around and she is awake again — I had better feed her. I realise I have fallen asleep again when I am woken by her spluttering, oops I think I nearly suffocated her with my boobs…scary moment. Back to bed. She wakes up again, I don’t know what time, doesn’t matter. Back to sleep. And then this morning. She wakes up. I feed her. I fall asleep again. Sam wakes me. I change her. Sam has made me breakfast ❤ Love this man!

Off to work Sam goes and Emily goes back to sleep. I take this opportunity to have a shower and get dressed. Do a quick tidy up downstairs. Make a cup of coffee, computer on and ready to start the day. I feel good again.

Don’t worry, it’s not everyday. It get’s better :)

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