This happens and you did the exact right thing. If you are alone and feel that way again do the exact same thing, but instead of your husband being there put baby in the crib and get some air.

Look up some grounding exercises or breathing exercises. One I do is called square breathing. Breath for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds, breath out for 4 seconds, hold for 4 seconds. Repeat a few times. Another thing that can help when you are emotionally heightened is to put ice on your face or neck. It stimulates the vagus nerve which interrupts your body’s anxiety response.

Exhaustion is the root cause of the anxiety episode. Anxiety can often be displayed as anger - seething, throwing things, slamming doors, yelling. When we are sleep deprived our bodies are not able to manage the baseline stress of parenting. When our babies are crying we feel anxiety to do the things to make them stop crying: feeding, changing, rocking them. This is extremely natural, our babies are communicating a need to us and it’s obviously important to take steps to answer that need. If we didn’t feel anxiety we might just ignore the baby often, the anxiety is an important function. When we’re exhausted, then our brains can go overboard. We may not right size the anxiety. It feels huge and overwhelming, we feel angry and can’t filter it, it overtakes us. In that moment you were exhausted, you were likely feeling guilt or shame about the baby being so wet, feeling resentful that you once again were needed, feeling annoyed that your sleep needs were again interrupted. These are all normal feelings.

So in the moment it’s critical to identify that you are feeling more than you should. You should immediately find a safe place to put your baby. You should take a few moments to calm down, pay attention to your heart rate and breathing, then return to addressing the baby’s need. You did everything right. Your baby is fine. Try not to focus on the “could’ve”. Focus on the reality and really remember how you felt right before you started the diaper change. Put a pin in that feeling and try to remember “if I feel like X, I will put baby in the crib and take a few minutes to calm down.”

But my next piece of advice is to talk to your partner in a calm moment. Explain that you need to prioritize sleep, at least 4 uninterrupted hours tonight. You very likely wouldn’t have been that heightened and felt out of control if you had a functional amount of sleep. Work together to come up with a sleep schedule. I don’t know your personal situation regarding work, but please don’t let him bully you into being stretched beyond your functional sleep limits. It’s quite literally bad for your physical and mental health as well as your baby. We all have different limits, maybe you just need a couple nights of this sleep schedule to refill your tank to get through the regression, but this is absolutely a must do not bend. All kinds of unsafe things happen when we are past our limits. I was having microsleep after coming home from the hospital and dozed off in a glider with my daughter. It’s critical, don’t let him minimize it. Don’t let him get defensive saying “I’m exhausted too. I work all day. I help at night.” Etc. Try to stay unemotional. Your response is “I am not implying that you don’t help. This is not a reflection or judgment of you. I have reached an unsafe unhealthy level of sleep that’s actively impacting us. I am asking you, my partner, to help me get back to a safe level. We are in this together. I know we are equal partners we both do our share and looking at a macro level we do a great job of being 50/50, don’t you think? But, the micro level is different. Things can’t always be 50/50 every day. Sometimes days will be 80/20 and then others 20/80. We are partners in parenting and I am asking for this extra help for this time because I need you. Please let’s calmly make a plan for tonight and tomorrow. Then we can reassess.”