To be horrified I used to wake at this time every day?

It’s a 5.10am wake up for me. Every single morning without fail!!

Agree that it’s not universal. Waking up at 3am due to menopause and/or teenagers is not universal either. I’m 53 and fabulously well rested right now.

Agreed. I have two teenagers and it's in no way more tiring than having two toddlers. Obviously, there will be exceptions and I certainly worry more (different worries from when they were tiny), but day to day it's so much easier.

Yes we live in Europe and school starts early. I am a “Smug” early riser so suits me.

My point really is I did years of horrendous lack of sleep due to autism, and now have lack of sleep due to menopause and young adults working and going out (he goes out a lot as well). All are bad in their own way.

I wouldn’t want to go back to the autism years (do some nights with ds1 still and don’t plan anything difficult for the next day) - but I do find being woken at 3am by others in the house hard - especially now I work full time outside the home. Lack of sleep impacts on my work now more than it did when ds1 was here as then I ran my own business and could work around that. Also I’m twenty years older & don’t have the same energy as I had in my thirties.

i don’t think there’s a hierarchy of sleep difficulties. Not getting enough sleep is horrible whatever the reason and it’s particularly bad when it is night after night after night.

I have had various jobs with long commutes where I had to get up at 5:30-6am. Yes it was hellish, and now I have a short commute and don’t have to get up until 8, and it is bliss! 8-9am is my “natural” waking up time, and midnight is my “natural” bedtime.

I'm perfectly well rested, been sleeping great since my youngest child was reliably sleeping til 7/8 am, which was when he was about 2.5-3.

Not all children actually do get up at the break of dawn. This is not universal.

No but ds3 works in hospitality so often finishes work at 1am or 2am & gets home an hour later.

Because they wake you up coming in. Ds3 is at the height of this. I prefer the nights out as he gets in at 5am rather than the work nights where he gets in at 2am.

i do find it a problem & I used to have a life like @SleeplessInWherever with ds1. 5am
was classed as fine. And I only really began to be unable to function at 2-3 hours of sleep for days on end. I don’t do many nights with ds1 now (he’s all
grown up & living in his own place with support) but I do find being woken by ds3 annoying.

I worked when ds1 was here but ran my own business so I could set the pace. Now I work full time outside the house and as someone else said upthread I find the brain stuff really hard on lack of sleep (menopause and noisy late arriving young adults).

I think the impact of poor sleep depends on so many factors. The amount of support around you is a big one. I was lucky to have family support around me and some good friends going through similar. That didn’t give me extra sleep but helped my mood - which can make things easier to bare.

@iusedto well said. I think we could be friends 😄

Haha, “Enjoy the toddler years, yes they are tiring but also incredibly special” is the same as “You got this, mama!” and other pointless blandishments when you are in the depths of hell. “The days are long but the years are short!” Yes, and?

I got through it with hot coffee, hotter showers, fresh air as early as possible (we were often in the playground at 7am along with one or two other dead-eyed parents), a lengthy and ongoing support thread on the MN Sleep board where other “let’s just endure this instead of sleep training” mothers kept me going. People could be very and darkly funny even on no hours sleep.

Word. My firstborn woke hourly until she was two, at which point she slept a little better (like, three-hour stretches) but the payoff was getting up at 4.30/5am. Unless your teenager is still cosleeping, breastfeeding and doing a massive poo at 5am, it’s not comparable.

And lmao at the idea of resting on the sofa at 5am with a toddler around. DS has just turned two and wants me to play on the floor with him, or scream at the door because it’s too early for the sun, or eat cereal so exuberantly you have to be on standby with a jet hose at all times.

The difference between babies and teenagers is you have to tend to a screaming baby when it wakes 18 times a night (cheers for that phase, DS). You don’t have to facilitate 4am swimming starts or collect your teenager at midnight: my parents’ rule was we could certainly go to parties, how did we plan on getting home? Because getting them up in the night wasn’t an option. If we didn’t have a lift or allowance left for a taxi, or a safe place to spend the night, we either didn’t go or we left when they were willing to drive us.

Obviously it’s all a choice – no one has to have a baby or a horse or a job with a commute – but suggesting decades of sleep deprivation is unrealistic. My dreadful hourly waker now sleeps through till past seven; DS sleeps through till six. Yeah, I’ve got peri insomnia but that’s nothing to do with children and can be improved with magnesium, HRT, kicking snoring DP into the spare room.

No, I think you are very strange. You have actually taken the time to go through all of my threads ( I had forgotten all about the xmas one!) and gone to such trouble to prove what?
It’s stalker behaviour! You must be very bored with your life to devote so much time to someone else’s life.

Every single friend of mine is knackered! We are menopausal, with healthy teens that have real lives! This is how it is if you are a caring, committed parent.

If I had known then what I know now I would have reset my expectations! Raising children well is tiring. That’s it.

I am just about to start work. Enjoy the toddler years, yes they are tiring but also incredibly special.

Thanks. Although (probably strangely), it’s not as difficult as you’d think anymore. We both work full time, 40+ hours a week - we’re also all asleep by 9pm every day!

That’s why I was curious how it worked with more regular sleepers, if that makes sense.

I’m in no way smug or superior for living an eternal life being awake. Certainly isn’t a thing I’ve enjoyed getting used to.

I was genuinely interested in if those with hopefully temporary sleep issues get used to it in the same way we do. Like if there’s hoardes of SEN parents living off no sleep, how different is it for the NT folk!

@SleeplessInWherever gosh that sounds hard, I'm so sorry.
I do feel less tired than I did in newborn days but I know that, objectively, my brain does not function like it should when I'm tired. My job is very technical and I make mistakes when I'm tired. It concerns me hugely for the future because I need to get back to firing on all cylinders! It's a career I've worked so so hard for so I really don't want to give it up, and I enjoy it.
I'm hopeful that I can get back to normality soon (and by normality I mean sleeping until 7am, I was doing well after I came back from mat leave with my first son) but I am aware that many people are in much tougher situations.
Hoping your situation improves too!

I’m not here to one up anyone, but for some that phase doesn’t end.

There’s an autistic 8yo in this house that’s been shouting the word Smee since 4am, he’s never even seen Peter Pan. Just likes that noise today. It was Merry Christmas… in June.

I am genuinely curious - does your base line of tired not move? Like, I’m shattered - but also used to being shattered, and “over it” most of the time if that makes sense?

Maybe it’s just that if I didn’t get over it, I’d die 😂