Why all the Guilt?

Guilt, its such a useless emotion but why, as a parent is it always lurking around? It sneaks up on you at almost every occasion. I never realised how much guilt a mother feels, like all the time.

I feel guilty if Im not with the babies all the time. I feel guilty if I want to take a nap, eat something, go to the shops or just have a rest from the babies. We have a wonderful nanny who is at the babies beck and call all day long. They just need to utter one sound and she is with them but I feel guilty because I should be the one there all the time but I just dont have the energy. I know how bad does that sound. Our nanny leaves at 4pm and then I look after them by myself until hubby gets home round 5pm and let me tell you that 1 hour feels like 10. As soon as 1 baby is settled the next one starts or like yesterday 2 of them were screaming and I was jumping between them trying to settle them again.

Fat Cheeks has now started some strange behaviour, every night after her 6pm feed she screams non-stop for an hour. NOTHING you do helps her. Ive tried a hot bean bag, medicine, rocking her, giving her a tag.let, toy, tummy time, giving her water, more milk etc. Any advice on that one would be appreciated.

The source of my greatest guilt at the moment is the decision to stop expressing for them. Ive done it for 9 weeks and I would have done it for longer but when we saw the paed last week for their check-up she said that anything less than half their feeds in breastmilk is considered a waste of time. For me half the feeds are 3 x 3 feeds = 9 bottles which is more than a litre of milk! I would say my milk production is about average and I probably could get up to that 1l a day but then I would be expressing every 3 hours on the dot and I just dont have time for that. As it is I am battling 3 times a day. Right now they get 1 feed a day that is BM, maybe Ill have enough for 1.5 feeds, topped up with formula but I have found that their colic symptoms are worse if I mix formula/BM.

I also want to stop for selfish reasons (theres that guilt again), I would like to eat food (and maybe have a glass of much needed wine) again without worrying that everything Im eating is going to give them cramps or gas, as it is now if one of them vomits their BM feed then I worry about what I ate (guilt again). I would like get up in the morning and not have to rush for my pump because Im in such alot of pain or go out without having to worry about pumping during that time. The worst symptom I have is when they cry my poor bo.obs feel like they are about to burst and I leak all over, I can hardly stop dealing with them to go and pump. I cant just give one of them the bo.ob because they all eat at the same time and then that whole schedule is out and Ill end up feeding all day long. The worst part is that I have the milk, a fair amount so stopping is so much more of a difficult/guilty decision which is why I would have been happy to continue but then the paed said its really not worth my while and now all my will to continue pumping is just gone. Am I a bad mother to want to stop? Do you think 1 feed a day is a waste?

Ive been off the eg.ly.nol now for a day trying to decrease the supply but its an anti-depressant aswell so now I feel a bit all over the place and wonder if I should just carry on but then I go back to what Ive just discussed above. I cant start on another AD until my milk supply has stopped or else I cant give them that milk and there just isnt any way I can throw pumped BM away.

Another source of guilt was the night nanny situation. We had a night nanny for about 3 weeks but when they used to wake up I used to lie in bed feeling the most horrible guilt ever. When she told us she no longer wanted the job, I was actually happy as I felt like I was missing out on time with them. Yes, of course I am tired getting up to them but then dont thousands of other people get up to their babies every night? They are actually very good at that feed because they are hungry and sleepy so the feed goes really fast. Im normally back in bed in 1 hour, hubby helps but goes back to bed as the first one finishes so he can at least function at work the next day. Its working for us for the moment albeit we do get tired. At least one source of guilt is now gone...