to think very few people have YEARS of sleep-deprivation with kids?

[drivenfromdistraction]

I have 3 kids, aged 6, 4 and 2. The middle one is a fantastic sleeper (since the age of two, was dreadful before that) - shuts his eyes at 6.30pm and opens them again at 6.30 am. If he was my only child, I would be very smug and think I'd done this with my fab routines.

The other two - different story. Youngest still wakes at night 4 or 5 nights a week and needs resettling, which takes an hour or more and leaves me wide awake. Eldest has always been an early waker (5am-ish) and now is struggling to get to sleep, and waking in the night with 'bad dreams' two or three nights a week and then taking hours to get back to sleep.

For seven years, I have almost never had an uninterrupted night. This is unusual, isn't it? Other people don't seem to be sleep-deprived like this. I have just taken the older two to school for the first day after half-term, all the other parents were making comments like 'Oh, it's hard to get up early again after the break, isn't it?' Wtf? I have been up before 6 every day of half-term as usual (either the eldest or the youngest awake and usually both) plus being woken in the night.

Are there other parents like me out there or am I alone?!

Sympathies, Owllady. My step mil has a 17 year old autistic daughter and has had 17 long sleepless years. I'm afraid I took advantage and my own two would have sleepovers there when I didn't dare inflict No2 on anyone else. She was the only relative who I knew would understand.

OP, if charts don't work then would just returning them to bed if they breach your parenting terms and conditions work?

What is your bedtime routine like for each child?

Eldest is 12 and didn't sleep through till 3 and then up every morning by 5.45. Middle one arrived and lulled us into a flats sense of security by sleeping through till 5 months and never again until 2.5. Youngest sleeps ok but is up by 5am every morning and has to announce it. Eldest never stirs but middle comes into my room most nights to tell me fascinating things like: I've lost my favourite pencil, I need to blow my nose, I can't see, I want to sleep in your room. So, I would say we have never slept in past 6am and get disturbed at least 3 times a week during the night and have early noises very day - 12 years after starting.

Well dd is 3, ds is 2...and I haven't slept through since getting pregnant with dd. SO nearly 4 years here. Also have another on the way.. so expect a few years of that.

Boffin, we have a very solid bedtime routine - upstairs for baths & teeth-brushing, into pyjamas, then hear each of the older 2 read, then DH reads a story to them both while I put DC3 to sleep in cot. Then DH goes downstairs, leaving the older 2 to look at books in their beds. Once DC3 asleep (anything from 5 -30 mins usually), I go through and say goodnight to DC1 and DC2, and they put their lights out (DC2 has often fallen asleep already).

It has worked very well until now, but now DC1 has started coming downstairs in the evening, complaining that he can't get to sleep. I think that perhaps he has reached a new stage where he needs a bit less sleep and we're putting him to bed too early. We're going to start letting him come downstairs for an extra 45 mins after the others have gone to bed to play board games or similar with us and then taking him up to bed.

Perhaps this will also improve his sleep quality during the night...

This isn't about competitive tiredness but I haven't slept properly for nearly 9 years. My eldest is nearly 9 and my youngest has just turned 4 and he wakes me twice a night, every night.

I am done in.

Ds is 19, has autism and sleeps about 3 and a half hours a night apart from the one or two days a week when he doesn't bother to sleep at all. This is ongoing since birth.
I have chronic insomnia now because of years of sleep deprivation and don't actually feel sleep deprived any more I have just got used to not sleeping.

Gosh. I'm taken aback by just how angry I felt when I read your thread title.

Totally misunderstood and thought you meant people were making it up if they said they'd gone this long without proper sleep.

Overwhelmed by the need to shout about the years of sleep deprivation - even though now ds is nearly 5 and through the worst of it and I thought I was acting quite normally these days.

You're not alone but I think you're right - there's not that many of us.

My Ds was 4 before he slept through but it did get easier not a 50 minute breast feed merely deal with him and back to bed...

Just over a week ago ds( now 6) was up and down all night with a sickness bug while obviously I got up to be with son while he had his head down the loo...I was shattered next day...You do very quickly forget how absolutely exhausting it is.

PicaK I piled on here all ready to say the same!

You might be onto something with the bedtimes there.

Early bedtime definitely doesn't help. Ours go to bed at 8pm, and DS2 still wakes at 5-5.30am. If we put him to bed earlier then he wakes at 3am and is awake for 2 hours before he will drop off again.

My short term memory is shot, I have depression, I eat too much because I'm so tired. It really does impact our lives.

All that aside we are pretty happy and in many ways life is very good

My eldest didn't sleep properly till she was about seven...

I too agree with Bonsoir - and we don't agree about everything - about the teaching, if there are no SN in the mix.

It's absolutely terrible for you to be going with so little sleep. It really does wreck the health (I write quite a bit about this stuff). Which reinforces the message that if you can do something about it, do. Please.

6 yrs of sleep deprivation for us. We only had 5 full nights sleep during those 6 years. DD1 never slept as a baby and then had night terrors as a toddler, plus very early waking. DD2 always woke up through the night, every two hours, wanting her dummy or comfort.

I put on weight because tiredness makes me feel starving. The exhaustion got me down. Sometimes I was nauseous. I actually had days where I didn't feel 'real'. It's very very tough. We seem to be out of the worst of it now, thank god.

I had from 1998-2007 non stop, then I have had from 2011-now too.

Stuff like sleep apnoe, reflux, food intolerances, excema etc can all mess with sleep. I'm a firm believer of people checking and ruling these out as reasons for poor sleep.

I'm 4.5 years in of sleep deprivation but we get the odd good night so I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. No way would I risk a third dc in case they also have tongue tie/dairy intolerance/silent reflux as mine have had.

My kids are aged 5, 7 and 9 and I still have frequent broken nights sleep. Youngest has sn which doesn't help... He's mostly stopped coming into our room but still has bad patches, I was up from 2-3 with him last night for instance and then he was in my bed kicking me the rest of the night.

Eldest seems to survive on just a few hours a night and whilst she doesn't bother me directly she frequently wakes her brothers at the crack of dawn and they torment me.

She slso feels the need to crash around my room in the middle of the night to use my ensuite

So 9 years and counting of interrupted nights here

Dd is 7. Almost every night she is awake continuously between 12 til 3 or 1 til 4.

Occasionally she is up 12 til 4. She often then gets up at 6am.

Fun times.

We have to be up too or she bangs and neighbours complain.

Gosh summerRain you're nearly at a decade

I really hate reading stuff about how it wrecks your health. Since we cant do anything to stop it.

I have 7, it is the 1990s since I had a full night's sleep.