[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Postnatal Depression is a huge problem in the western world, our standards of Postnatal care are really awful to be honest so it's not surprising. And then many new parents are isolated with no help from friends / family / the community.

I know that me and my partner had absolutely zero help with either of ours, and our first daughter as a newborn, simply did not sleep. She only slept in someone's arms (and getting her asleep, and keeping her asleep, even then was a military operation). In the end the only way we managed to survive was to accept it and sleep in shifts, so that someone was always awake with her. There was NO other option and sometimes I think, what if that baby was with a single parent? How would they ever sleep? The effects of chronic sleep deprivation can be catastrophic. For example, it is a MAJOR suicide trigger in people who have never even shown suicidal tendencies before.

It's all completely unnatural and add to that low incidence of breastfeeding, it's a time bomb. The reason being that pregnancy and childbirth send hormones completely out of whack, and breastfeeding is a big part of naturally rebalancing those hormones. When it doesn't happen, there's a risk of causing all sorts of imbalances, and to put it in simple terms, hormone imbalances can make people completely bat**** crazy.

So, first and foremost, what we need to do is make sure that people have help and support in those crazy first 3 months or so. Failing that, yeah, I do think there should be some sort of "safe place" where someone could, if it really comes down to it, leave a child completely anonymously without the fear of being stopped or questioned.

As for this baby, the good news is, if the mother isn't traced, healthy newborns have a near 100% adoption rate so the baby will no doubt end up with someone who really wants one.

..I feel your pain with the sleep thing..my eldest son was the worst sleeper ..(probably picking up on our anxieties because we were so tired..)..when he was very young, he had to have movement and rocking, so we took shifts at pacing the floor with him on a shoulder..then that advanced to him in his buggy and talking walks through the nigh..but as soon as you'd get back with him fast asleep and the motion stopped...that little monkey was awake within seconds...he could escape anything as well, he'd jump over his cot rails ...when he got to be in a 'big bed', it was all about the story to get him to sleep, which worked fine until you stopped reading and tried to creep quietly out of his room.....

...but yeah, so isolating if you can't feel for your baby what others seem to ...and some mothers feel that they're the worst parent in the world and 'not natural'...and feel that the baby would be better having someone who could fee what they feel they should be.../lots of things really...I also read someone in the US threw their newborn from a high rise apartment so not giving the child a chance at all but at least this mother did put the baby where she felt care would come...I do hope that she's found and that she gets the care she needs...

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Ammi

..I feel your pain with the sleep thing..my eldest son was the worst sleeper ..(probably picking up on our anxieties because we were so tired..)..when he was very young, he had to have movement and rocking, so we took shifts at pacing the floor with him on a shoulder..

Oh god the rocking... the endless rocking. She also needed "white noise" so we used to rock her in the kitchen with the cooker hood fan on full... and make "shhh shhh shhh shhh" noises at the same time... I think I'm having PTSD thinking about it. When she would finally drift off, we could sit down on the couch, but it was like a stealth mission where any little bump or noise on the way to the couch, or a jolt sitting down, would wake her and it would start all over again.

On the plus side, when she WAS finally asleep, I got through sooo many TV box-sets. Sitting watching BSG for hours at 3am (using headphones, of course) are actually some of my cosiest baby memories too. Bittersweet stuff really!

Oh also my wife was stuck on a waiting list to have a broken wisdom tooth removed for almost 6 weeks at the same time and was in constant agony... I'm actually surprised she DIDN'T go completely insane.

Her sleep was pretty bad up until about 10 months old and then she just started sleeping like a log . Can't get her OUT of her nest in the mornings these days, haha. She does still have a fan on in her room though... we may have set up a life long white noise addiction...

[Ammi]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Oh god the rocking... the endless rocking. She also needed "white noise" so we used to rock her in the kitchen with the cooker hood fan on full... and make "shhh shhh shhh shhh" noises at the same time... I think I'm having PTSD thinking about it. When she would finally drift off, we could sit down on the couch, but it was like a stealth mission where any little bump or noise on the way to the couch, or a jolt sitting down, would wake her and it would start all over again.

On the plus side, when she WAS finally asleep, I got through sooo many TV box-sets. Sitting watching BSG for hours at 3am (using headphones, of course) are actually some of my cosiest baby memories too. Bittersweet stuff really!

Oh also my wife was stuck on a waiting list to have a broken wisdom tooth removed for almost 6 weeks at the same time and was in constant agony... I'm actually surprised she DIDN'T go completely insane.

Her sleep was pretty bad up until about 10 months old and then she just started sleeping like a log . Can't get her OUT of her nest in the mornings these days, haha. She does still have a fan on in her room though... we may have set up a life long white noise addiction...

....hahhh yeah, the white noise was a thing as well...the first time he slept through until 5am was in a hurricane, I mean literally...but we couldn't be doing that for him on a regular basis...one thing I can say and maybe/hopefully it'll be the same with your daughter as well...is as a child and now as an adult, he's probably the most chilled person you could ever meet and nothing phases him much...he has a terrific thought process and balance...because he got all of his 'issues' out there as a baby I guess...

[Ammi]

..he is fidgety though ..you know, tapping his leg/type thing...that's how he absorbs information apparently ..through his leg movement...