Sleep deprivation and return to work after maternity leave

[HeyJupiter]

My DS is 8.5 months and I’m due to return to work in 6 weeks. I will be part time (3 days at 9-5) and work in an NHS mental health team which is high stress and high pressure. My role also includes prescribing medication which quite rightly leaves me highly accountable for the decisions I make.

I’m panicking because my baby still wakes every 60-90mins throughout the night and will only go back to sleep if I breastfeed him. This has been the case for the last 6 months and it’s been torture. My mental health has suffered greatly as a result (I live in a permanent state of high anxiety) but unfortunately everything we’ve tried from gentle sleep training, my DH taking a lead with shhhing, to bottles etc hasn’t worked.

I’m not so much looking for sleep solutions (I’ve accepted my highly alert baby is just wired this way and needs help joining up his sleep cycles) although of course any advice helps, but rather whether I need to be informing work/should I even be going back to work/how the hell am I going to cope?!

Thank you.

I also returned to what sounds like a v similar job working 12h days when DC was 9m, co-sleeping and constantly breastfeeding on and off. I was anxious about situation and thought I would have cracked a routine before my return. As my start date got closer I decided couldn’t face getting up and down all night so stuck with the cosleeping. It’s over a year on and we still in same bed coping and enjoying work and home. At work after 2 strong coffees I am raring to go and concentrate so much that not aware of tiredness when I get home I am tired but don’t stay up late and have afternoon naps on days off. It’s working for us not what I would have chosen hopefully things will change over the next 1 - 13 years ! Enjoy the rest of your mat leave.

Sandstorm night weaning is probably a good first step actually as don’t want to stop feeding all together! :)

Dermy We’ve tried 3 or 4 different approaches but admittedly not for two weeks at a time. This is not lack of commitment but rather my DS was becoming so distressed and so hysterical that he was making himself physically sick. This isn’t okay in my opinion. I never said I was a saint. I’m just trying to meet my babies needs in the gentlest possible way. Of course sleep is a priority but not at the expense of my child’s emotional wellbeing.

Thanks Pixie, it sounds like you’ve got a really good balance. I can see us doing similar if we can’t implement any changes before I go back.

I think the best way forward is actually to speak to my manager about this situation and how best to manage.

(How best to manage work I mean... Doubt he has any ideas regarding DS sleep ha!)

How stressful is your job? Is it possible to cope on very broken sleep or would there be awful consequences if you made a mistake?

I'm a teacher and was working in a very high stress environment just after my 2nd maternity leave. New head, bad often report, new curriculum, huge workload, class full of needy children with SEN, behaviour and language issues etc. Long commute. DH working away internationally and regularly.

I was very very sleep deprived and suffering from anxiety. I crashed my DH's car resulting in a massive dent, dropped my son on his head, couldn't string a sentence together. Stood up on front of my class and started teaching them the wrong lesson.

I had a sotto if breakdown which resulted in 3 months off work. My GP was fab. I initially went to him as I felt really sick all the time. I didn't realise I had anxiety until he spelt it out to me. I was prescribed sertraline and talking therapy over the phone. Occupational health helped me get back to work when I was ready. My employer was sympathetic when she saw how determined I was to get back to work once I was well. Since then I have qualified for performance related pay progression and have managed work really well.

My anxiety was hugely exacerbated by sleep deprivation. Parents are just expected to get on with it and ride it out. How many mothers close to the brink are driving on the roads every day? It's scary. I'm not saying there should be any particular solution as it's nobody's fault when a baby doesn't sleep, but the effects can be massive when cumulative sleep deprivation causes mental health problems. Visual hallucinations, being too wired to sleep even when the baby is sleeping, intrusive thoughts, paranoia.

You are not alone

We continued to feed for another 12 months after night weaning, it was a good way to reconnect after a day at work/ nursery.

I went back to work when my DD was 8 months old, similar sort of job - mental health nurse on busy ward, no prescribing but accountable for administering medication.

Some days I was so tired I literally could not do drug calculations and would second guess myself constantly as would lose focus/concentration.

What helped was lots of caffeine and getting another nurse to give me a hand with meds. I will say this didn't last forever, after a few weeks of being back I was able to switch off and get into 'work mode'. I also found DD began to sleep better once I went back to work as we got into a routine of her being at nursery etc and having to be up and out by a certain time, she was constantly on the go at nursery so shattered by bedtime!

What will your childcare be once you go back to work?

OP I could have written your posts myself 3 years ago, my son has always had broken sleep (and still wakes nightly now at nearly 4 though we just co-sleep the rest of the night). My husband and I separated when he was 7 months old so I too didn’t want to take away breastfeeding when it was all I had to get him to sleep but also had to resort to buggy and car at times. I only stopped breastfeeding a few months ago but previous to that tried everything ‘gentle’ to help him sleep including an e-mail consultation with Sarah Ockwell-Smith. Unfortunately I don’t really have any answers for you and went back to my job as a primary school teacher when my son was 9 months old. Like a pp it was pretty hellish and I was close to rock bottom but I got used to feeling tired and focused on coping strategies. Now although things are loads easier I have come to terms with the fact my son doesn’t sleep as well as other children his age and try not to think about the amount of times he wakes anymore and hope that one day I’ll look back cherish the extra cuddles that I otherwise wouldn’t have had if he slept in his own room all night!

Can you get him to sleep in a pram? Spend daytimes linking sleep cycles by rocking the pram. This might help. You need to break the mummy cuddles = sleep association. You have to expect some crying tbh. Not hysterical but some crying. Work on the naps first, then make steps to him sleeping in his own room.

His emotional wellbeing will be improved by being able to sleep properly. As will yours.

I went back to long shifts (NHS hcp) after having my son when he was 12 months. I did sleep training with him about 9 months (he was bf and would only sleep on me) and by 12 months he had stopped he night feeds and largely sleeping through. I did bf 2 a night in his own room until about 10/11 months. It was hard but improved vastly in just a few days.

I had a baby who didn't sleep longer cycles until he was past two. We managed through pick up/put down to get him to sleeping about 2 hour cycles before I went back to work but it wasn't guaranteed. You have to consider this maybe a long term issue and realise that you can end up very sleep deprived so focus on your diet, work out times when you can get rest on days off (my long Sunday afternoon nap was a genuine life saver! DH equally loved that time and its a bit of a family tradition even now years on)

Going back to your question about work, honest and open dialogue with manager and colleagues. Can you have someone shadow you for the first few weeks as someone suggested above? Can you work shifts that work best for you in terms of child care (can you afford extra time at child care in the early weeks to give you time to get use to things, then once settled reduce if you wish? You may also find things change significantly once the baby is in child care) What's your commute - can a colleague lift share to reduce stress?

I doubt your manager or colleagues will be unsympathetic - it really is a short term issue as pretty much even the worse sleepers do regulate as they get older.

Hi op, I think the answer to your question about informing work or whether to go back at all is one for you. Some employers may be sympathetic, others wouldn't be.

For what it's worth, I went back to work when my DS slept very badly, waking every 2 - 3 hours and would only be breastfed back to sleep. It was awful and really, really exhausting. But we got through it somehow.

When you're ready, I would try the Jay Gordon method. It worked for us, from constant waking to sleeping through. DS was 18 months when I did it though so he was able to understand me when I told him that there's no more mummy milk in the night, which I repeated over and over until he got it and we went from there. Good luck

So I work FT with a 16mo who doesn’t sleep well. I am struggling to sleep train/night wean as the crying wakes my 3yo.

You can work on the sleep but at the same time have to get through the day so my tips....

Drink a lot of water - day and night!

Eat the best diet you can

Exercise if you can even in your house or brisk walk with baby

Go to bed as early as possible (prioritise over social life in short term!)

When you you have the same day off as DH take two hours alone to have a bath and a sleep. (Prioritise over family time in short term)

Trust in a colleague to support you/check your work

If you have a decent break (lunch) find a quiet place to relax eyes

If it gets really bad take a day AL when they are in nursery

Basically prioritise your mental well being in the short term.

It’s really hard and I am struggling xx

I had the hourly wake up problem my GP advised I feed bigger meals during the day (either bf or solid) with longer intervals between meals as if food is constantly offered they get used to eating frequently and want to at night as well. Sleep also suddenly improved at around 10 months but then he had numerous ear infections so until those were sorted he was waking frequently. We went from hourly wake ups to 3 ish then 6ish.

I was in a similar situation at a similar time and two things became life savers: stopping breastfeeding and giving in to giving baby a dummy. I found she was using me as a dummy anyway and she took to one brand straight away. She went from waking every 60-90min to waking 2-3 times a night, then sleeping through.

Ds 1 was a terrible sleeper, often waking in less than an hour at that age. I had to go back to work at 8 months for money.

Everyone had an opinion on what I "had" to do including stopping breastfeeding and cry it out. I chose to wait for it to get better and eventually it did. I am not saying any of these things are bad, just that you have to do what feels right for you. Ds was always happy in the day, he just didn't need as much sleep as other children.

He has slept through the night absolutely fine for well over a year now. Ds 2 is only tiny, but sleeps loads without me doing anything different.

Coping strategies are
Have something caffeinated in your car if you drive, even though you don't normally. Falling asleep at the wheel and killing other road users is not ok.
Say you have a bad back post pregnancy so you can get up and stretch in meetings if you feel drowsy.
Make sure you take your lunch break so you can move around and have some proper food to keep you going.

You have my sympathy, just know that no matter what you do it will get better eventually.

Thanks so much for all the responses, really appreciated. It’s also comforting to know that other people have faced this and managed it. I know that sounds dramatic but honestly I had no idea how torturous sleep deprivation could be and combining it with a high stress job seems overwhelming.

I will look into some of the techniques suggested and maybe re-trying a dummy (we went down that route a few months ago but he wasn’t having any of it), spacing out the feeds, using the buggy during the day to join up sleep cycles etc. I guess it’s worth revisiting a lot of the approaches we’ve tried before in the hope that it may be more successful this time round.

Really appreciate the kind words and also not to feel pressures into ‘training’ my baby. If I’m honest my instinct is to let him mature naturally into no longer needing me. But it is balancing that against my own sanity and I know that’s important too. iheartgin DS will be in nursery for 2 of the 3 days I’m back. I’m hoping they might help us get into better sleep habits given I won’t be there to feed him to sleep during the day with them. He starts a couple of weeks before I go back so at least I’ll get 4 full days to myself to maybe make up some of the sleep deficit.

I do enjoy the cuddle time Emmylu especially as he has zero interest in cuddles during the day!

I will speak to my manager about the above and see whether there are any safeguards we can put in place at work to make the whole process less risky. The practical advice on how to manage tiredness is really helpful too.

rainbowfudgee sound like you had a really hard time. So glad that you’re on the mend now. How frightening for you

Feel better just talking about it on here. Things seem totally unmanageable when they’re going round and round in your head.

OP I am in a similar state as I go back to work next week. Just wondering what helped and how did u manage? Dont knw if u r still around to answer. Would love to know 😘🙂

Zombie thread Misha . The OP won't see it unless you @ her.

Imagining the OP rereading this 3 and a half years later and thinking ‘how the fuck did I get through that time of my life’!