Overwhelmed postpartum rant « Back to Group Discussions

[Gillmoro]

Things were going pretty well, I was starting to heal and get more energy. Baby girl has been such a mellow baby. The placenta medicine was helping with the weepy hormones...Then DD1 came home with a stomach virus causing vomitting and some of the worst diarrhea I have ever seen. Despite my obsessive handwashibg I now have it and spent 2 hours last night in the bathroom (sorry so gross). I am having a mini breakdown- I'm so worried baby girl is going to get sick and she's still so little. We are also still working on breastfeeding and my nipples are so ouchy. And I'm supposed to be catching up with school and taking tests this week. I am constantly trying to keep DD1 away from the baby and it's making her really upset. And im upset because I feel like I can't be a good mom to her right now. Sorry just needed a place to express my frustrations. I hope everyone else is staying illness free and enjoying baby cuddles.

[Chloe'sMama]

So sorry mama.  That sounds awful.  Do you have any help?  I got masks for my girls because they still had the flu when baby was born.  it was hard to keep them away.  hope you get some rest.

[cierra159]

Well chances are LO2 is already getting the antibodies from your milk, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. Just keep everyones immune system up. Stress can keep you sick, so just try to mellow out and enjoy your sweet babes. Tackle one thing at a time, it will get better. WOOSAH mama!

[HouseofPeace]

OH mama- how hard!  i'm going with hoping your antibodies protect the baby.  my kids were around various stomach viruses, but the breastfeeding babies always avoided anything like that - breastmilk is also the perfect drink for stomach viruses and usually digested quickly enough that baby never had any problems keeping it down.

and really sorry about the nipples too- my baby slurps mine like a noodle and it's been very irritating.  he sucked his thumb in the womb, so uses the strategy of sucking in his fingers one at a time for my poor nipples.  yesterday he started opening his mouth a little, so i'm hoping he forgets to slurp soon!

hope you get some rest and peace w/ all of this!  

[Gillmoro]

Thank you for the kind words mamas! It is really helpful just to get some compassion. I have been nursing her as much as possible and hoping she's getting good protection from that. MW said the same thing when i asked about prevention. She has been improving with her latch since yesterday and I've been consistently using a nipple cream which seems to be speeding the healing a bit. Thank you again, I don't know what I would do without this boards support.