Before my husband and I decided to start trying to have a baby, I figured I should try to wean myself off of Prozac. I had been taking the anti-depressant for several years after a couple of bouts of debilitating depression.

After getting the okay from my doctor, I slowly stopped taking my medication. At first, I felt great. But after a few weeks, I was so anxious and depressed that my husband was growing concerned. He gently suggested that I re-think my decision. I saw my doctor and we decided that Prozac was a good choice for me during pregnancy. Luckily, my doctor was supportive of my decision.

Parent Dish interviewed several pregnant women who decided to continue taking anti-depressants despite doctors’ concerns. Continue reading »

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For most of us, the first weeks or months after a new baby are a haze of sleeplessness. But for some mothers, it never quite goes away. Instead, we develop postpartum insomnia, staring at the ceiling while our babies snooze blissfully away.

And that, I can tell you as someone who’s contending with it right now, pretty much sucks. I’ve gone from being someone who sleeps like the dead for as many hours as I can cram in to someone who usually wakes at least once or twice in the night. And then the real fun starts — I worry about money, about the economy, about rising crime and plummeting property values in my neighborhood, about swine flu, car accidents or many other ills which could befall my kids. And just as I am starting to think I might be able to go back to sleep, my husband commences snoring, or the kitten decides it’s playtime, or one or both of my kids needs some attention.

As one of the insomniacs profiled in the story says, “your brain goes to these really dark, twisted places, which, in the cold light of day, seem like nothing.”

I’d be willing to bet that lots of parents are experiencing this right now. We’re living in very anxious times, and the kind of small interruptions you’d normally be able to roll right over and ignore can snowball into big anxious worries at night. The story has a few suggestions: first, do what you can to break the cycle by taking medication, leaving the house for the night, even taking to a spare bed somewhere in the house and putting your kids and spouse on notice that you are not to be disturbed. Exhaustion can breed anxiety which breeds insomnia, so breaking the cycle by getting a few good nights of sleep can sort of hit the “reset” button.

Also, try to avoid middle of the night interruptions to prevent those scary thoughts from creeping in.Your body transitions into a pre-awakening lighter sleep at around 3 am, and being stressed and hyperalert can make your body very receptive to those waking-up signals. And finally, breathe slowly and consciously to relax and allow yourself to fall back asleep.

My trick? Naming all 50  states. It’s engaging enough to keep my mind from wandering, but boring enough that eventually I just drift off.

Anybody else out there? And do you have any tricks to beat it? Share!

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What with all the massively unsettling stuff going on in the world right now — recession, foreclosures, unemployment, and war, to name a few — it’s small wonder we’re not all running around with raging anxiety disorders. But there’s increasing evidence that true, debilitating anxiety, the kind that severely limits your life, is something that people are predisposed to, or not, from birth.

This fascinating, long article in the New York Times Magazine from yesterday describes how Harvard psychology professor Jerome Kagan followed subjects from babyhood through adulthood. He found that babies that were highly reactive to novelty — that is, that responded unhappily to new things — were much more likely to have anxiety disorder as teens and adults.

If that was your baby, though, don’t despair: Continue reading »

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Despite all the talk about the economy doing better, for many families times are still very difficult. And parents and school counseleors are reporting that it’s really taking its toll on kids. For many adolescents, worries about their family’s financial situation along with fears about other things they feel no control over, like global warming or terrorism, is leading to a generation of very worried kids. Continue reading »

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A British theme park convinced that too many parents are acting like fuddy duddies and spoiling the fun for their thrill-hungry kids has come up with a solution: a free session with a hypnotherapist. Continue reading »

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