I had an anxiety attack 😢

My March baby is my second child. My first is 2 years old and has been acting a little more clingy than normal. He’s also been upset with how much I’ve been holding his brother more, because I’m not showing him nearly as much attention as we want.

The mom guilt has been strong.

I’ve had little moments when my anxiety gets triggered. It usually happens if my toddler is crawling over me while I’m holding my newborn. Or he hugs too tight and doesn’t let go when I want. Or if both kids are crying at the same time. Usually, I’m able to swallow the anxiety and just breath slowly to calm myself.

But this time I wasn’t able to. My toddler had woken up from his nap crying (normal for him) and so I went in to comfort him while I was holding the baby. My toddler is really hard to calm down when he wakes up from his nap, but I think it was worse because I went in with the baby. My toddler is also pretty nonverbal (he can say about 6 words. Been seeing a speech therapist for about a year) so figuring out whats wrong and how to calm him down is not easy.

My toddlers crying and starting to make my newborn cry. I tried putting my newborn down on the bed with a pacifier and focused on the toddler. But the toddlers crying was only getting harder and he started hugging me but also pushing me away, refusing his water, and the newborn wasn’t being soothed by the pacifier. I picked up my baby to try to sooth him, but then my toddler started to get aggressive and go after me. He wasn’t trying to hurt him, but wasn’t being careful. I texted my husband for help, and by the time he came in (about 2 minutes later) I was hyperventilating, sobbing, and having a full blown panic attack. I couldn’t calm down on my own and my husband had to help sooth the babies and his wife. He picked up my toddler While I soothed my newborn and sobbed onto my husband. He managed to calm my toddler in a few minutes. I just whimpered “I’m just trying to be a good mom”. He said he knows.

I’m going to talk to my doctor about getting on anxiety medication. I’m a little scared because I’m breastfeeding right now, and don’t want any negative affects. Has anyone else had to take anxiety medication while breastfeeding?