Do sleepless nights bother some people more than others - newborns

[Coastalwalksarethebest]

Just thinking.

My dc are older now and I'm very glad. I've always needed my sleep and thinking back to the newborn stage it was so hard. Wasn't so bad with my first who would feed and then go back to sleep. But with second I was exhausted, baby didn't sleep through properly for years, then still had to be up early with dc1, no chance for me to nap during day.

Thinking back to those days, I felt very alone in the exhaustion and sleep deprivation, it didn't seem to bother some people so much.

I can distinctly remember speaking to an older lady one day in the park when dc2 was a few months old. She commented that it's a shame they can't stay babies. I commented back about it would be great if not for the lack of sleep and she looked at me like I had two heads.

Also hear lots of people saying the newborn days are the easiest. Lots of people, my mil for example just seem to go mad over a baby. When I see a baby all I think is that they're gorgeous but I'm glad I don't have one anymore.

Yes, they are harder for some people than for others - some people are less affected by sleep deprivation, some people have easier babies.

But anyone looking back on the 'baby days' and thinking they're easier is doing so because they don't really remember what they were like. Even now, my youngest is 5, when I think of those days, I don't really think about being exhausted. But I know I was! If you're completely exhausted, you don't even remember being completely exhausted because the brain can't process and store those memories properly.

I know people who claim that their (now adult) children 'never had a tantrum' when they were toddlers. Of bloody course they did! But it was 30 years ago. And their memory is selective. Also, it's just the nice things it's lovely to focus on when reminiscing.

Oh definitely, same with everything in life and parenting. My SIL says she finds it easier as she's always done late evening and night shifts mixed with day shifts, so is used to disrupted sleep

Age did it for me. Had my first as a teenager my last at nearly 40. Teenagers need their sleep and I found it so hard, by 40 I was much more able to cope.

Living in a nice warm house as opposed to a very cold flat also made a difference.

Absolutely. I can not function on broken sleep. My husband does not even notice. He happily did all the night time stuff when he could without any objection at all.

That doesn't really work for me. Going back up to 50 years I can quite clearly tell you the ones I had bad nights with and the one who had the worst tantrums and the sunny soul who had none. Unless I have very selective amnesia of course.

Absolutely. I have very rarely as an adult slept a whole night- I tend to wake and read for a bit, make tea, potter about...the newborn stage was a breeze.(sorry!)

I found the newborn stage fairly easy, it’s when they start moving that it gets difficult. I’ve had a variety of different types of sleepers.
but some babies are easier, some people don’t mind less or broken sleep.
what you’ll find with some of the older generation is they felt less pressure to do things with the baby, some of them also lived with or nearer other family members, lots of the women didn’t work.
They put baby to nap outside and didn’t necessarily tend to it just before it was crying, and I know a lot of babies were left crying at night. My ex mil left hers 11-6 overnight from 6 weeks in another room regardless of whether he was sleeping or screaming. Barbaric if you ask me, but she wasn’t sleep deprived 🫤

I do know someone who is very vocal about the fact that once changed and fed they put their baby in the furthest room away, shut the doors and left the baby to it as they knew that the baby didn't need anything and was just crying for attention. So I guess they weren't sleep deprived.

I loved the newborn stage! I don’t want anymore kids but I will be sad to never have a newborn again. I’ve had 4 and didn’t struggle we are all different. I find them harder now they are older.

Yes I think so. I don't really mind lack of sleep, I'm a night owl so I used to stay up really late as a teenager etc anyway, go to bed around 2/3 am and then get up for school or college or work and get on with things.

I read on MN that people have one of the following they absolutely can't cope with and are generally OK with the other two: Being tired / being cold / being hungry.

I can go too long without eating or sleeping but I am an absolute wuss about the cold and you will find me whimpering in a million layers like the michelin man right about this time of year if I ever have to go outside, which I mostly supremely avoid.

I co-slept with my babies and basically let them sort their own sleep out which they seem to do around 2/2.5 years old, that was fine for me. DS3 is just getting there now, he was 2 in August. I've probably slept through a full night about 10 times in the last 5 years. Doesn't really bother me - I can nap too.

I found them quite easy as the days were so lazy with a baby, lots of sitting around and slow walks out and about.

My 4 year old has insomnia and we have bad nights 6 out of 7, I long for the newborn days, now I have to have much more energetic park days on no sleep! Newborn days were a breeze in comparison

The sleepless still gives me horrors 11 years after it I got my first full night sleep. I had 5 years of broken nights. I need a lot of sleep compared to average I think.

Tantrums and sleep are really subjective though aren't they? Because I've definitely come across people that seem to think their child is the worst, most challenging sleeper ever and then it turns out that it's a four month old baby that wakes up twice or something - which to me is quite good going! And I probably would have said my kids' sleep was fine, which it was to me, but to someone else, being woken every night for 2+ years would be absolute torture.

And some people define every little whine and bit of resistance as a tantrum, whereas others insist that it's only a tantrum if it's deliberately aimed as a manipulation strategy (otherwise it's just "big feelings"). Most people will draw the line somewhere in between those two places.

I loved the newborn days (and nights!) I sat in our comfy nursing chair with a baby sleeping or feeding on me and scrolled the internet in peace. Much harder now they move, talk, fight, argue and constantly need and demand attention.

I love sleep and hate disrupted sleep but also loved the newborn stage.

To be honest though I just had the baby in bed with me and breastfed them for the first few months, so although it was disrupted sleep we all got enough sleep. I could doze while they fed.

I definitely wouldn't have coped with having to get out of bed at night or even wake up properly and sit up. Or dealing with crying at night.

I think there is a huge variation in how well or badly small babies sleep.

I have a friend who can count on one hand the number of times hers woke in the night - at the start she had to wake to feed and then they basically slept through every night apart from occasional illness. I slightly hate her 😆

The “norm” seems to be waking say 3-4 times a night with this gradually decreasing (with ups and downs). Tough but manageable.

and then there’s babies like mine who would only sleep on my upright chest for months, and then woke up every 30-40 minutes for several more months, and then woke a few times a night as well as waking at 5.30 for the day for the next few years.

I defy anyone to be “fine with” that level of bad sleep.

My first would wake 2-3 times to be fed but generally went straight back to sleep. Napped well in the day and pretty reliably slept straight through the night from 6 months.

Second born woke countless times, wouldn't go back to sleep so we'd often be up for hours. Didn't nap reliably and when he did eventually fall asleep if someone dropped a pin in Australia he'd wake up. He didn't really sleep through the whole night until he started school, he still doesn't seem to need lots of sleep.

I dislike being woken up at all and don't cope well with broken sleep.

I think by the time I had my fourth baby I knew what to expect and knew certain things to do that would make the nights easier. I was also a bit older so feel I had more patience.
My third baby was so calm and placid compared to my other kids, so I think sometimes you might get an " easier" baby.

Definitely depends on your need for sleep, the type of baby, and how much support you have.

My DS was born underweight, 8th centile. Think some placental deterioration. Within 6 months he was 90th centile and has stayed there. So he was very hungry as a baby.

He fed every 3 hours for a long time. Before I had him I thought every 3 hours would be fine as imagined me sleeping for 3 hour stretches but this isn't the case is it - they cry for a bottle, you have to make it/warm it, he often took 40mins to drink it, then 20mins to be burped, then change his nappy, then 30mins to get him back to sleep, then 30mins for me to get back to sleep (I struggle with this, particularly when overtired and being worried about how little sleep I'm getting!).

I didn't get more than 1.5 hours of sleep in one go for weeks and weeks. And he never napped longer than 30mins in the day time at that age.

I had no family who could look after him in the day so I could nap.

I was hallucinating and suicidal.

I'm due my next within the next few weeks and am dreading the baby stage!

I think it depends on how healthy you are feeling. After a very traumatic birth - I was recover from a major medical event - I needed sleep to recover.

I also wonder if someone who was/would at one point in their lives be significantly affected by sleep deprivation, whether you can adapt to it over a long enough span of time. I'm nearly 2 years into not having slept solidly for longer than 3 years - not even once - and I definitely function better now than I did at 6-12 months in.

Before kids I was someone who slept easily and soundly. I would get 8-9 hours good quality sleep every night. I didn't mind early mornings because I slept so well. My first DC then changed me forever. She didn't sleep through the night once until she was at primary school, she would wake up screaming over and over. She still had very broken sleep, nightmares and needed me all through the night most of the time until she was about 11. I had DS as well but he slept pretty well. I think 11+ years of extremely broken sleep has changed me at a cellular level. It's ruined me. I now wake up a lot, I can't switch off, I get up at 4am. My brain and body have been completely re-wired by having my DD.

I would be a fan -their father was practically an insomniac so he did 99% of night feeds and I slept. To be fair my two children ate and slept like troopers - I think within 3 or so weeks they were doing a late bottle c. 23:00 and then up at at 0630.

It really depends on the baby - mine were chilled creatures happy to listen to me yap away to them, entertained by our cats and watching the washing machine 😂

It definitely varies person to person, DH was awful with DS1, but much better with DS2, although DS2 was a much better sleeper. As PP's have mentioned too, I work odd shifts, although no full ones overnight, but does include on-call overnights so I'm used to getting up and being alert right away!

I think you do forget the exhaustion, kids are now 5 and 1 and usually sleep through (very early risers though), but if they don't I notice after a few nights getting that gritty red eye feeling back, its horrible.