Mama You Belong

Midnight Dread and Hot Dogs (Motherhood Anxiety & Nighttime Worries No One Talks About)

• Kirsten Desmarais, DPT and Molly Hilgenberg, LICSW • Season 1 • Episode 6

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Have you ever found yourself spiraling with worry in the middle of the night? You’re not alone. In this vulnerable conversation, we talk about motherhood anxiety, the mental load of moms, and the fears that keep us awake long after our kids are asleep. 

Hot dogs for dinner (AGAIN), and summer mom chronicles. We discuss the challenges of transitioning to summer with school-aged children and the struggles of early motherhood, particularly around sleep deprivation and nighttime parenting.

• Children often struggle with unstructured time after the highly stimulated school environment
• The transition to summer routines typically takes about two weeks as kids and parents adjust
• Many children develop high expectations for constant entertainment and struggle with "boring" days at home
• Nervous system co-regulation between parent and child evolves as children grow
• Parents can experience both comfort and anxiety from physical proximity with their children, particularly at bedtime
• Nighttime parenting often brings feelings of dread, especially for mothers of infants
• Many mothers fantasize about escape scenarios when overwhelmed by sleep deprivation
• The endurance test of early motherhood feels particularly difficult because there's no clear end point
• When we feel like we can't go on, we have to either surrender to the process or maintain hope that things will improve soon
• Most mothers experience a gradual shift toward easier days, though the timeline varies for each family

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with other mamas, subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review. Remember, when you're feeling alone, you still belong.


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Speaker 1:

Hey, mama, you belong. We are so glad you're here. We are your hosts. Molly mental health therapist, singer and songwriter, tree hugger and a new mom, like many of you and Kirsten, physical therapist, birth doula, deep feeler, lover of trees and fellow mama.

Speaker 2:

We hope you feel seen through these episodes and truly believe that you belong.

Speaker 1:

Hi Kirsten, hi Molly, how are you? I'm Hmm, I'm hmm. Well, I just got out of the black hole from Target because we were almost out of baby formula and then I ate a hot dog for dinner again. I don't know if this is just a thing where I like now record a podcast and have to eat a hot dog, but that was it, just a plate of hot dogs. I walked by Chad and he goes I like your hot dogs Like becoming a tradition.

Speaker 2:

on accident, yeah.

Speaker 1:

But it's going to get gross.

Speaker 2:

It'll like really quick, yeah, but you know what.

Speaker 1:

Enjoy it while it's gonna get gross. It'll like really quick, yeah. But you know what, enjoy it while it's not gross. Yes, it's so quick and easy. Protein, it's grass-fed. They're from costco, you know. Yeah, maybe we should get sponsored by these hot dogs, you know I'm for it. Maybe we should get sponsored by these hot dogs.

Speaker 2:

You know I'm for it.

Speaker 1:

That's all my son will eat right now too.

Speaker 2:

Normalize hot dogs okay. How are you Fine, it's summer now for us, the kids are out of school.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's just this shift. You know, in many respects there's relief of just not the same rigidity of routines. That can be a lot after a while. So we all kind of feel that and it feels good to feel like, okay, we can do things differently, um, but in terms of like transitions, I would say our family doesn't like thrive with transitions. Like all of us have our things with it. So it's exciting, but we're in transition into summer right now and I just have to remember that because it feels so good. And at the same time there have been a lot of clunky moments already where I'm like what is happening? And then it's just kind of like nobody really knows what to do. And then it's just kind of like nobody really knows what to do. I'm purposely not having a lot of structure when I don't need it, but then we don't know what to do unstructured. So there's a lot of I mean a lot of needs related to that and I kind of I have to figure that out.

Speaker 1:

Is there like an amnesia, or do you, can you think back to the school year last year and transitioning to summer and how long that took? Like, do you know in your mind, like how much time this takes?

Speaker 2:

That is a good question. I think it's like a week or two for sure, mm-hmm. And mainly it's because we haven't gone through the routine of the week yet, because we kind of have something a little different every day and they just like to know the plan what are we going to do? What are we doing? And I get it because, like, I wake up and kind of want to know that too. I feel immediately like they're asking me to entertain them and sometimes they are. But I immediately get prickly about that question and constantly feeling like I need to plan every second of the day. Um, I like having some plans and I like doing some things, but it just gets to like build on itself and build on itself, and pretty soon, if we're not going to the trampoline park and getting mcdonald's for lunch and having friends over or going swimming at the cabin every day, if every day doesn't look like that, it's like bad news. Like they, they have a hard time with it.

Speaker 1:

It was like a slow day at home which I think you and I both kind of dream of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, for them it's like bad, it's not yeah and and I don't even know if they realize that they have these huge expectations, except that they don't know what to do with boredom, and it seems like it takes them like a few weeks to kind of figure out like how to be home and how to be a little bored, and I think some of it is.

Speaker 2:

Every day they're at school every day. They're switching things every I don't even know 20 minutes probably, even if it's subtle changes. There's a lot more people around, there's a lot more stimulation. And I mean I think about and this is like a little more extreme, but like I think about when I go on a vacation, when it's really supposed to be a relaxing vacation, even as an adult, I don't immediately like feel relaxed.

Speaker 2:

I don't immediately know what to do with myself. You can't just switch it on, no, and I see that a little bit. And then, because they haven't gone through their week of, where are they going? Sometimes they're with grandma, sometimes they're with me, sometimes they're with my husband. They need to kind of see how the week's gonna go. It gets a little bit better. But yeah, there have been some moments where it's just been like super hard for them and I'm like okay, if you think back to two weeks ago, when you were in school, you would have dreamed for a day like this.

Speaker 2:

And now here we are and this is really hard and that's not helpful saying that, but I find it surprising how frustrated I get about it because I'm like, okay, we finally made it, we're finally here, it's summer, we're home, it's nice out and you're visibly upset about it and I can't take them to the trampoline park every day it's not sustainable, it's not affordable.

Speaker 1:

I mean, that's no.

Speaker 2:

I'm like how did I create this, how did I? And then I'm like how did I create this, how did I?

Speaker 1:

And then I'm like Did you create it or is it like their come down from the school year? Yeah, that there is a problem with children who are so overstimulated all the time nowadays in school cannot get their bodies to adjust to boredom. Mm-hmm, I mean, I'm just thinking ahead now of how that's going to look for me in a few years and like do you remember what age this started at, where it seemed like boredom became just first of all an experience for your kids, but then like a difficult one?

Speaker 2:

that is hard. That's tough because, um, my oldest, who's neurodivergent, didn't really entertain herself much at all. There was always a level of like body doubling with play, even if she was leading it. It was like, um, do a craft with me, color, color with me, play with me, do this, and it's not. It's not like atypical to have your child ask you to play with them. But it was to the point where when we had our middle child and he did play, just would play.

Speaker 2:

We were like, are all kids like this? They just play with toys, like you, just they just go, look at toys and play with them, and like we could be in the same room or they could be in a different room than us and they could play. So we kind of had that where there was always a level of entertaining. It kind of felt like entertaining, but it was really deeper than that for her. So that was always happening in the background and there's definitely an element of that and in terms of regulation and coming off of school and sort of trying to figure out what, what's going on here, we like we definitely have like a neurodivergent layer to the struggle with this um but I don't really know when it kind of started or when it got really hard.

Speaker 2:

I think it. I think it may have always been there to some degree and it's. It's just this transition time of like we have to remember how to play at home and how these days look and the different things that we have at home that they can do, and they'll they kind of find the things that they like to do. They just sort of have not had a lot of time during the school year to like do them. Yeah, they literally forget what we do at home, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, hearing you talk about regulation makes me curious if you tried anything after we talked about nervous system regulation slash grounding Right, nervous system regulation slash grounding and like, have you had a chance to think about it at all when you're in those?

Speaker 2:

moments in the kitchen and getting really overstimulated, and one was consciously not trying to do a lot of things. When I'm in the kitchen, I'll be listening to something that I actually want to be listening to, like maybe a podcast or something, but I've changed it to be more music or just nothing. I did have them do. I can't remember what activity it was. I think I gave them some choices and my older two actually chose to leave the kitchen and my youngest like helped quote me with dishes and it was stuff that it didn't really matter.

Speaker 2:

We get water everywhere but she wasn't like kind of jumping at me or asking me to hold her and she was like like kind of jumping at me or asking me to hold her and she was like five feet away from me while I was doing things and that was a conscious choice of of like me just providing a little direction in that moment where I could just finish whatever it was I was doing. Um, so that definitely was one, because I wasn't sure how it would go. To, straight up, be like okay, when I'm in here, you guys need to be in there, but I think the things that I offered were boring and when they saw that that's like what was going to be happening. They were like, oh well, I'm out.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to have to keep that in my back pocket someday, like the choice thing that seems like such a good idea to just give direction where they're still getting to have some say yeah, there was some kind of thing at the little kids table in our kitchen, um, and they were like the older ones didn't want to, and I think I was trying to cook and do dishes at the same time. I just had a couple like cups, whatever, and my youngest saw it and was like, I'll do this, I'll do this, and I'm like, okay, I had to rewash them, but that she was happy, she was participating and she wasn't on top of me. So I have to remember that and I think I can plan out a little bit too, because I think the level of them participating is is another way. I just don't think I can do that.

Speaker 2:

Um, everybody in the kitchen at one time, that sounds like a lot like them to like participate yeah, me, my goal is to not be in the kitchen very much during that time, but if there are things, um, they can. Totally I could probably single out one to give like one person an option to help. Uh, but most of the time it's like I'm just trying to do all the things really fast so I can get out of there. And that was the dishes and that's what Skylar helped with. So I don't know.

Speaker 1:

So I was trying to think about the nervous system stuff we talked about and what I'm starting to realize as we're talking more in conversation, is that I'm a really slow processor. Like, yeah, like it really does take me a while to figure out how I'm feeling or how I'm doing, and um, like it's the end of my work week right now and as you were talking, I was just like trying to be really present. And then I was thinking back to how I had a total emotional meltdown before we talked and was crying to my husband and telling him how sad I am and then was just like, like god, I am so slow at like keeping up with how I'm feeling, because it really took me a long time to figure out like, how am I actually feeling? I'm coaching people day in, day out on how they're feeling. Why am I not?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm feeling, and um, anyway, just thinking about this nervous system stuff, I am realizing how much I need my son to regulate, like now, and when I am away from him all day long and then we come back together I kind of go through this like mini grief process and feel really sad about missing him all day and I just like want to hold him so much and give him lots of kisses, but he's like got his own little body needs and like wiggling and hungry or whatever, and so I'm like trying to snuggle and he's like I'm not ready for that, I need to go like crawl around and play with all my toys and then have dinner, um, and so I'm trying, now that it's nice out, um, to walk as soon as we get home and just to kind of move through the feelings I'm feeling, um, but yeah, that's. That's definitely been a realization that I've had recently, since we've started talking more about this stuff. And like I don't know, does that still happen for you with older kids? Do you need them to help you kind of co-regulate as well? I mean, I know they need us, but do you notice if you still kind of need them to help yourself work through stuff and get back to your baseline?

Speaker 2:

I definitely notice it. I think the proximity piece, the snuggling, hugs, things like that still do that for me, me and it's easier to do that with the youngest because she's just lighter, right like I can still pick her up easily, but it it like how it looks like changes a little bit. So it like how it looks like changes a little bit so it's different, but I still feel it. I had a birth client ask me what do you do after a birth? Like what is your ritual? Do you like go in the break room at the hospital and, like you know, party it up? Or like it was like a joke. But it was basically like, okay, we just had our baby, we're going to celebrate in our way, but like what do you do now?

Speaker 1:

You know Cause I was like that's such a good question.

Speaker 2:

And I thought about it because I was like, yeah, what do I do? Most of the time I'm getting home in, not necessarily in the middle of the night, but just like I'm getting home and I'm like exhausted, and oftentimes if it is the middle of the night, I will go, I will snuggle with my kids. So I'll go into someone's room, I'll let them know I'm home. Usually my oldest is like she's aware that I'm not home. She likes me to wake her up, to tell her I'm home. Or my youngest will usually be in my bed and so I'll like scoot her over out of my spot and snuggle with her. And it really is this thing of like I'm co-regulating with them.

Speaker 2:

There's also my own celebration of like just this recognition of like new life in the world, but also like remembering these birth experiences and like how they weren't in existence before and then all of a sudden they are. And then here is this being that I'm getting to know. So there's this like remembrance piece that I'd go through every single time I come home. But it's this proximity still, and like snuggling them and like smelling their heads. I still smell both of the older kids heads. When will I stop smelling their heads, like mom kids that are older than mine, you know, like true middle, like teenager kids. Are you still smelling their heads?

Speaker 1:

let's, let's do a poll, because yeah, I, those whiffs are intoxicating, obviously he's, you know, 13 months old. Now they their heads. Yeah, you gotta smell them, you gotta sniff the tops of those heads.

Speaker 2:

So yes, short answer. I do still co-regulate with my kids. Another thing that has been a tug of war in terms of co-regulating with them has been bedtime doing bedtime with them and I know that we are going to get into sleep and things in another episode, but the tug of war has been. There are many aspects of laying with my kids that does. There is co-regulation and it for sure goes both ways. But it's also has been some of the highest anxiety times for me, because I'm not sure if they're gonna to sleep or like I need my own time, I need to be done with you for the day and I don't want to give any more to you. So it's so weird to me that it can be both in that moment.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm just starting to get that feeling here and there of like I need to put you down now and go be my own person, and it's an intense feeling when it comes over me. Yeah, I can't imagine when you're just like night after night, kid after kid, and and the worry of like, will you sleep? Are you going to wake up as soon as I go? Finally get a moment to myself.

Speaker 2:

Uh huh, yeah, have some awesome opportunities for co-regulation where I can really feel that and I can also feel like it's the worst part of my day. Simultaneously it's like, yeah, and I never know what it's gonna be. I mean it's easier now than it was, even though they wake up, even though they still need support to fall asleep. There was a time where it was not. It didn't feel like it went both ways. It didn't feel like it was meeting a need of mine. But if there's any mom listening who is in that moment right now where it feels like bedtime is just straight up anxiety and you start getting worried at like 5 pm about what the bedtime routine is going to be like if they're going to sleep from someone who has been there, I do want you to know that there can be moments in the future where, like, it is not like this and you may actually enjoy moments of bedtime in the future. I think it's totally okay if you don't, but I I'm very surprised.

Speaker 1:

Or never do. Right If you never do.

Speaker 2:

Right, I'm just very surprised that when I think about this co-regulation idea with your kids and how it can be two ways, there are times where I'm so happy to be putting all three to bed and I will lay with each one of them and we'll do our little rituals and books, and it's like I'm winding down with them every time and I don't know if I would have believed you at one point that that would have happened.

Speaker 1:

Well, and you know, back to my amnesia thing, like because I believe we all have as moms, like I remember a distinct point now that we're talking about this in the newborn phase, even into like four or five months old, where every night I was just filled with dread, or it wasn't even nighttime, it was the sundowner mode, right of the day is over, and now the night's gonna be exactly the same as the day, because he has to eat every three hours and I'm so exhausted and depleted and I'm gonna lose my mind and that that feeling of dread.

Speaker 1:

I can feel it right now in my body just talking about it. So if there's a new mom in that phase, we see you. Yeah, you are not alone in that dread feeling. That sundown moment is like ultra triggering ultra triggering.

Speaker 2:

It is, it is, and it's summer and so you know the sun goes down later right now and it comes up early and for those who maybe had this newer, newborn or like this tough sleep phase and it was like winter when it got dark at like 4 pm and you're already like we're in it, it's nighttime forever, that is so hard. I was just talking to someone and they were like there's something about when the sun comes up, even if you got literally like no sleep, it's just this relief, like okay, we're safe. We made it Like we're out, literally out of the woods. Yes, regardless of how it went, and if that doesn't tell you the kind of dread that you were feeling, yeah, well, based on that kind of relief that you do feel when the sun comes up, the dread that you feel in the dark, the darkness of light, the dark dread.

Speaker 1:

How do you think mothers do it who live near the North or South Pole? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, like no light sometimes of the year.

Speaker 2:

And it's just dark night the whole time and constant needs. You know that, don't end. There's not like there's something like. I was talking to another mom today and it was like I just have to go in like two hour chunks and just remind myself like you can do another, you can do something for two hours, you can do it again. Just really short two hour time chunks nice, you'd have to kind of chunk it up like that, I don't.

Speaker 1:

I mean it's why I binge watch 11 seasons of Modern Family. Yes, just the middle of the night, like well, here comes another episode on where I do not care what happens, but it'll keep me company, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So it's okay to feel that dread and it doesn't indicate anything about you as a mom. It is so hard to be the primary need meter when you do it all day and now you have to do it at night and there's something so programmed about we sleep at night. Most people spend their entire lives sleeping at night and there's something like inherently wrong feeling internally when you don't do that anymore. And it is so hard at night. Everything is harder at night.

Speaker 2:

So for people who are listening, if they feel that dread, not only do we see you, you're not alone in that, but there's nothing wrong with feeling that way about the nights, and it also doesn't necessarily mean that you're like doing something wrong or that you have to change anything about how you're navigating nighttime. I think sometimes when it's like, oh my gosh, this is brutal, I must be doing something wrong.

Speaker 2:

I'll just say that for myself, and then I just made it worse by trying to do all the stuff to make it better. But I think that was where I was at. My battle was a lot more about being needed and wanting to not be needed for a little while and my inability to surrender because of the lack of support, the fact that I had to work right, and my own internal struggle with I didn't want to be needed all the time. I did not want to meet those needs, I wanted to meet my own needs. And the dread built up because I knew I wasn't, I knew how I was going to go.

Speaker 1:

Mm. Hmm, I started reading that matrescence book we talked about in the first episode, mm hmm, and there's this part where she, I like burst out kind of like cry laughing.

Speaker 1:

She was talking about how I guess it's a phenomenon it's like not just me where moms fantasize when they're like early on and postpartum, about getting in some kind of not fatal accident where they get a stay at the hospital. Like I started fantasizing when it was so hard and I was so short on sleep about having some sort of like broken leg so I had to get hospitalized so that I would get a break, and then I was judging myself for not being grateful enough, for not loving my baby enough or, you know, not being grateful for having this body that I have, like all of the things. And it just I felt so seen in that moment when I read that part of the book, like I'm not the only one who did that.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, you're not, because I did. Do you want to hear my fantasy? Yes, it's like they border fantasy and intrusive thought. They are like right, there's like this weird line they're friends, they're frenemies and friends.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's like this weird line friends they're enemies and friends yeah, we're, like I. So this, this also became like a threat that I said verbally, I know at least once, um, I would fantasize about getting in the car and going to a hotel and not telling anyone where I was except saying I'm 100% safe. But like I'm 100% checked out and I will come back when I'm ready. And I like it was like a threat where I was like if I don't get sleep, like if we don't figure this out, I'm going to have to leave and I'm gonna have to get sleep somewhere else. I can't do this.

Speaker 2:

And and it was like it moved from like this fantasy to like maybe I need to do that, but it wasn't me being you know like, but it was something I thought about like why, you know where would I go? How long would I stay? Would I actually be able to sleep? Like I like thought about all the details because I I really wanted to escape. You needed to. Yeah, and yeah, of course there's guilt with that, yeah, and like plotting this escape, using it as a threat to like help me please, when it's such an ultimate endurance test, right, but there's no finish line.

Speaker 1:

There's no. Like this is when it's going an ultimate endurance test, right, but there's no finish line. There's no like this is when it's going to be over and you just like continue having to run. Yeah, yeah, with no finish line. You're just like. I just have to continue with the way I'm feeling.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so you don't know if you should like really, kind of mentally, like put your head down and just like keep grinding and like this like ultimate acceptance of like maybe this is forever. I'm just going to have to get used to it. I'm not even going to talk about how tired I am Right, I'm just going to keep going because evidently there's no other options, because most people, when you get to this point, have tried some stuff this is what it is, or yeah, like you are like this can't possibly, maybe it'll be better tomorrow. That was my husband's strategy and mine was like the hopeless, this is forever. But his outlook was the opposite, where it was like any day, do you think? He would like literally say do you think tonight's the night that they're going to sleep? And I was like why would you even say that? You think tonight's the night that they're gonna sleep? And I was like why would you even say that, yeah, no, but you're right, it's like no end.

Speaker 1:

No, just go that's like true hopelessness, too, right, when it's just like you. You don't see a light at the end of the tunnel, you don't see a finish line, you don't have a clue when things are going to get easier. Somehow. Everyone keeps telling you it will, but you don't see it. Right, I didn't see it. No.

Speaker 2:

When did things shift for you? When did things shift?

Speaker 1:

for you See, it's so hard to know. Now when I look back, I really feel like a lot of things started to shift around that six-month mark. And it's hard to tell because that's also when I had to finally stop pumping Because I had been doing that whole triple feeding business, you know, the first three months trying to get him to figure out how to nurse, and it just never worked, and all of that and so, like, making that final decision to stop waking myself up and pumping and stressing myself out, um, was definitely a shift in that and then in that, and then I mean I think, you know, we just maybe got a little lucky with a good sleeper by age, like, yeah, five or six months. It just seemed like, I mean, of course there were those nights, especially during the sleep regression weeks, where he'd be up for hours, but it seemed like there were nights where I would get a reprieve by around that mark. I should have written it down, I don't really fully remember.

Speaker 2:

Right. It was a slow progression through the woods for you. Not like time where it was like and then it just got better, because I do read that sometimes where it was like, yeah, as soon as they turned this age, it was great and that was true for them.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, or was it like, because I'm really I mean, I'm realizing now like we all have this level of brain fog, yeah, as moms, where you're kind of always tired and worn out and you're always in love with your kids and it's just hard to like fully remember all the details. I know, like, was it ever a solid? Like this is good now, right, maybe with some milestones, I don't know, but I know. Probably not asleep, right, maybe more rested than the newborn phase, but yeah it, we didn't even get to the, the other things we're going to talk about, but I feel like I don't know. Do you have any other thoughts before we close this episode?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so. We obviously needed to talk about that we did.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for sharing thanks for asking.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for listening. We hope you feel seen. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with other mamas, subscribe to our podcast and leave us a review, if that's your thing. You can find me on Instagram, kirsten Demaree DPT, or through my clinical practice online at empowerortho and pelvichealthcom.

Speaker 1:

And you can find me, molly, through my music at Sister Viri on IG or streaming on most music platforms like Spotify, or you can find me through my clinical practice at Insight Counseling in Duluth, minnesota. You can follow us, too, or send us a DM on Instagram at MamaYouBelong, and we will see you next time. Please remember that when you're feeling alone, you still belong.

Speaker 3:

Mama you belong, mama you are seen. We are connected like the mother trees. Mama you belong, mama, you are seen. Strong as the mountain and gentle as the stream Flowing underneath and throughout the stories of our lives. Centering each other so families can thrive. Centering each other so families can thrive.