Can anyone save my sanity and tell me how they felt when sleep deprived...

[KeepSmiling123]

Ds2 is a terrible sleeper and I get between 3-6 hours of very broken sleep a night. We are dealing with the sleep issues and this has pretty much been the same since he was born. I'm absolutely exhausted. I just wanted to check my feelings are normal for someone so tired. Depending on how bad the night was I feel really emotional, I get easily tearful, feel very alone, lack patience and just feel down. I don't think I am depressed just tired. I am happy most the time but get these waves of these feelings which sometimes are overwhelming.

My god DD was a rubbish sleeper.

She's not great now, but it's more like once or twice a week she'll wake up now, rather than 6-8 a night.

I was OBSESSED with sleep. I remember walking with the pram, wondering how I could get another 20 minutes a night, which would add up to two hours extra a week....

Was stuck in a rut, thought wise and work wise. Couldn't learn anything new, can't remember much of her first two years of life.

Angry, shouty and bitter. My personality was changing...I'm quite a ray of sunshine (no, really) but I was becoming nasty, ratty, envious (an utterly foreign emotion to me) and sour.

I was and still am self-employed and my earnings were on the floor. V often when the DC were in nursery I'd get some sleep, knowing I'd have to work in the evenings, which meant less nighttime sleep, but I just couldn't think beyond the next hour or so.

Physically....ached, headache, fuzziness, permanent-hangover feeling.

Shit the bloody bed it was awful.....
We were going to go to the Millpond clinic, but then she started waking just 2-3 times a night and I felt less murderous.

DP used to take both children in the mornings for two hours and that's what, I think, kept me out of prison/hospital.

DD was exclusively BF, and BF'd until almost three years old....but then so was dream-boy DS, who was and is the best sleeper ever.

I felt deep sadness when tired and like..on a knife edge, the slightest thing would make me cry. I thought I was a bad mother because I couldn't stop my baby crying which was absolute rubbish but lack of sleep makes you irrational! To offer some comfort my dd was just like yours and was a dreadful sleeper, but now, as a 7 year old she sleeps like a log, ten solid hours a night! So hang in there :))

My dd was a similarly bad sleeper and I am convinced a lot was due to food intolerances. Once we worked them out things did improve, still crap by many people's standards but an amazing difference by ours.

You have probably already tried everything but I did find a wedge pillow helped and you can just have this in your bed if you co-sleep like we did.

I discovered that I could cope ok on 4 hours a night but less then that and I just could not function at all. Dh once found me asleep on the hall floor as I was so exhausted and frustrated with dd's sleep I couldn't even face going into the bedroom as she was sleeping in our bed. It was the inevitability of her waking again that got to me. What was the point in me even going to bed when she would just wake up in half an hour anyway.

I also remember when things started to improve a bit and I started regularly getting 6 hours a night (in 2-3 hour chunks but it was amazing at the time). I was in work and commented on how things seemed to be easing up and getting less stressful. Everyone looked at me like I was mad and I realised that it wasn't quieter at all, I had just slept more then 4 hours so could actually concentrate.

I get enough sleep nowadays but during the years of sleep deprivation I remember the physical stuff the most. I woke up with nausea and a headache most mornings and felt permanently mildly hungover. I felt not just tired but lethargic and couldn't really be bothered to do much. I hoarded my opportunities for sleep like a miser and felt unbelievable anger towards anyone who got enough sleep and didn't appreciate their good fortune.

I found that it only took a couple of weeks of getting enough sleep before I started feeling ok again.

I am currently sleep deprived - my dd is not a baby and sleeps well, but I am just juggling too many things. I am not good without sleep.

I feel sad, angry, tearful and like life is just too hard to deal with. I also get aches and pains, and feel like I am drunk or hung over. Sometimes when I stay up late I have trouble getting to sleep and feel like I am pumped full of adrenalin.

Broken describes it very well.

I found berocca helped me a lot. And then I tried berocca boost and found it to be even better in clearing the fog first thing and I don't feel like such a miserable mum now.

Good luck

All of this is so familiar. DS is 11 weeks and isn't even that bad a sleeper compared to some but my goodness the lack of sleep makes me feel hideous.

He has had a couple of bad nights and I've been snappy, tearful, clumsy and tipped over the edge into uncontrollable sobbing very easily. All whilst feeling guilty for not loving every second I have with him, as if I somehow love him less because I need sleep.

I also work freelance and I'm trying to keep my business going at the same time. I'm crying again now just thinking about it. I was very worried about PND until I realised that when we have a good night I feel fine again.

It gets soooo much better, and fairly quickly. I had a hell of a time, but it really helped to do one thing per day. Go for a walk, go to starbucks, etc. Whatever makes you feel more connected with the rest of the world. Just take each day as it comes, and rest whenever you can. YES to the fog, feeling broken, etc. There is light at the end of the tunnel though.

Mine would only sleep in a moving buggy. I walked around the streets like a zombie. Everything else just has to go on hold. It's hard to believe but it's temporary. Albeit a long temporary.

Fresh air is good. Get it over with. Then slunk.

Yes yes to all you mentioned. The worst was the memory hit. I actually had a policeman knock on the door as they were investigating a serious crime nearby and I told him I couldn't actually remember what I had done the day before, I had to phone my husband to ask .

Is there anyway your DH or someone else can help out during the day so you perhaps have a rest? What about DH helping with night times on the weekends? Hard if you are doing all the BF but a little bit of extra sleep might help you manage until it passes.

Absolutely normal - I'm very surprised they haven't done any reports about sleep deprivation for mothers.

I felt quite depressed and sad, I also became a bit paranoid and felt that sometimes others were finding fault with me, when I don't think they were in reality.

Oh yes and loss of memory. I'm usually quite an organised person but I was meeting some friends and I gave them the wrong bus number to the restaurant we were meeting at.

I hope it gets better for you soon.

i felt kind of 'high', like i wasn't quite with it. Almost underwater and watching my life and reactions in slow motion. My voice sounded funny to me, like i was listening to someone else speak. i forgot things like leaving things on the hob when i went to bed or the bath running. i would say quite inappropriate things, like i had no filter between brain and gob. I would even slur and my eyes would roll back like i was very drunk. Then, oddly, i would find it hard to sleep when i did get the chance, as if i had kept myself going on adrenaline and would get hyper and couldn't switch off. I am bipolar and sleep deprivation is a trigger to rapid cycling which is awful. It's a constant cycle of being really high then really down in very quick succession.

Yes to all the above. I just stop talking in the middle of a sentence because I've forgotten what I'm saying!! I cry A LOT!
On a bad night the amount of sleep I get is also directly proportional to my hatred of DH!

I was foul tempered, tearful, unhappy and obsessed with DD2's sleep, food, naps in an attempt to unravel why she wouldn't sleep. I look back on myself and I see a stranger.

I feel so much better knowing others have felt similar, I get the memory loss tjing, I try to say a sentence and a word just disappears from my brain. I also get paranoid that no one really likes me or wants me around. Thank you all so much for the support!

I am currently sleep deprived. DS1 (2.5yo) has sleep apnoea (caused by large tonsils) and wakes umpteen times a night, usually screaming and ends up in our bed because we can't cope with the trying to settle him back in his own.

We've seen his consultant today who will be taking his tonsils out in about 6 weeks, and he reckons there will be a major improvement in his sleep. Christ, I hope so! He currently wakes more than 3mo DS2!

I eat far too much sugary crap and too much coffee just to get through the day. I find myself plotting outings so the journey home will hopefully send him to sleep and I can have some peace for a while. My memory is non existent, and some days just feel like I can't cope with the slightest problem. I get that drunk, kinda swimmy feeling too, and a lot of headaches. Here's hoping it comes to an end in a few weeks.

Oh you have all of my sympathy OP: sleep deprivation is like nothing else.... I had my 3 DC's in 4.5 years and like a lot of others here felt "drunk", clumsy (dropped dishes, constantly bumped into things etc), probably shouldn't have been driving some days and miserable. Every day was like a fog, in which I struggled to experience normal pleasures. The lack of sleep also sent my migraine problem into overdrive and I had migrainous headache 15+ days a month. The worst point was always around 6 months when the babies were still waking every few hours for breastfeeds and I had months and months of sleep debt. Utterly miserable but unfortunately very normal! You aren't going mad and you'll feel like yourself again in a few months. You really will! Hang in there! x

My DCs are older but I remember this well. At the time I didn't realise I was suffering sleep deprivation. And I mean suffering, in retrospect it wasn't good. I remember bursting into tears at a play group and library . Everything was a huge effort and I am ashamed to say I shouted a lot at that time. But on a brighter note, it has passed and the kids don't seem to remember the shouting mum . You will get through this.

I fell asleep on the toilet once, with my head resting on the wall . One thing I learned was that you can survive on a little sleep or you can survive on a little food BUT not both. You need energy from somewhere and with small children it can be so easy to eat late or miss lunch, or grab snacks on the go. Make sure you eat.

I remember handing dc to dh, turning around and going back to bed. I had tears running down my face and couldnt speak. I dont remember which dc that was though. I think it was dd who was a better sleeper than ds2.
I also remember dh catching my hand one day while I was cooking dinner. He asked me what I was doing and I realised I was about to check if the water was boiling by putting my hand in it!
I was very tired.

littledrummergirl I've checked the grill is switched on by touching it.

Last night I couldn't sleep, I was so overtired and panicking about an important meeting today. I suppose thats how baby felt tonight, so so tired but unable to switch off.

I'm sleep training her this week. Nine months, eating well, good routine if she gets up early and I'm not able to continue like this - my life is passing me by and I'm bloody miserable.

I was gibbering, caffeine shaking, wine dribbling wreck. It got better. Hang in there it will pass, and you will get through it

This was me last year. DS was a terrible sleeper (still not great) and his first year was the longest year of my life.

The day never ended. I'd put him down and he would just keep waking up or he round be wake for hours on end.

I was so exhausted I used to walk with him in the buggy and fantasise about leaving him somewhere so I could get some sleep

He also has reflux and dairy and soy allergies. Things improved massively once I eliminated them both completely from my diet as I'm breastfeeding.

Just slogging though the day.

No energy. Horribly irritable and randomly snapping at things.

Zero libido, just wanted to sleep and not be touched.
My youngest is nearly 2 and only thus last month us down to about one wake up a night from what seemed like a million.

I work full time so feel like I don't have much left when I get in sometimes. Just want to play with DB and ignore the clutter. Which drives DH a bit nuts as he's a SAHD.