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?!

Waves to hazey

I'm sitting here pondering why both my DC are taking extended naps. Its unheard of. Two hours ans counting for baby and over an hour for three year old. If only they'd have the courtesy to let me know so that I could have slept as well or done some of the enormous pile of work.

Cant train my daughter to play quietly or settle unfortunately. Have tried for years.

Theres a small matter of her autism and severe and complex.learning disability to contend with.

We are really close to not coping with the sleep problem. .your posts have really upset me Bonsoir.

And many of the posters on this thread are in same position as us.

Even if ironic the whole tone of your posts is smug.

Fanjo
I really feel for you, severe sleep deprivation is so debilitating.
Do you have any help at home?

Could you talk to CAHMS about any medication? We were offered melatonine but it doesn't work for us as DS has no trouble falling asleep, the waking up is the problem.

I have given melatonin at 2.30am before timetoask. It did tend to get ds1 back to sleep - but could make him a bit groggy in the morning. But then if he wasn't given it, he would be up from 2.30 and absolutely hyper the next day at school. Swings and roundabouts....

I think we've finally - after 14 years - got ds1 to more or less stay in his room when he wakes so we can doze provinding he's happy. Still have to get up if he's cross and starts hitting things, but otherwise I just leave him singing.

DS2 and Ds3 sleep through anything - quite happy to hand out a nocturnal ds1 to sleep train your children to sleep through any racket.

Laughing at the idea of training DS2 to play quietly, when he wakes up. Thankfully, we have neighbours who get up early for work, as we've had comments about his 5am sing songs :o

Yep, for someone non-verbal ds1 has a very loud voice. Luckily his bedroom has no neighbours...

Oh god it's so irritating when childless people say "I'm soooo tired, I'm working such long hours." [i.e. 9-6.30, then home to a meal, a glass of wine and some uninterrupted tv viewing, followed by a full night's sleep]

Try working fulltime with young children in the house. And stupid fucking dogs. Between them they manage to wake us up most nights. And yes, I really do need my sleep. [grumpy]

Nothing to do with special needs or eating patterns or not being French and therefore not being perfect. It just happens.

Thanks..so far short acting melatonin doesn't work on DD she spits the long acting one out.

She is allowed phenergan 2 or 3 times a week which works but she sleeps worse in between

We have seen various professionals who havent been able to help.

I wouldn't expect the 4 or 2 year old to be quite in their rooms. Well - the 4 year old might depend on them as my youngest can sometimes do it. She get told off is she starts to scream or wakes her DB.

I would expect the 6 year old to do so some of the time though obviously not if distressed when I'd want to be with them. The OP does seem to be encouraging this anyway.

Just wondered if the 2 year old was in own room? Mine weren't at that age and while they'd get up it wasn't 4/5 time but mine shared a room with siblings.

Actually DD1 used to take youngest in with her when youngest was 2 - find them in same bed when we check on them - so I got more sleep and DD1 never complained in fact seem to encourage youngest.

I do remember reading young DC sleep better when they can hear others breathing they have more REm or light sleep I think - they stir but hearing others settle. I would have though it might be worth moving them round to experiment - maybe next holiday.

Actually ds3 started sleeping a lot better when he moved in with ds2.

It doesn't work for kids with SN but a worth trying for NT kids.

It's funny, if ds has melatonin in the middle of the night, it doesn't work at all. We have had a few all nighters, where he has woken at 10 and then not slept until the next night. (by which time dh and i can only communicate in grunts)

If we left ds to entertain himself in his room, the wailing would wake not just the whole house but the whole neighborhood!

this thread really highlights the absolute stupidity of people regarding selection bias....

Many many people on here with only 1 or 2 kids out of several with sleep issues yet people are still banging on about it being the environment or 'training' at fault.

to anyone and everyone suffering sleep issues.

They have to be exaggerating. Sure there are periods of sleep deprivation - newborn, teething, bed training, bed wetting. But its not an endless cycle.

Yes it can be an endless cycle.

mindosa Do come over love, it's an endless cycle. Try actually reading some of the posts here rather than just popping your thoughts down after a quick glance at the OP.

Some of you are just causing problems for yourselves (not including parents of disabled or Special needs obv).

How can it take an hour to settle a child that is older than a toddler?

It wouldn't happen in my house. I have 3 dc. Night time is for sleeping. Not for playing silly beggars. Or musical beds. Or waking other people up.

I have a friend who does this, moans about her nearly 4yo waking most nights for hours.

I feel like saying to her, its because you've never taught her that night time is bed time. She has an older son who is a dream at bedtimes so she thought it was easy to get kids to sleep. The truth is she just got lucky with her oldest and when her daughter turned out to be a non sleeper she handled it all wrong. At first she thought it was cute, called it 'party time' - oh x got up for 'party time' at 2am again last night, took pictures of her in the middle of the night to post on fb - no wonder the child continued to wake, with all that attention! That was when she was a baby, now she is nearly 4 and she has no one to blame but herself for the fact she never gets a full nights sleep.

Some kids are not built to sleep. So you train them.

Honestly what are you doing for an hour to resettle them? I suspect these are the same parents who can't bring themselves to enforce a rule or ever tell their child 'no.'

As soon as all my children have reached the age of sleeping through and not needing a feed at night, then I adopt the 'boring mum' rountine. If they wake, I go in to make sure they are ok, I don't speak and I don't make eye contact. They learnt very early on that night time is for sleeping.

They only get into my bed if they are ill. If they have had a nightmare, I'll will read a quick story to distract their mind from the dream, but they know its one story or chapter and lights out.

Yes yes, some of you will be pissed off and go all defensive. But honestly, ask yourself, did I cause these sleep problems? I bet the answer is yes.

Early wakers are a different story and not even a 'problem' as such. Some kids are built to rise early. You just have to deal with it. One day they will be teenagers and lie in their pits all day .

I repeat that I apply none of this to disabled, special needs or sleepwalkers.

I agree to an extent with young - the people I know in RL (not mumsnetters ) whose children would not sleep at night (SN excepted of course) were just not firm enough with the children.

I know that controlled crying is considered child abuse on mumsnet but my dearest friend was so soft with her two children - she didn't get a decent night's sleep for the first TEN years of their lives - yet she told me that the one night they did sleep through was the one and only night that she had to leave them with relatives. Those children clearly knew that whatever time they wanted to wake up their mother would come running, they were bright, articulate children - they were completely pandered to.

My child always slept well, he went to bed (in his own room) at 7pm every night - there was a clear distinction between 'daytime' and 'night time' even as a tiny baby.

If you rock, feed, pat your baby to sleep no wonder the baby gets used to that and is completely unable to 'self settle' when they get older. Surely it is then much harder to break the habit? .

Or perhaps when I they are older they have more capacity to understand sleeping at night time. There is a middle ground between rocking a baby to sleep for hours on end (and maybe I'm a freak but I enjoyed that) and leaving a child to scream itself to sleep.

thank you for your pearls of wisdom, grasshopper.

I have four children (oldest one is 20) and this last one is the worst sleeper by far. She is also the one with the worst health, the worst allergies, and the only one of the four who a) nearly died at birth and spent a week in NICU, b) came out in a crash CS, c) has eczema and asthma. She is up between 1 and 5 times a night, wandering around the house looking for someone else's bed to climb into because she is scared.

She doesn't take an hour to settle, she takes about 30 seconds, but five times woken up is still five times.

Nothing more guaranteed to piss me off than insufferable smugness.

Fanjo I really feel for you. Medication hasn't worked for ds phenergan had him climbing the walls for 72 hours, melatonin had no effect. We had support from a psychologist who admitted that we had exhausted every option behaviourally and medication hadn't worked so we learned to live with it. There is chloral hydrate that a paed might be sympathetic to prescribing but with ds after the phenergan I didn't feel up to taking a chance as the phenergan reaction was torture.
Ds does mostly stay in his room now unless the lure of the bathroom is too much and so a listening ear is generally enough. My insomnia usually means I'm awake anyway.
Is there any chance of overnight respite? It's not something we have done but I do remember feeling desperate at times before I got used to not sleeping.

We are on waiting list for family based overnight respite. We were reluctant as we wouldn't feel good about sending DD away from us as she is so young mentally..2 at most. but DD has really bonded with her respite carer who comes weekly so we thought it could work out. But there are no places.

There are respite units here with 8 children but we have turned down chance to go on waiting list for those as we feel DD is happier at home.

I think we will give in eventually though.

Oh god it's so irritating when childless people say "I'm soooo tired, I'm working such long hours." [i.e. 9-6.30, then home to a meal, a glass of wine and some uninterrupted tv viewing, followed by a full night's sleep]

Yep, parents definitely have the monopoly on exhaustion.