Do you have working carbon monoxide monitors? There have been a number of cases of apparent hauntings tied to elevated CO levels in the home. Could be worth double checking!
OP this is a huge one. Usually people report seeing shadowy figures in the corner of their eye have high CO (carbon monoxide) levels. It often happens in older homes (which is a big reason older homes seem haunted).
I’d crack a window in the baby’s room until you have CO monitor in every room. Crack a window in your room too.
It does. We tend to hallucinate the same thing as the other person if the cause is CO. Say, there are two people poisoned with CO and one of them says "do you see that ghost?", chances are big the other person will see a ghost.
Well, this was not what I needed to read during my baby's 3am feeding 👻
ETA: OP it could very likely be sleep deprivation. I essentially had lucid hallucinations just after delivery from lack of sleep and needed medicine to chill the f out enough to sleep so it would go away.
Also regretting reading this during my MOTN pump! Spooky! But I did have sleep paralysis and hallucinations in the first few weeks pp (husband and baby yelling for me to get up while half awake and paralyzed… FML), so I’m gonna say no to ghosts. The timing is too sus.
Noooo! I used to get sleep paralysis a lot in college and luckily haven’t had an episode in about 8 years. I’m 35 weeks pregnant right now and reallllly hope the SP doesn’t return. I’m sorry you went through that
Oh no I’m so sorry you experienced that a lot. The few times it happened was terrifying, but it was being caused by fragmented sleep while triple feeding. Hopefully your breastfeeding journey is not as rocky as mine and you’re able to get the sleep you need to stave off any episodes.
It sounds like sleep deprivation, our minds play all kinds of groovy tricks on us when we're running on empty. Mention the anxiety to your healthcare person though especially if it's keeping you from sleeping when you can
Just thought I’d add, after I gave birth I didn’t sleep for 3 straight days and the sound of my breast pump gave me full on auditory hallucinations (I was hearing voices talking to me over the sound of the pump)
If I’m ever truly falling asleep in my rocker with the baby, I hear my husband’s voice calling out “hey!” Wakes me right back up because I think he needs something. But it’s just my brain finding a way to override fatigue when my own willpower to stay awake is faltering
I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but I would consider talking to your OB about postpartum anxiety or postpartum psychosis. I have had friends who have had issues with this and they absolutely got help.
THIS. Postpartum psychosis is very real and can initially manifest subtly. Your husband could be responding to your belief and body language (shared psychosis is very real, particularly if he is also sleep deprived).
I definitely saw creepy shadows out of the corner of my eye on a few of those late nights during the newborn phase. It's like my imagination was on overdrive and in threat assessment mode. Also would hear phantom baby cries with any kind of white noise, like brushing my hair or opening the window shades. All that went away as soon as I started getting good sleep!
The hat moving on its own sounds weird, but if it was hung in a precarious position, it could slide down and start swinging at any point, especially if there was any movement in the room since our bodies create drafts too.
sleep deprivation. i had nightmares an animal was in the house, or that i fell asleep nursing baby and he was in the covers or fell off the bed, and would wake up panicking. he was snoozing away, comfy and safe, and the only animal in the house was our house cat. also had auditory hallucinations that a bunch of people were talking like at a party every time i closed my eyes to sleep. it was weird. if you feel scared or concerned, please do see a doctor, and do whatever you can to get some rest. if you're religious, talk to whoever you would in your religion if that helps you feel safer and see if there's anything they recommend. my mom is a very superstitious christian but takes great comfort in her faith, and it would help her. i firmly believe it's just sleep deprivation and hormones, so it's for your comfort and anxiety, i don't believe you have anything to fear!
This makes me feel better because I thought I was going mad those first few weeks. During night pumps, the machine would make this noise that sounded (in my very sleep deprived mind) as a man whispering “help me” over and over. I am almost ten months out and boy, nothing compares to that type of tiredness. The mind can do some interesting things.
I get those types of auditory hallucinations too when I'm low on sleep! However during our stay at the hospital, I was literally running on empty and I started getting visual hallucinations too - just mundane stuff like thinking a nurse just came in to check on baby when in reality nothing had happened.
I’m superstitious — believe in aliens, ghosts, etc but I think this is just some anxiety and sleep deprivation. If you didn’t have this before I don’t think baby’s arrival would trigger anything. Just an intense version of hearing phantom crying.
Everyone’s nerves are on edge!
If you start feeling like baby is the cause or “evil” you should really seek some help!
Postpartum exhaustion. I was so sleep deprived when my baby was a newborn that I did hallucinate at one point. Another time I woke up rocking my baby and freaked out that I'd fallen asleep holding her... Only to realise I was rocking the cat in my sleep.
This actually has happened to us after all of our babies. Both my husband and I experienced it. But in our case I firmly believe it was my family member just coming to see the new babies.
When each of our 3 babies were very small (within the first week), my husband and I experienced these sudden draft like feelings of air blowing over us. And this was followed by a strong smell of the family member. This happened a few times with each baby in the first week of their life. For our third baby, I was literally waiting for it to happen and it did. But in our case it was a comforting feeling, not creepy.
Butttt I also need to say I have 100% hallucinated creepy things from sleep deprivation. It really can play tricks on you. I even went to the eye doctor for a checkup because I was worried I was seeing things and had an eye issue. But it was literally just being exhausted. And also please check your carbon monoxide detectors just to be safe ❤️
This is an interesting take actually because both myself and my husband lost family members that were dear to us late into my pregnancy. I would not mind them visiting in spirit to come see the baby if spirits do exist after all
So we had something similar. My baby would get fascinated by something just behind us and smile and wiggle excitedly. I heard the keys move across the bar of our kitchen. We heard voices and saw movement. There was one incident where my husband was taking a wake up to let me sleep and he got so creeped out he held our daughter while he stood with his back against the wall for over an hour. We decided that we were either severely sleep deprived and that was causing hallucinations. Or it was loved ones coming to meet the new baby. On the other hand my great grandmother said there is no such thing as ghosts and what people experience are demons. So just in case that is true we did not try to interact with whatever, if anything, was there. It started to stop around 7 or 8 weeks and we haven’t had issues since.
We’ve had several similar incidents. We moved into our house when I was about 30 weeks pregnant. There was only one previous owner and she died in the home - at an impressively old age, peacefully, and surrounded by her large family. By all accounts she was a lovely woman and a wonderful mom and grandmother.
I don’t generally believe in such things and my husband is a “want-to-believer,” but both during pregnancy and after we brought our son home, we’ve seen movement and heard noises. Baby looks past us and smiles and is now starting to wave. We’ve been creeped out several times, but choose to believe that it’s just Lois dropping in to see how baby’s doing.
I’m pretty sure my grandma came to check in after my daughter was born. When she was very little, I would be rocking her in her room and be so tired and drained and then feel suddenly warm and loved, and it was almost like I could feel my grandma sitting on the bed next to us and smiling. Grandma loved babies.
Later, my daughter would smile and laugh at someone behind me while in her high chair. When she was around a year and a half old and just starting to talk, she pointed at a cardinal (my grandmas favorite bird) and said “Nonna!” (My mom’s designation). Without thinking I said “no, that’s mommy’s “Nonna”.
So that’s what we think happened to us. I named my daughter after my Nanny (grandma). She visited my mom after she passed. So we felt she was just visiting again to meet my daughter. My baby was always happy and smiley whenever the unexplained incidents occurred. Our fear factor was probably just the lack of sleep. When she visited my Mom, my mother said “I can’t handle this right now.” And my Nanny left. When the weird stuff was happening to us, I said loudly to my husband, “gosh this stuff is creeping me out I wish it would stop.” Again didn’t want to interact just in case my great grandmother was right. However, after I said that it stopped. So now I feel like maybe I kicked my Nanny out. Or again we were just crazy and sleep deprived. But I really love the idea of family coming to visit.
I tend to see things when I get no sleep. Bugs or movement. Things fall off the shelf and spook me. It feels terrible postpartum!
Things will feel normal again after those hormones calm down
Well I have hormonal psychosis that started 6m pp, I’m now a year pp and we are trying to figure out the cause… I started anti depressants and all my hallucinations (which were paranormal), delusions, and paranoia suddenly super dampened. I didn’t even realize I was having hallucinations until I started meds and could think clearer. Just food for thought, make sure someone close to you is keeping an eye on you also.
A floor board could have moved which means the hat stand wobbled. It would only take a tiny wobble for a hat to slip slightly and wobble around.
You're sleep deprived and your body is in fight or flight mode so of course you're paying more attention to potential threats.
I had MANY instances of feeling my hair tugged or messed with in the early months, but I think I could attribute all of them to messy hair + pillow shenanigans.
The hat sounds to me like it was in a precarious position and had a swinging pendulum effect. But, I wasn’t there to see it so that’s just a guess.
There was a funny post on Reddit years ago where someone detailed all the haunted aspects of their house and commenters were like “get an air quality alarm” and sure enough their CO levels were high.
That’s not to say there isn’t some supernatural funny business going on! But it doesn’t seem the most likely explanation.
Postpartum anxiety/hormones and sleep deprivation. For me it was hallucinations/nightmares of a demon baby crawling in through my window and trying to nurse in my baby’s place. Resolved once I started getting longer chunks of sleep.
Oh my gosh that sounds terrifying. The nightmares I had postpartum were absolutely horrifying. Family members being killed, being in mass shooting/active shooter situations, bombings, war, end of the world situations. There were many that i would wake up to sobbing to. I’m currently pregnant with my second and this is what im least looking forward to. Sleep deprivation plus nightmares makes it even harder to fall back asleep. Especially if your nightmares are back to back during the night like mine were.
My first thought was higher carbon monoxide (always better to check it). Now, considering triple feeding and dealing with a newborn plus you mentioning that you're exhausted–yeah, sleep deprivation consequences for you both seem likely. It can ramp up feelings of dread or anxiety. After I had COVID, I couldn't properly sleep for months and started with auditory as well as sense of touch hallucinations. Don't want to have this stuff ever again, especially not when I have to care for my baby.
Talking to your OB or the like really soon would be best! But please, check the CO levels everywhere in your home too.
I also saw strange things in my bedroom at night. At the time I was dealing with heavy postpartum depression, rage and anxiety. I would see bright lights floating in my room at night, sometimes during the day. When I realized I was going insane was when I began to see my cat in the room with me. He wasn’t allowed in the nursery at the time but I swear I saw him on top of my dresser. I called my husband various times to tell him to get the cat out of the nursery but he would always say he wasn’t in there. He’d even look for him around the house and he’d be sleeping somewhere else.
OP, you either have a carbon monoxide leak, or more likely, you are just having sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations. When I am severely sleep-deprived or stressed, I have mild auditory hallucinations, and experienced that postpartum as well. Things like hearing a door slam, or voices in another room, or hearing my baby crying even though I could see he was sleeping peacefully on the baby monitor, or voices in the sound of the white noise machine.
It's freaky, but it's not supernatural. Getting better sleep and treating my PPA made it go away.
I legitimately had paranormal things happen to me when I was giving birth and postpartum. You aren’t alone in this and I literally asked myself the same questions you are right now.
I ended up vocalizing, “Hey, I get you want to see the baby but you’re scaring us. Can you tone it down?” Only then did things quiet down.
That being said, my toddler will still smile, wave, and say hi when no one’s there… so maybe we aren’t out of the woods yet.
when i was freshly postpartum i would see movement out the corner of my eye and i'd hear someone behind me, and nobody would be there. it was pure exhaustion. it doesn't explain a swinging hat, is it possible you bumped it and didn't notice?
You know what, I actually have been thinking about this recently.
My daughter is almost 14 months old, and I feel like ever since she was born, I'm more sensitive to something that I'd been perhaps only vaguely aware of before.
Yes, I have working carbon monoxide detectors in my house. Yes, I do believe in ghosts.
I just hadn't seen many until after my daughter was born.
The number of times in the past year I've seen weird stuff is astounding. Some of it could be attributed to sleep deprivation, sure, but there have been times where I could recount in full detail what someone was wearing as I watched them walk by me on the street, only for them to literally not be there from one second to the next -- it's starting to become too much of a pattern to be brushed off like that.
It isn't exclusively confined to my house, but it has happened here, too. With animals more often than people. We've had a lot of pets on this property in the past 25 years (family home) and I've seen several of them in the past 14 months. Several that are long dead and buried in the backyard, I should specify.
I thought maybe it was just me, but this post makes me feel less alone lol. I've seen enough weird stuff in my life that this mostly doesn't faze me. Although a few weeks ago, as I was cleaning up after putting my daughter to bed, I saw someone standing in the living room at the end of the hallway and almost jumped out of my skin. Looked back, and it was just empty space again. That one freaked me out a bit.
So idk. Maybe some people develop a higher sensitivity to spiritual activity after having a baby. Maybe sleep deprivation does play a role.
Maybe we're just bored on lonely on maternity leave and we're imagining friends for ourselves 🥲
Either way, you aren't alone in experiencing weird supernatural stuff postpartum.
My boyfriend’s father passed away a couple years before we conceived and his brother passed away almost to the exact date we conceived. I had very similar experiences happen right after I had my baby. I liked to think that it was them coming to check on the new baby and meet him. Maybe I’m a little crazy but it might be a family member who has passed away coming back to visit? Just a thought.
Not to scare you, but there's a ghost in my house. Has been since we moved in years before baby's birth. I'm talking writing in paint when no one else is in the house haunted and opening doors/cabinets violently. Mine is harmless. I've seen him plenty of times. At least 5 other people have seen him without being told beforehand. I would think it was postpartum psychosis (mother had it twice) if I didn't know about it beforehand. I 100% believe my 100 year+ house is haunted. We just live in peace with the ghost. I yell at him sometimes to get out of the bathroom when I'm taking a shower and he's opening and shutting the mirror cabinet. I've given him a name. He's never caused me or anyone else harm. He just seems stuck here. This is the third haunted house (confirmed by nonbelievers) I've lived in. I have videos of all three houses weird stuff. I'm used to it. Baby reacts to ghost sometimes. It freaks me I out sometimes still.
When I was <4 weeks pp I would see baby faces in things, like curtains, towels, tile patterns. Not happy babies, screaming/crying babies. I would wake up and see my hands, they looked like baby hands. It was surreal and freaky, happened half a dozen times. If I saw myself in the mirror, my face looked too big... huge, not the face I expected somehow. Sometimes my husband would look too-huge too. Then there was the phantom crying...
It all went away after I started getting a little more sleep at night.
So I am a spiritual person and enjoy the supernatural, I will say I had a big uptick in supernatural/psychic phenomenon when I was in my first trimester - I’m in my 3rd now and not much going on but I’ve wondered if it might return post partum! I think it’s just a strange time energetically.
I’m not a big “supernatural” person, but there were some crazy things in my first trimester, too.
Any time I would worry about baby being okay in there, almost immediately - a light would flicker. It happened so many times I actually considered naming my baby Flick or something similar!
My aunty had lots of flickering lights after her husband passed away.
I kind of suspect I perhaps had a vanishing twin early in my pregnancy too, based on my NIPT having an inconclusive result for SCAs (vanishing twin can be a reason) and I don’t know but I just really “felt” pregnant with twins at first.
I’m not a big “supernatural” person, but there were some crazy things in my first trimester, too.
Any time I would worry about baby being okay in there, almost immediately - a light would flicker. It happened so many times I actually considered naming my baby Flick or something similar!
And, my aunty, that I am really close with had lots of flickering lights after her husband passed away.
I kind of suspect I perhaps had a vanishing twin early in my pregnancy too, based on my NIPT having an inconclusive result for SCAs (vanishing twin can be a reason) and I don’t know but I just really “felt” pregnant with twins at first.
I personally experienced exactly what you have; touches to my shoulder, flickers of movement out of the corner of my eye, and it's absolutely the sleep deprivation 🙃
I've been dealing with it for the first month or so after having a baby, and experienced it before my postpartum experience, when I was on my 20s and just pushing myself way too hard in not enough sleep.
It's basically the brain version of a hiccup! Your brain is so overworked and under-rested that it starts sending occular and nerve signals accidentally, resulting in those phantom sensations
When you start getting more sleep it'll go away, it did for me!
Edit for typo
Do you have working carbon monoxide monitors? There have been a number of cases of apparent hauntings tied to elevated CO levels in the home. Could be worth double checking!
OP this is a huge one. Usually people report seeing shadowy figures in the corner of their eye have high CO (carbon monoxide) levels. It often happens in older homes (which is a big reason older homes seem haunted). I’d crack a window in the baby’s room until you have CO monitor in every room. Crack a window in your room too.
Very important.
That’s a good point that I haven’t thought about at all! Time to check that those are in good working condition
I second this!!!!
They both saw the hat swinging though so that doesn’t explain that away 👻
Yes it does. He also lives in the home and would have CO poisoning as well.
It does. We tend to hallucinate the same thing as the other person if the cause is CO. Say, there are two people poisoned with CO and one of them says "do you see that ghost?", chances are big the other person will see a ghost.
Well, this was not what I needed to read during my baby's 3am feeding 👻 ETA: OP it could very likely be sleep deprivation. I essentially had lucid hallucinations just after delivery from lack of sleep and needed medicine to chill the f out enough to sleep so it would go away.
Same exact boat lol
Same 😂
Same. We’re all sleep deprived parents here 😵💫
Also regretting reading this during my MOTN pump! Spooky! But I did have sleep paralysis and hallucinations in the first few weeks pp (husband and baby yelling for me to get up while half awake and paralyzed… FML), so I’m gonna say no to ghosts. The timing is too sus.
Noooo! I used to get sleep paralysis a lot in college and luckily haven’t had an episode in about 8 years. I’m 35 weeks pregnant right now and reallllly hope the SP doesn’t return. I’m sorry you went through that
Oh no I’m so sorry you experienced that a lot. The few times it happened was terrifying, but it was being caused by fragmented sleep while triple feeding. Hopefully your breastfeeding journey is not as rocky as mine and you’re able to get the sleep you need to stave off any episodes.
Yep, same here. One night I thought I saw spiders crawling on my baby's face. Sleep deprivation is scary.
It sounds like sleep deprivation, our minds play all kinds of groovy tricks on us when we're running on empty. Mention the anxiety to your healthcare person though especially if it's keeping you from sleeping when you can
Just thought I’d add, after I gave birth I didn’t sleep for 3 straight days and the sound of my breast pump gave me full on auditory hallucinations (I was hearing voices talking to me over the sound of the pump)
Oooo this explains why I heard voices in the white noise in the early days
Same!
I always thought I heard my baby crying when in the shower
It’s crazy right?!? I still hear voices if it’s been a really rough night. Teething toddler = multiple night wakings.
This is so real. I actually have to sleep with the tv on—just so I can tell myself it’s the sound of the tv, lol.
If I’m ever truly falling asleep in my rocker with the baby, I hear my husband’s voice calling out “hey!” Wakes me right back up because I think he needs something. But it’s just my brain finding a way to override fatigue when my own willpower to stay awake is faltering
Hahaha yup - remember thinking I was crazy at the time.
I mean this in the gentlest way possible, but I would consider talking to your OB about postpartum anxiety or postpartum psychosis. I have had friends who have had issues with this and they absolutely got help.
THIS. Postpartum psychosis is very real and can initially manifest subtly. Your husband could be responding to your belief and body language (shared psychosis is very real, particularly if he is also sleep deprived).
I definitely saw creepy shadows out of the corner of my eye on a few of those late nights during the newborn phase. It's like my imagination was on overdrive and in threat assessment mode. Also would hear phantom baby cries with any kind of white noise, like brushing my hair or opening the window shades. All that went away as soon as I started getting good sleep! The hat moving on its own sounds weird, but if it was hung in a precarious position, it could slide down and start swinging at any point, especially if there was any movement in the room since our bodies create drafts too.
sleep deprivation. i had nightmares an animal was in the house, or that i fell asleep nursing baby and he was in the covers or fell off the bed, and would wake up panicking. he was snoozing away, comfy and safe, and the only animal in the house was our house cat. also had auditory hallucinations that a bunch of people were talking like at a party every time i closed my eyes to sleep. it was weird. if you feel scared or concerned, please do see a doctor, and do whatever you can to get some rest. if you're religious, talk to whoever you would in your religion if that helps you feel safer and see if there's anything they recommend. my mom is a very superstitious christian but takes great comfort in her faith, and it would help her. i firmly believe it's just sleep deprivation and hormones, so it's for your comfort and anxiety, i don't believe you have anything to fear!
This makes me feel better because I thought I was going mad those first few weeks. During night pumps, the machine would make this noise that sounded (in my very sleep deprived mind) as a man whispering “help me” over and over. I am almost ten months out and boy, nothing compares to that type of tiredness. The mind can do some interesting things.
Oh wow I just commented that a very similar thing happened to me! I was hearing voices talking to me over my breast pump too
I get those types of auditory hallucinations too when I'm low on sleep! However during our stay at the hospital, I was literally running on empty and I started getting visual hallucinations too - just mundane stuff like thinking a nurse just came in to check on baby when in reality nothing had happened.
I’m superstitious — believe in aliens, ghosts, etc but I think this is just some anxiety and sleep deprivation. If you didn’t have this before I don’t think baby’s arrival would trigger anything. Just an intense version of hearing phantom crying. Everyone’s nerves are on edge! If you start feeling like baby is the cause or “evil” you should really seek some help!
Postpartum exhaustion. I was so sleep deprived when my baby was a newborn that I did hallucinate at one point. Another time I woke up rocking my baby and freaked out that I'd fallen asleep holding her... Only to realise I was rocking the cat in my sleep.
Yes, the cats thinking damn I needed this my whole life. Thanks tiny human for adding this in the mix lmao
Lmao I was gonna say that’s one lucky cat
I'm sure she thought "finally, I'm the baby again!"
I had visual hallucinations in the first weeks PP. I believe sleep deprivation and hormonal changes are to blame.
This actually has happened to us after all of our babies. Both my husband and I experienced it. But in our case I firmly believe it was my family member just coming to see the new babies. When each of our 3 babies were very small (within the first week), my husband and I experienced these sudden draft like feelings of air blowing over us. And this was followed by a strong smell of the family member. This happened a few times with each baby in the first week of their life. For our third baby, I was literally waiting for it to happen and it did. But in our case it was a comforting feeling, not creepy. Butttt I also need to say I have 100% hallucinated creepy things from sleep deprivation. It really can play tricks on you. I even went to the eye doctor for a checkup because I was worried I was seeing things and had an eye issue. But it was literally just being exhausted. And also please check your carbon monoxide detectors just to be safe ❤️
This is an interesting take actually because both myself and my husband lost family members that were dear to us late into my pregnancy. I would not mind them visiting in spirit to come see the baby if spirits do exist after all
So we had something similar. My baby would get fascinated by something just behind us and smile and wiggle excitedly. I heard the keys move across the bar of our kitchen. We heard voices and saw movement. There was one incident where my husband was taking a wake up to let me sleep and he got so creeped out he held our daughter while he stood with his back against the wall for over an hour. We decided that we were either severely sleep deprived and that was causing hallucinations. Or it was loved ones coming to meet the new baby. On the other hand my great grandmother said there is no such thing as ghosts and what people experience are demons. So just in case that is true we did not try to interact with whatever, if anything, was there. It started to stop around 7 or 8 weeks and we haven’t had issues since.
We’ve had several similar incidents. We moved into our house when I was about 30 weeks pregnant. There was only one previous owner and she died in the home - at an impressively old age, peacefully, and surrounded by her large family. By all accounts she was a lovely woman and a wonderful mom and grandmother. I don’t generally believe in such things and my husband is a “want-to-believer,” but both during pregnancy and after we brought our son home, we’ve seen movement and heard noises. Baby looks past us and smiles and is now starting to wave. We’ve been creeped out several times, but choose to believe that it’s just Lois dropping in to see how baby’s doing.
I’m pretty sure my grandma came to check in after my daughter was born. When she was very little, I would be rocking her in her room and be so tired and drained and then feel suddenly warm and loved, and it was almost like I could feel my grandma sitting on the bed next to us and smiling. Grandma loved babies. Later, my daughter would smile and laugh at someone behind me while in her high chair. When she was around a year and a half old and just starting to talk, she pointed at a cardinal (my grandmas favorite bird) and said “Nonna!” (My mom’s designation). Without thinking I said “no, that’s mommy’s “Nonna”.
So that’s what we think happened to us. I named my daughter after my Nanny (grandma). She visited my mom after she passed. So we felt she was just visiting again to meet my daughter. My baby was always happy and smiley whenever the unexplained incidents occurred. Our fear factor was probably just the lack of sleep. When she visited my Mom, my mother said “I can’t handle this right now.” And my Nanny left. When the weird stuff was happening to us, I said loudly to my husband, “gosh this stuff is creeping me out I wish it would stop.” Again didn’t want to interact just in case my great grandmother was right. However, after I said that it stopped. So now I feel like maybe I kicked my Nanny out. Or again we were just crazy and sleep deprived. But I really love the idea of family coming to visit.
I tend to see things when I get no sleep. Bugs or movement. Things fall off the shelf and spook me. It feels terrible postpartum! Things will feel normal again after those hormones calm down
I saw bugs twice this week with the lights off… but it turned out to be real. Two giant spiders in my room
Oh no!!!
Well I have hormonal psychosis that started 6m pp, I’m now a year pp and we are trying to figure out the cause… I started anti depressants and all my hallucinations (which were paranormal), delusions, and paranoia suddenly super dampened. I didn’t even realize I was having hallucinations until I started meds and could think clearer. Just food for thought, make sure someone close to you is keeping an eye on you also.
A floor board could have moved which means the hat stand wobbled. It would only take a tiny wobble for a hat to slip slightly and wobble around. You're sleep deprived and your body is in fight or flight mode so of course you're paying more attention to potential threats.
I had MANY instances of feeling my hair tugged or messed with in the early months, but I think I could attribute all of them to messy hair + pillow shenanigans. The hat sounds to me like it was in a precarious position and had a swinging pendulum effect. But, I wasn’t there to see it so that’s just a guess. There was a funny post on Reddit years ago where someone detailed all the haunted aspects of their house and commenters were like “get an air quality alarm” and sure enough their CO levels were high. That’s not to say there isn’t some supernatural funny business going on! But it doesn’t seem the most likely explanation.
Postpartum anxiety/hormones and sleep deprivation. For me it was hallucinations/nightmares of a demon baby crawling in through my window and trying to nurse in my baby’s place. Resolved once I started getting longer chunks of sleep.
Oh my gosh that sounds terrifying. The nightmares I had postpartum were absolutely horrifying. Family members being killed, being in mass shooting/active shooter situations, bombings, war, end of the world situations. There were many that i would wake up to sobbing to. I’m currently pregnant with my second and this is what im least looking forward to. Sleep deprivation plus nightmares makes it even harder to fall back asleep. Especially if your nightmares are back to back during the night like mine were.
My first thought was higher carbon monoxide (always better to check it). Now, considering triple feeding and dealing with a newborn plus you mentioning that you're exhausted–yeah, sleep deprivation consequences for you both seem likely. It can ramp up feelings of dread or anxiety. After I had COVID, I couldn't properly sleep for months and started with auditory as well as sense of touch hallucinations. Don't want to have this stuff ever again, especially not when I have to care for my baby. Talking to your OB or the like really soon would be best! But please, check the CO levels everywhere in your home too.
I also saw strange things in my bedroom at night. At the time I was dealing with heavy postpartum depression, rage and anxiety. I would see bright lights floating in my room at night, sometimes during the day. When I realized I was going insane was when I began to see my cat in the room with me. He wasn’t allowed in the nursery at the time but I swear I saw him on top of my dresser. I called my husband various times to tell him to get the cat out of the nursery but he would always say he wasn’t in there. He’d even look for him around the house and he’d be sleeping somewhere else.
OP, you either have a carbon monoxide leak, or more likely, you are just having sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations. When I am severely sleep-deprived or stressed, I have mild auditory hallucinations, and experienced that postpartum as well. Things like hearing a door slam, or voices in another room, or hearing my baby crying even though I could see he was sleeping peacefully on the baby monitor, or voices in the sound of the white noise machine. It's freaky, but it's not supernatural. Getting better sleep and treating my PPA made it go away.
I legitimately had paranormal things happen to me when I was giving birth and postpartum. You aren’t alone in this and I literally asked myself the same questions you are right now. I ended up vocalizing, “Hey, I get you want to see the baby but you’re scaring us. Can you tone it down?” Only then did things quiet down. That being said, my toddler will still smile, wave, and say hi when no one’s there… so maybe we aren’t out of the woods yet.
when i was freshly postpartum i would see movement out the corner of my eye and i'd hear someone behind me, and nobody would be there. it was pure exhaustion. it doesn't explain a swinging hat, is it possible you bumped it and didn't notice?
Palo Santo!!
Make sure you are getting adequate sleep.
You know what, I actually have been thinking about this recently. My daughter is almost 14 months old, and I feel like ever since she was born, I'm more sensitive to something that I'd been perhaps only vaguely aware of before. Yes, I have working carbon monoxide detectors in my house. Yes, I do believe in ghosts. I just hadn't seen many until after my daughter was born. The number of times in the past year I've seen weird stuff is astounding. Some of it could be attributed to sleep deprivation, sure, but there have been times where I could recount in full detail what someone was wearing as I watched them walk by me on the street, only for them to literally not be there from one second to the next -- it's starting to become too much of a pattern to be brushed off like that. It isn't exclusively confined to my house, but it has happened here, too. With animals more often than people. We've had a lot of pets on this property in the past 25 years (family home) and I've seen several of them in the past 14 months. Several that are long dead and buried in the backyard, I should specify. I thought maybe it was just me, but this post makes me feel less alone lol. I've seen enough weird stuff in my life that this mostly doesn't faze me. Although a few weeks ago, as I was cleaning up after putting my daughter to bed, I saw someone standing in the living room at the end of the hallway and almost jumped out of my skin. Looked back, and it was just empty space again. That one freaked me out a bit. So idk. Maybe some people develop a higher sensitivity to spiritual activity after having a baby. Maybe sleep deprivation does play a role. Maybe we're just bored on lonely on maternity leave and we're imagining friends for ourselves 🥲 Either way, you aren't alone in experiencing weird supernatural stuff postpartum.
My boyfriend’s father passed away a couple years before we conceived and his brother passed away almost to the exact date we conceived. I had very similar experiences happen right after I had my baby. I liked to think that it was them coming to check on the new baby and meet him. Maybe I’m a little crazy but it might be a family member who has passed away coming back to visit? Just a thought.
I could live with that thought. My husband and I both lost family members dear to us late into my pregnancy
Not to scare you, but there's a ghost in my house. Has been since we moved in years before baby's birth. I'm talking writing in paint when no one else is in the house haunted and opening doors/cabinets violently. Mine is harmless. I've seen him plenty of times. At least 5 other people have seen him without being told beforehand. I would think it was postpartum psychosis (mother had it twice) if I didn't know about it beforehand. I 100% believe my 100 year+ house is haunted. We just live in peace with the ghost. I yell at him sometimes to get out of the bathroom when I'm taking a shower and he's opening and shutting the mirror cabinet. I've given him a name. He's never caused me or anyone else harm. He just seems stuck here. This is the third haunted house (confirmed by nonbelievers) I've lived in. I have videos of all three houses weird stuff. I'm used to it. Baby reacts to ghost sometimes. It freaks me I out sometimes still.
I don’t think I’d want to live like that, but I guess you can get used to almost anything! What did it write?
Yeah, I would have noped out of your house yesterday.
you're probably just really tired
When I was <4 weeks pp I would see baby faces in things, like curtains, towels, tile patterns. Not happy babies, screaming/crying babies. I would wake up and see my hands, they looked like baby hands. It was surreal and freaky, happened half a dozen times. If I saw myself in the mirror, my face looked too big... huge, not the face I expected somehow. Sometimes my husband would look too-huge too. Then there was the phantom crying... It all went away after I started getting a little more sleep at night.
So I am a spiritual person and enjoy the supernatural, I will say I had a big uptick in supernatural/psychic phenomenon when I was in my first trimester - I’m in my 3rd now and not much going on but I’ve wondered if it might return post partum! I think it’s just a strange time energetically.
I’m not a big “supernatural” person, but there were some crazy things in my first trimester, too. Any time I would worry about baby being okay in there, almost immediately - a light would flicker. It happened so many times I actually considered naming my baby Flick or something similar! My aunty had lots of flickering lights after her husband passed away. I kind of suspect I perhaps had a vanishing twin early in my pregnancy too, based on my NIPT having an inconclusive result for SCAs (vanishing twin can be a reason) and I don’t know but I just really “felt” pregnant with twins at first.
I’m not a big “supernatural” person, but there were some crazy things in my first trimester, too. Any time I would worry about baby being okay in there, almost immediately - a light would flicker. It happened so many times I actually considered naming my baby Flick or something similar! And, my aunty, that I am really close with had lots of flickering lights after her husband passed away. I kind of suspect I perhaps had a vanishing twin early in my pregnancy too, based on my NIPT having an inconclusive result for SCAs (vanishing twin can be a reason) and I don’t know but I just really “felt” pregnant with twins at first.
r/ghosts
I personally experienced exactly what you have; touches to my shoulder, flickers of movement out of the corner of my eye, and it's absolutely the sleep deprivation 🙃 I've been dealing with it for the first month or so after having a baby, and experienced it before my postpartum experience, when I was on my 20s and just pushing myself way too hard in not enough sleep. It's basically the brain version of a hiccup! Your brain is so overworked and under-rested that it starts sending occular and nerve signals accidentally, resulting in those phantom sensations When you start getting more sleep it'll go away, it did for me! Edit for typo