A while ago, Mama Cake casually took a selfie video of "complaining while eating pineapple wraps".
It was late that night, and I wasn't very hungry, but it was all of a sudden, and I wanted to eat some high-calorie takeout to comfort myself.
"It doesn't seem to be in such a good mood," said Mama Cake.
"In fact, when I was holding the baby, I was still very happy. However, it may be due to various reasons such as hormones, and it is easy to be hit by depressed and negative feelings. And no matter how considerate her husband is, there are some things that can only be borne by her mother. ”
Suddenly, many sisters sent warm comforts and left a lot of empathetic messages:
"After giving birth to a baby, too many things come at once"
"It's not pleasing to anyone in confinement"
"The feeling of wanting to escape but not being able to escape cannot be replaced by anyone"
……
△ Swipe up and down to view
It was also after reading the comment area that we learned that so many mothers had experienced depression and even depression caused by postpartum hormone instability.
So today, we want to talk to you about it. Through the story of Mama Cake and another mother, we enter the "postpartum truth moment" where they have broken down once or many times.
My postpartum mood was low from the first day of giving birth, and the fuse was a casual remark from my mother-in-law.
0 1 The "beam" of a sentence
I remember returning to the ward after giving birth, and after nearly a day and a night, I thought I could finally get a good rest.
As a result, the pain after the anesthetic faded and the pain of breastfeeding, and the mood was already on the verge of collapse.
Unexpectedly, the first thing my mother-in-law said after she came was not to comfort me, nor to see how the child was. Instead, he said to the "pig teammates" who were sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing:
"Son, you're tired, go back and rest, I'll accompany you here."
And what about him? I didn't empathize with my hard work at all, so I just said "okay", and then got up and started to pack up the charging cable, clothes and other things.
That's when I "blew up". He put the water cup on the table and deliberately made a loud noise to express his dissatisfaction.
Obviously, from pregnancy to the present, I am the one who can't sleep well all night, I am the one who is out of shape, and I am the one who has labor pain.
And he only sat at the door of the delivery room for half a night, how did he become a tired and hard person?
Although my teammates didn't go home in the end, my mother-in-law's "Liangzi" and I seemed to end like this.
02 The increasingly serious "cub care mentality"
After the confinement sister-in-law went home, I began to take the baby alone, and my mother-in-law would come over during the day.
Intellectually, I understood that she was there to help; But emotionally, as long as I see her, I can't feel good.
I felt bad when she was near the child; She wanted to take the baby to the living room, and I felt uncomfortable; They took a nap together, and I felt uncomfortable; She hugged the child and said "my baby", "my good girl", and "looks like a father...... I was even more uncomfortable and was about to go crazy.
It seems that she is her child between the words, and I am just a "courier", which is very redundant at home.
This is not over, six or seven months later, the conflict between the two of us has further deteriorated. She often secretly feeds the child water, eats fruit for her without my consent, and uses an adult's cutting board to process the baby's cooked food......
Finally, one day, my teammates and I had a fight over this. I complained that my mother-in-law had no sense of boundaries and wanted to "snatch" the child. But he didn't think so, thinking that I was looking for nothing.
Even my own parents accused me of not knowing how to be grateful and thinking all day long.
No one understood me, and I was like a "psychopath" in the eyes of my family.
I lost 7 pounds in less than a month, I lost insomnia, couldn't eat, cried at every turn, and lost a lot of hair every day.
In the first year after giving birth, my mother-in-law and daughter-in-law relationship, husband and wife relationship, and my physical and mental state have entered an unprecedented freezing point.
03 Get out of internal friction and reconcile with yourself
It was only about a year and a half before the impasse eased.
The opportunity was to chat in the mother and baby group by chance, and the mothers who stayed up late together were complaining about the difficulty of finding a sister-in-law. You have to be angry when you spend money, and you must always be afraid that she is "not good for the baby" in an invisible place.
A mother said bluntly: "Hey, at this time, I feel that it is better to be my mother-in-law." It's a good biological child, how can it not harm the child! ”
As if a word woke up the person in the dream, looking back at what he had done before, it seemed that he was indeed a little extreme.
I began to learn to let go, taking time out to go to yoga, cycling, and having tea with friends I hadn't seen in a long time. Find some time for yourself.
In the process, I found that I could easily come down, it turned out that the sky would not fall, and the baby would not be anything.
I've also read a lot of parenting articles and books, and I learned that my mood at that time was called "cub caregiving," which is a very normal way to get a strong sense of protection and dependence on a mother's newborn.
When this situation occurs for mothers, they need the understanding and guidance of those around them, otherwise they are likely to fall into real depression.
There will be no one in this world who loves their children more than mothers, please be a little more concerned about mothers who are temporarily emotionally unstable, a little more tolerant, and a little more understanding.
This time, my postpartum mood was about the eighth or ninth day. 0 1 The originally orderly life has become fragmented
The excitement of having a new life slowly fades away, replaced by an increasingly intense sense of physical and mental exhaustion.
Old fans should know that in the past, I was a very planning and executing person, and I would try to follow that rhythm when I should do things in a good order.
But what about now? My day is divided into pieces measured in "the number of times my baby drinks milk".
Feed every 2-3 hours for 40 minutes at a time, 8 times a day.
Day by day, in addition to breastfeeding, it is on the way to prepare for breastfeeding. The baby has to be too diligent, and the tired can't do it; The baby has slept for too long, and the milk is swollen again......
It's not that I don't want to do it, and it's not that I'm afraid of getting tired. It's just that constant, ever-ready feeling of not being free, it's so nerve-wracking.
Although she is a veteran mother, she still needs time and space to rebuild her inner order in the face of the chaos of childbirth.
That's why there is the scene in the video, ordering a high-calorie takeout and relying on a few bites to quickly eat it all to vent.
02 Daddy's move made me suddenly "collapse"
The same emotion actually appeared in my hair cake when I grew it, and it came more thoroughly and fiercely.
I remember that in the middle of the night during the confinement, after I finished feeding the cake, I called the cake father to get up and hug him and burp, but the sleeping man didn't hear it at all, and he agreed in a daze and fell asleep again.
My emotions rushed up at once, and I didn't hesitate to wake him up, hand over the fat cake, and then turn around and go into the bathroom.
The moment I closed the door, I actually regretted and blamed myself: after the cake was born, the work of burping diapers in the middle of the night was actually done by the cake father, and I couldn't wake up tonight because I was tired, after all, tomorrow is another day's work......
But I was sitting on the toilet at the time, and the pain in my lower body made me wake up instantly:
I'm like this, why are I so sensible? I feel sorry for him and feel sorry for him, who will feel sorry for me? I've suffered so much, why can't you get up and burp?
In an instant, guilt, doubt, hardship, and grievance came flooding up, mixed into a sense of powerlessness and despair that was about to overwhelm me.
And just like that, I squatted in the bathroom and cried. Daddy was also frightened, patting me and coaxing me from 4 a.m. to dawn.
After calming down and thinking about it, I realized that this is actually a manifestation of postpartum depression.
02 Some of my ways of coping with emotional downturns
In fact, my three productions were generally relatively smooth. I am very grateful to have relatives around me to help and my cake dad is also very helpful.
Like many sisters who are cut and torn by side cuts, it may be a luxury to even get out of bed. Add to that the fact that breastfeeding, worrying about your baby and all kinds of things at home, and the physical and mental drain is huge......
At this time, if there are signs of continued low mood, don't hold back!
Whether it's eating something, complaining to your girlfriend, or crying with your husband, there must always be an outlet.
There are also some ways that I have practiced that are more helpful, and I would like to share them with you.
⭐️ The first thing: confinement in a way that is comfortable for you.
The starting point of confinement is to allow the mother to get good care and rest. However, many mothers experience the feeling of "going to prison".
There is a sister in the team who was originally cheerful, with a smooth pregnancy, a smooth delivery, and a good recovery, but the family is always "staring" at her.
Don't get out of bed and walk around, don't let you wash your hair and take a bath, don't let you look at your phone, don't let you eat fruits at room temperature, and don't let ...... In the middle of summer at 40°C, even the air conditioner has to be turned on carefully.
With such a process, even normal people have to be depressed!
So this time I was confined, so I had a "three chapters of the covenant" with my mother in advance.
What my mother wanted me to do, such as lying down more, wearing socks, not washing my hair for the first few days, and not drinking straight room temperature water, these things my mother thought were very important, and I didn't feel particularly bad, so I took them all.
But occasionally I will have moments when I want to be "presumptuous", such as going to the company for a walk and a meeting when my body can afford it; Go downstairs with your cake dad or baby to visit the supermarket and eat out......
These little rebellions, she turned a blind eye.
We accepted each other's regression and worked together to have a smooth confinement.
⭐️ The second thing: give yourself a little time every day to take a break from being a mother.
In the world of motherhood, the focus of life is easily only children. Every day, I just stare at how much the child eats, whether the poop is good, and whether there is enough time to sleep.
Even many sisters will use apps to record the time when the baby eats and drinks Lazar. In this way, the stress and anxiety of the mother can be easily amplified throughout the day.
My advice is to find a little time for yourself every day to take a break from being a mother, which is also a good medicine for postpartum emotional problems.
The easiest way is to find what you love to do, such as taking a shower, putting on a mask, chasing a drama, going to the door of the house for a casual walk, and breathing in the air outside.
can help overcome the chaotic emotions of special times and regain a sense of order and certainty in life.
⭐️ Finally, I hope that you can "reconcile" with such a person who has a lot of mood swings and occasionally doesn't look like you.
Don't think "how did I become like this" and then fall into bottomless internal friction.
The postpartum emotional slump is not hypocritical, and don't believe in the set of "motherhood is just" and "everyone comes over like this".
Moms should be allowed to feel frustrated, tired, and unhappy, and that's normal, and don't be afraid to say it.
Especially with your closest partner, be sure to tell him your true emotions at the moment, and then find an outlet for it together.
According to the statistics of the Psychiatrist Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association in 2017:
In mainland China, 50%~70% of women will experience postpartum depression, and 10%~15% of them will develop real postpartum depression.
This is not necessarily related to whether it is the first child, whether the body is recovering well, or what the family conditions are.
Having a child, for a woman, is a stressful process that undergoes the most dramatic physical and psychological changes in her life.
Sisters in front of the screen, have you ever experienced a similar situation after giving birth? Is it mainly a conflict between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, or a conflict between husband and wife? How did you get out of it?
Come to the comment area and chat with us, let's vent.
Click on the card above to follow to learn more about parenting