Depressed whilst feeding

[meshan]

Can someone help me? I find I get very depressed whilst I am breast feeding. I am fine the rest of the time.

Just before my milk lets down I get a really overwhelming feeling on sadness and the whole time I am feeding I feel sad or, just lately, angry ( not at the baby just in general )

It is getting so bad I am seriously considering weaning my baby, which I really don't want to do.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[wattle]

Hi. I haven't had this experience, but I'd highly suggest contacting the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA), they're pretty helpful and I'm sure they will be able to assist you.

[lily81]

I have breastfed my twin boys since they were born and I can relate to your feelings. I went through a period of time where I felt depressed and resented the fact that I had to sit there and feed them all the time. Let me tell you I was ready to wean them and put them on the bottle, but I perservered, and it is alot better now. What I suggest is maybe expressing enough for a couple of bottles and getting your partner or someone to help for a couple of days to give you a break. What I have started doing is giving the boys one bottle feed a day just so I can have a rest or do something for myself. I have also found as they get older they don't feed for as long and it doesn't feel like I am stuck to the couch all day. As someone else suggested you can talk to a member of the ABA as well, that may help.

[Megansmum]

I agree with both of the previous posts and just wanted to add that the ABA are an excellent organisation to get in contact with. Though I do not know the feelings that you are going through I just wanted to add that you are not alone. One of my friends felt that she just could no longer breastfeed her DS2 as she felt that she was being pulled in too many directions and everyone wanted a "piece of her". The husband, the first son and the second son all seemed to place too bigger demands on her and she could not handle it any more. In the end she ended up weaning the bub and felt much better for it. She just needed a break.

Breastfeeding can be very demanding, especially on days where it just seems to take forever. If you have someone around you that can help even to look after bub while you go to the movies or something might be just what you need. Just sometime to take a breathe or even to watch a movie from start to finish without being interrupted. Most movies are only about 1 1/2 hours long so you wouldn't be away too long.

Hope all gets better soon and you get to the bottom of your problems. :D

[nemosmum]

Hi Meshan,

I can totally relate to what your feeling, for the first 4 months or so of bf I felt really depressed and generally unhappy while bf but at other times I was fine. I spoke to a bf counsellor thru the ABA and she told me that its actually a chemical/hormonal thingy or something like that. It makes you kind of zone out , switch off and be sad, I cant really remember how she explained it coz it was about a year ago now :p But if you contact ABA they can really help. For me personally things did get better, I kept bf and after about the 4th month I started to enjoy the closeness with my son and the feelings of sadness, frustration, resentment (at my DH and the rest of the world for making me bf) just went away.....

Hopefully things will work out and you'll start enjoying the experience of bf once again(but if you dont and decide to wean dont beat yourself up about it, just do want you need to and be :)

[Tea Lady]

Yep, I had that too - for me it felt like a rush of homesickness or nostalgia or something. Not pleasant. I also got an ache down my arms as the milk let down - tied in with bad feelings so I just assumed it was hormonal and didn't bother doing anything about it. I think it got lots better after around 4 months, and had basically disappeared by 6 months and now I occasionally get the aching arms, but not the emotional low. I don't know how old your baby is Meshan, but I remember it was pretty terrible at around 2 months for me, especially since you're basically feeding 24/7 so you feel bad lots of the time. It may sound like a long time to wait till 4 months, but I felt it was worth it. I found it helped just to think of it as hormones and not really a reflection of how things really were or how I really felt about things. I watched TV alot when feeding and I found it helped to have something else to focus on. Good luck.

Lucy

[sasholi]

Hi there. You are definitely not alone.

My DS is almost six months old and I used to go through the same thing - just this overwhelming feeling of sadness/frustration and sometimes anger. And then I would feel very very thirsty (bizarre!!!). I still breastfeed but I am slowly weaning him as he is getting just WAAAY too distracted while breastfeeding and I have found that he is more calm while bottle feeding (so I sometimes feel a bit rejected as a mum and guilty too - damn those guilt feelings!)

Definitely speak to someone. The sad/angry feeling did definitely go away and there were incredibly intimate moments over the last couple of months while he was feeding that I felt everything was just perfect with the world (it was usually while he was feeding and was falling asleep and was nice and calm - funny that!) and I was the best mum ever and he was the best baby ever.

Definitely give ABA a call - I have found they are very helpful and you don't feel judged when you call them, which is nice.

Good luck and let us know how you go!