u/your-new-fixation

My baby is 7 weeks old and we have 6 sessions most days. Today, he slept a lot more and only had 4 sessions. He will have one more soon overnight, so that’ll be 5 in 24 hours? He does sound a little snotty. My husband got sick at work and gave it to me, so I’m sure baby has it too. His attitude seems fine. During his wake times, he was smiling and cooing at me. I took his temp earlier today and it was normal.
Baby also sleeps through the night. I put him down around 10:30-10:45 to sleep and he sleeps until I end up waking him up around 5AM.
Normal wet diapers, normal poops, was back at birth weight by 1 week old and gains 5-7oz a week.
I keep seeing people saying their babies feed 8-14 or more times in a day and I’m starting to wonder if I should be waking him up to eat. I do wake him if I think he’s been sleeping too long without a feeding; 3-4 hours during the day or 5-6 hours at night. He did seem to have his first day of cluster feeding 2 days ago. He actually reached 9 sessions that day, which is the most he’s ever done. Lol.
Does this sound normal? We have our 2 month appointment next week.

Back when I was in my abusive relationship, I lurked this sub A LOT. I even posted on here multiple times (had to delete my old account for privacy). I do believe this sub gave me a lot of the strength I needed to leave.
I guess because I was thinking “Please leave” when reading stranger’s posts? I found myself questioning how I could tell others to leave, but I couldn’t seem to do it myself.

My ex was extremely physically abusive and we were in a relationship for 7 years. We got together when I was 23 years old (female) and she was 38 years old.
The age gap should’ve been a red flag, but I ignored many. First of all, my dad knew her and told me she was crazy. He didn’t elaborate, but I ignored that. Second, after we had been living together for 6 months, I did a background check on her. I can’t remember what caused me to do that, though. I found she had a domestic violence charge in the past. I questioned it and she told me this elaborate story of how her ex made it up and called the cops on her after she dumped her. I believed it.

7 years and I can only remember a hand full of the petty “arguments”. I don’t really consider it an argument because I never argued back. I never shouted, I never got physical, I never reciprocated. It started with her getting mad about something super trivial and she would just get louder and louder. If I didn’t respond, it made her angrier. If I did respond, it also escalated her behavior. I couldn’t win. I tried many different ways of going about it. One example: one episode was over me not cooking her bacon long enough. Another was because she thought I held the door handle for too long while closing the door. Literally, those were the types of things that triggered her. I never understood how something small could end with her busting our dishes or grabbing me by the neck. She’d sometimes get ticked in public places and start talking extremely loud, berating me. I’d look around because I was embarrassed and she’d get even louder and say “YES; look around to see who is watching!”
It got to a point where I’d just walk very fast and not look around in hopes that no one would hear it.

I noticed I was in a constant brain fog. All of my movements felt slower, my memory was horrible, I suddenly had horrible joint pain in my hands that lasted 9 months… All of that stuff went away within a month of leaving. I never knew any of that was because of the stress I was under. I just thought my health was somehow deteriorating at the age of 29.

The last blow up that happened, I broke it off 2 weeks later. For starters, she worked out of town and I was only around her a few days a month. She came into town, we left the house to go to a festival. We got down the road and had to turn around because she left her wallet. I got out of the car first, but she wasn’t far behind me. I walked in and our dog had pooped in the livingroom. The dog was supposed to be in the kennel. I guess I walked out and saw her sitting in the kennel and didn’t know it wasn’t locked? I thought my ex had locked it. She had separation anxiety, so I had to lock her in a kennel when leaving or she’d have accidents in the house.

I panicked. I knew this was going to blow up because she had blown up on me plenty of times over the dog. She blamed the dog’s behaviors on me because I was then the person around the dog more frequently; despite me taking the dog to training classes and working with her at home. My ex is actually the one that got the dog without even consulting me, then left me responsible for the dog. Like I’d known, my ex started screaming at the dog AND me when she came through the door. I tried to explain that it was a misunderstanding. She got angrier and told me to stop making excuses. She busted my mushroom jar I’d just gotten. I still have a scar from the shard cutting my arm. I was trying to clean up the poop and my ex shoved me and I fell in it and she began dragging me by my leg. I was crying very loudly and our walls were thin. I heard her sister yell my exes name through the front door.

My ex immediately dropped me and walked out the front door. I looked out the window and they were both gone. I’m sure her sister had heard at least some of what went down. She was supposed to be meeting us at the festival, but I guess my ex had called her and told her she’d forgotten her wallet and offered to ride together. Once she left, I sat on the front porch of the house, chain smoking and crying. I remember KNOWING I was now going to leave her for good and I wondered what my future partner was doing in that very moment. Every time we had something happen, I’d tell myself that I was one day going to have a loving partner and a child. I also would tell myself that if I stayed too long, I couldn’t have any of that.

One of the reasons I stayed so long is because I had no support system. I grew up with an abusive mom. My dad was letting my brother who sexually assaulted me live with him, so that wasn’t an option either. On top of that, I lived far away from all family anyway. I had close friends nearby, but I was too embarrassed to tell them what was going on. I only told them after I left. I couldn’t afford to just move out and live on my own. My ex had taken out credit cards in my name and my monthly payments took a decent portion of my paychecks. I called my dad and asked him if he could help me until I could get on my feet and he told me no. I felt stuck. I met a traveler at my job and I told her my dilemma and she said “You’re single. Travel like I do. You’ll make a lot of money.”
I contacted a recruiter and took a travel healthcare job. It happened so fast. Faster than I expected. I suddenly had 3 weeks to sell everything I owned and pack up the dog and drive a total of 17 hours to a state I’d never been to work. This tripled my pay, so I didn’t have to worry about making ends meet. I saved all the money I could to get an Airbnb.

Long story, short… I met my husband 2 years ago while working at that travel job. We met at an arcade and we ate pizza together. He was super shy and I could tell he was sweet. We spent 3 hours talking over pizza. The waiter kept dropping by to see if we needed anything and was laughing because of how long we’d been there. He ended up bringing us waters, even though we’d declined. We stayed until they closed and my husband walked me to my car in the pouring rain. We went on 2 dates a week after that.

We got married in Las Vegas last year because we didn’t want to spend too much money and wanted a fun experience for our wedding. We still had friends and family come too. I’m currently laying here with our 6 week old baby sleeping on my chest. I sometimes just sit here and think about how this was all I ever wanted. I think about how it was all of the pain that brought me here to this life.

I’m creating this post in hopes that it gives someone else encouragement to leave. You don’t have to accept this as your life. It’s not too late to leave. It’s very uncomfortable to upend your whole life, but that discomfort does NOT last forever. In fact, it doesn’t last long at all. It’s the best decision you can make and you have to have faith that things will work out better for you in the long run. You’re capable of loving yourself again. I know that love for yourself disappears when you’ve been in an abusive relationship, but it comes back.

Things have been strange today. My baby is 6 weeks old and hardly making it 5 minutes on the breast before he starts squirming and then unlatches to cry. 2 of his feeds, I could hear his tummy making noises and I can tell it’s causing him discomfort. He’s had tummy issues since he was born; always gassy and screams when he’s trying to poop/fart. He also hasn’t been acting hungry; I just end up offering the breast between the 3-4 hour mark because that’s normally around how long he’d go between feeds.
But yeah, when he lets go and starts screaming, I hold him up and burp him a few times and then put him back on and he lets go and starts crying and squeezing my boob, arching his back.
Is this just an extreme gas issue today? I know the tummy issues are supposed to peak around this point and start improving in the next few weeks.

I don’t really know what’s normal. I have had issues with depression and anxiety my whole life, but I went off of my medications over a year ago. I felt I didn’t really need them anymore and I truly have been coping well with life. I lived in an abusive household and had been on antidepressants pretty much ever since I still lived with my mom. I moved out at 19 and am now 31. Lol. So, I basically figured I should try life without them because there was good potential that my depression was a product of my environment as opposed to something that sticks around.

I always feared having kids because I wasn’t all too familiar with what a healthy parent looks like; hence why I just had my first baby at 31 years old. The only reason I did is because I do want a child and I also saw that my sister was able to be a great mother to her 2 kids, despite how we grew up.

Now to my issue… I’ve been experiencing a lot of guilt and it’s starting to feel overwhelming. It doesn’t impact my baby, but it makes me cry a couple of times a week. I feel guilty every time I put my baby down to use the bathroom, prep lunch, or shower. He starts crying and it takes me 5ish minutes to pick him up and soothe him. The amount of times this happens in a day is super glaring and I just feel so guilty. He’s only happy if he’s contact napping on me or we’re walking the neighborhood (I do 2-3 miles a day). He hates the swing, infant lounger, and pack n play. I also feel guilty if I’m shopping and buy myself something instead of the baby. I acknowledge that he has literally everything he needs and I can’t think of things I’d need to get him, but I still feel guilt for buying myself clothes or thinking of getting my nails done. I really think that part comes from my childhood. We lived in poverty and my mom still found a way to get her nails done and buy herself expensive clothes instead of us having food in the kitchen. I also get intrusive thoughts of bad things happening to my baby. Just off the wall stuff like someone taking him while we’re on our walks or me accidentally stepping on him while he’s in his lounger on the floor of the bathroom while I shower. The intrusive thoughts are a little distressing, but I’m able to kind of move past them by catching myself and thinking of something else. I do notice that the thoughts are happening more frequently lately, instead of subsiding.

I raised my siblings because my mom was always out with men or at the bar. She would leave us for several hours and even days sometimes, so I became the parent figure. I was naturally super protective of my brother and my son looks like him. Every time I look at my son, I think of the way my mom treated my brother and feel so much sadness, anxiety, and anger. I called my sister, crying, and I asked her how she does it. She said that she had these same feelings when her first child was born and she still has those feelings; she just deals with them better now.

My husband is a therapist and I’ve casually mentioned the intrusive thoughts to him back when I was 1-2 weeks postpartum and he didn’t act too concerned. He gave me some kind of advice that I can’t allow the thoughts to have importance and that if I do, they will happen more often. Something like that. I more-so brought it up to him because I was starting to wonder if I should bring it up to my OB at my 2 week follow up. I’m now about to be 6 weeks postpartum and have my follow up on Monday. I’m wondering if this stuff is normal new mom feelings or if I’m experiencing postpartum anxiety?

I think I’m still safe on the depression front so far. I’m making efforts to take showers, keep the house clean, keep a structured schedule, and get in exercise because those are things that have always kept me mentally well.

My baby is 5 weeks old and my breastfeeding journey has been super easy and uneventful. No supply issues, pain, poor latch, etc. I met with a LC when baby was a week old and did a weighted feed. That was good too. My baby gains about 7-8 ounces a week and he was back up to his birth weight within about 4 days of discharge from the hospital.
My baby has gotten to where he sleeps for longer stretches at night. He’s been sleeping about 6 hours. I don’t wake up engorged or anything. I DO only feed from 1 breast per feeding and keep track of the one that was last used. If I try to alternate, he falls asleep and won’t take the other. I gave up on trying. Lol. I tried particularly to switch for his night feeding and nothing worked. I end up having to go pump my other for a few because I’m scared of messing things up.
I guess I think about it and one of my breasts would be going around 8-10 hours without a feed. Should I just pump the other breast before bed so that it’s a lesser amount of time between feeds?
Basically, I’m under the impression that I should just be feeding on demand and my breasts will accommodate baby’s needs, but I just want to ask and make sure I’m not unknowingly killing my supply and creating issues. I actually prefer to not pump at all. My baby has never even had a bottle; although, I’ve been going back and forth on whether I should introduce one for less issues in the future.
Advice?