Does locking myself in the bathroom for 5 minutes to escape the baby crying and chaos make me a bad mom?

Question from Alejandra G., 29, Medellín, Colombia. Mom to a 2-month-old baby boy, Alex.

Alejandra hasn’t slept more than 3 hours at a time in weeks and sometimes hides in the bathroom just to cry or take a breath. Her partner is supportive, but works long shifts, and she’s been feeling ashamed of how often she needs to "escape."

Mama, 

I’m writing this to the version of you sitting on the bathroom floor, behind a locked door, baby still crying somewhere on the other side… wondering if taking five minutes to yourself makes you a bad mom.

It doesn’t.
It makes you a mom who’s at her limit. And that is so, so real.

I’ve been there — sweating through a nursing bra, covered in milk stains and baby tears (and sometimes my own), heart pounding, ears ringing, wondering how I was going to make it through the next hour. My twins were both crying. I was touched out, maxed out, and terrified that stepping away meant I was failing them somehow.

But you know what?
Locking the door didn’t make me neglectful. It made me desperate for oxygen. It was my way of saying: “I need five minutes of no one needing me so I can come back and be me again.”

And maybe no one told you this yet, so let me be the one:
You matter just as much as your baby does.
Your nervous system, your breath, your limits — they matter.

Sometimes the kindest, safest thing we can do for everyone in the house… is to walk away for a few minutes.
To sit on the cool bathroom tile.
To cry. Or scroll. Or just breathe.

And guess what? That little pause is parenting.

That is you, being wise and human and deeply aware of how to protect your own breaking point — so you don’t break.

There will be days when it all feels like too much. You are not failing.
You are meeting the moment with what you have.
And some days, five quiet minutes alone is all you’ve got. But that five minutes is powerful. It’s survival.

So no, you’re not a bad mom.
You’re just a good mom… trying to hang onto herself.

With love from another mom trying to keep herself together,
Lina P.