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?!

Owllady, I'm booking my ferry.

The French are alao famous for smacking, smoking heavily, driving insanely... do all those things cause their children to sleep too? I can't see any useful suggestions Bonsoir...

Maybe not.

Glass of red before bed maybe, and full day nursery from very early infancy - also the French model? Perhaps that would help?

Here here.
9 years and counting....
My eldest has special needs, we have never had an uninterrupted night and if we get up at 5:30 then we've had a good night. When we were both working, we were both zombies.
Now that I am not working I get up during the week so that DH can sleep, DH gets up at the weekends so that I can sleep.
Its without a doubt the most difficult thing about having a child with special needs.

We do the same timetosleep. I gave up work last year as it was killing me tbqh. I often have a nap in the afternoon when they are all at school. That's after driving to France and sinking a glass of red with lavender rubbed on my forehead. Obviously

Timetoask!Not sleep

Posters on this thread clearly revel in sleep deprivation and don't want to entertain any solutions

Bonsoir, your solution seems to be 'I know what I know about eating and sleeping, work it out for yourselves, fools'

Happy to entertain any solutions you are actually able to articulate, though

Owllady hahaha, I might change my name to timetosleep actually, very apt indeed

Posters on this thread clearly revel in sleep deprivation and don't want to entertain any solutions

considering a large proportion of people on this thread have suffered years of sleep deprivation because their children are disabled, I am gritting my teeth at that comment.

I have 3DC, 2 youngest share a bedroom. In my opinion, it's helped them settle, in fact they love it.

Ds 6 always woken up at night and is an early riser. He is beginning to settle but dd is 8 months and up 4 times a night. We're shattered!

I am too fucking knackered for irony.

I am too fucking knackered for irony

If MN had tickers (which thank god it doesn't) that would be mine

Bonsoir my kids wake up when we are in France too, so that can't be the solution

Expecting knackered people talking about being sleep deprived to see the irony of being told by somebody who apparently feels she has all the answers that they must enjoy the lack of sleep if they don't implement vaguely hinted at suggestions is a bit of a stretch! I will freely admit lack of sleep dulls the mind, and the sense of irony...

BoffinMum Tue 25-Feb-14 10:08:25
You can't change children's dispositions to sleep but you sure as hell can get them trained to play quietly in their rooms when others are asleep, or to settle themselves at night if they wake up. That's behavioural.

Whilst it must be lovely to have such a simple solution, if you had to deal with a sleepwalking child you'd pretty soon find out that it is not as easy as all that. When she just appears and gets in my bed it's not too bad, although it disturbs my sleep and takes me a while to nod off again. It the once or twice a week when she's roaming round the house that is really a nuisance. Sadly I don't think there is a simple solution. She's nearly 8. She can open a door and undo a stairgate. And she can find the keys to the front door too.

If you know how to train someone to do something when they aren't actually aware of their actions, please fire away.

Bonsoir, that is the most insensitive post I have read in a long time. DH and I are actually ill with sleep deprivation and are seeing professionals and paediatricians to try to solve it.

"but you sure as hell can get them trained to play quietly in their rooms when others are asleep, or to settle themselves at night if they wake up"

Nope. I don't think you can with all children.

Permanentlyexhausted, sleepwalkers are hard work, I know. My DM caught my DSis as an 8 - 12 yo climbing out of her bedroom window / over the landing balcony / walking out the front door (having got a chair to get the key from its cupboard / over the side of the sailboat on a Greek holiday ...

DSis is now 40, living abroad and still alive. My DM however is a permanent insomniac who wakes at the sound of a pin dropping in the next county.

Similar age gap - and yes there were years of sleep deprivation.

It got better little by little and as they got to nursery/school.

My eldest is now 8 - we do try and do later bed times but I'm often by myself in week and I've often had enough by bedtime - but she has a light bright enough to read by and a kindle - so even though she shares a room with youngest she can read for a bit.

The 6 year old - middle DC has just gone though about 6 months of not frequent but not rare nightmares - doesn't seem to be any reason for it.

He's come into sleep with me or if I've not in bed - as I go late - I've made a bed up between his two sister beds and he beds down in their room - and that's work out well for that night. If he in with me - and DH when he back he often ends up going back to his own room to sleep before morning.

The eldest and youngest get up early - they learnt not to wake DS a night owl like me by going in his room - though since youngest started school DD1 has started taking them both downstairs to play - not before 6 we had to put a clock in her room to ensure that but it mean everyone else isn't woken.

If they get up in the evening - they get told to go back to bed - older two may be allowed to read for bit. Not sleeping is fine - though irritably mean early bed time next night - it's ensuring minimal fuss/ sleep missed for everyone else.

I do think sleep walking is very different - my DSis would occasionally roam the house and FIL would apparently feed the pets in back garden - no minor task apparently - no memory of it either.