You're doing something ordinary, and a thought arrives that horrifies you. Then comes the fear about the thought itself: what kind of person thinks that? If you're having scary, unwanted thoughts after your baby arrived, you're not alone, and you're likely not the danger you fear. Here's what intrusive thoughts mean, what they don't, and what genuinely helps.

 It's 9:30 in the morning, the baby is asleep, and you've already stared at the same four walls for what feels like a full afternoon. New motherhood can be boring, and that doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. Here are five less obvious ideas for breaking out of the loop, plus when boredom might be telling you something more.

You tend to over analyze everything now, and it often takes you a long time to make a decision. It’s not just that though, you also intensely worry about the decisions you’ve made and how they will affect your baby. You’re confused about your symptoms. And since you don’t seem to fit in any box, you feel guilty and like you are failing as a mother.

Needless to say, your birth was nothing like you had hoped it would be. And as a result, you feel cheated. You blame yourself for everything that went wrong and feel betrayed by everyone who was supposed to be caring for you: your OB, the nursing staff, and maybe even your partner. Your sense of trust and safety has been turned upside down.

But one of the things you were not prepared for when you finally did become a family, was the toll the new baby would have on how well the two of you got along. No one fully understands how much their world changes when they bring a new baby home. In fact, you expect that you and your partner will be a team through the transition and figure things out together. You’ve both been so excited about this new chapter in your life together that you certainly don’t expect something so blissful to bring marital trouble.