New Dad Struggling

Hi guys,

I am a new dad, my daughter was born 2 weeks ago today and I mean it when I say that I am over the moon! She is beautiful and I love her to pieces.. However, I am really starting to crack, mainly due to the sleep deprivation, but there are other factors. I work shifts, so I am used to having little/low quality sleep, and I guess I didn't think the extra loss of sleep would effect me much, I was wrong. She is perfect all day, she sleeps, we wake her up to feed her, change her, burp her, and shes quickly off to sleep again... Night time is a completely different story. She wakes up, and she will NOT stop crying. We feed her, change her, burp her, change her again, burp her again, nothing will stop her from crying, and when she finally does stop crying and starts to look sleepy (after a few hours usually), we put her in her crib, only for her to start crying again. It is really getting to me. My Fiance copes a lot better than I do, she really is amazing, she was practically holding me together during the labour! The labour lasted 3 days and ended with a ventouse, forceps and an episiotomy, so it was tramatic to say the very least. Due to her lack of mobility and soreness following this, I have been looking after her as best I can, whilst also trying to look after our daughter, and the thought of going back to work on Monday is crippling me. All of these factors are taking their toll.. Last night, our daughter had been crying for abour 2 hours straight, we'd tried everything and nothing was working, so we took her downstairs to make another bottle up. As I was walking accross the kitchen, I stepped in something wet, I looked down and our dog had done a wee on the rug. Great. As I was cleaning it up, our daughter started basically screaming, and I cracked. I began to raise my voice to her telling her to be quiet. Just to be clear, I would 100% NEVER lay a finger on her, but I definately felt myself getting angry, even though I know it is not her fault, she is a newborn baby after all! To make things worse, my Fiance doesn't understand why I start raising my voice because she copes so well, so she thinks I'm just 'losing it too easily'. Last night she told me to 'f*** off' and took the baby into the other room. This completely raised the stress to a whole new level for me. Not only am I stressed out from the traumatic labour, juggling trying to look after my Fiance and the newborn, my return to work coming up and getting very little sleep, I now feel like I've let down my Fiance, who is the only person going through the same as me right now, and I feel a bit alone now. I also feel like I'm not being a good dad because I'm getting frustrated and blowing my top when she wont stop crying. Again, I would NEVER hurt her in any way. What can I do? It's beginning to turn into depression and I haven't even gone back to work yet! Thank you in advance for any advice.

ccook92 I am happy to know that you become a dad.. finally, your desire has come to end. It was your uttermost desire to be a dad. Look nature has awarded you with a daughter. Of course, she is beautiful because she is your daughter. She belongs to you. she is your princess. I can imagine what you want to say. But I am not finding strong and beautiful words for your admirations. Kids do the same. They usually awake at night and sleep at morning. But this is not for so long. Son, she will make up her routine according to your environment. Now I think you have understood that to be a dad is not an easy task. You have to awake at night. Lol. Cheers!!!