...to ask the sleep deprived, how the F**K do you do it?! Seriously.

[DangerGrouse]

This is not a rhetorical question. I want answers and I want your stories. I am completely in awe/confused about people who function with sleep deprivation it utterly baffles me.
I have a two year old daughter who has always slept well and I am acutely aware of how lucky I am and I take no credit for this and I am not smug.
The night before last she had some random "hurty ear" and spent most of the night awake crying and wanting cuddles. So of course I spent the night cuddling her and dosing her up to the eyeballs with calpol and ibuprofen etc. Normal mumstuff. The night was of course awful - I was delirious and started hallucinating at one point I was so tired. Yesterday was consequently terrible and I felt physically sick and was grumpy from tiredness. From one bad night. In pretty much two years. And all I could think of was "HOW THE FUCK DO THEY DO IT?!" As in permanently sleep deprived mothers of non sleeping or ill children?
Seriously? How do you cope? What gets you through? Do you just accept it and deal with it, have a nervous breakdown or just live in permanent hate of your days and nights?
From one totally in awe mother to all of you sleep deprived warrior goddesses, I bow down and salute you.

I hated sleep deprivation - totally, totally hated it. I couldn't function like a human being, felt clinically depressed, my marriage which had been lovely, consisted of barely suppressed rage for years and I remember waving at someone who wasn't there.

That was the point at which I decided I really had to stop driving - so of course I was then isolated, depressed and exhausted too. Peachy. But at least not in a car accident. So, yes, I have an only too!

Hugs Ipswichwitch xxx

I did proper laugh at your comment about the kids waking up if a mouse farts 3 streets away. In fact I actually can't stop chuckling to myself, it has really tickled me, and indeed the whole of your last post paragraph has just made me laugh bless you.

Sorry I appreciate how awful it is with no sleep and I am not making light of it. Please I mean no offense (still laughing as I say this) I am sorry.

I myself am in awake mode, possibly because I can't stop looking at all the threads on here!

I don't understand how people say they "get used to it". Maybe if you are getting 3 hours a night or even 4 it is just about survivable.

I lived off 45 minutes three times a night for six months. My DD just did not sleep for the first six months. Woke very hour or two for a feed. Each feed took an hour to get the milk down her and settle her, by the time she dropped off it was almost time for her to wake up again. She never napped in the day and could stay awake for 10 hours straight.

It was the worst six months of my life.

I felt ill. My body ached. Eyes itched. Vision was blurred. I would walk the streets pushing the pram (desperately hoping the baby would sleep) and often not feel safe to cross the roads, my brain just couldn't function. I would also stare at other mothers with babies wondering "are they getting any sleep?" If not, how are they managing it? Why doesn't anyone tell you how awful it is?

I spent hours googling "how to get baby to sleep/why won't my baby sleep." I used a sleep consultant. A cranial osteopath. Read every book going. Did dark room, good bedtime routine, white noise. Nothing fucking worked. I wanted to die. I was obsessed with sleep. DH took over at weekends and I used to literally collapse and sleep for 13 hours. I fantasised about that night all week.

The photos of me back then, without make up, are horrific. I look like a smack head. Alive but dead at the same time. No amount of coffee helped.

I was hugely resentful of people with babies who slept. A friend had twins who slept for five hour stretches from birth. She hit the jackpot! Now when she has an odd night without sleep she's all over Facebook complaining about it. I laugh hollowly. She doesn't know she's born!

At six months DD suddenly slept from the dream feed at 10 pm until 5 am. Best day of my life. Suddenly the world was in colour again.

I will never have another child as I cannot risk going through that again. People who do it for years? I salute you. It would kill me. Six months of it very nearly finished me off.

redtowel you've just described the first 6 months of my DD2's life. It was horrendous. She really didn't sleep at all and I couldn't do even the simplist of tasks. My DP and I had some stonking rows (and we rarely row) and I really couldn't see how we could stay together at one point.
I just felt ill all the time

I reached breaking point at 5 months and switched to a bottle - not because I thought it would help her sleep, but because it meant DP could help so I could sleep. It solved everything. In 4 nights she went from waking hourly to waking once. DP had her for those 4 nights so the option of her comfort feeding was gone, and I suspect that was the biggest reason for the change. That, plus her getting a full feed in the first place (rather than constant snacking).

I was dreading the same with DD3 but luckily she's a sleeper - I can't shake the feeling that it'll all go wrong at some point though.

Honestly, I cry!! I am appalling if I have only one night of no sleep and currently, our little one has regressed and is now waking in the night and I'm back at work two days a week it's really tough as I suffer from insomnia and therefore takes me an age to fall asleep. Sleeping in the day when she naps is also not an option for me; I've tried and I may finally doze off just as she's waking from her nap. Luckily my hubby is amazing and is taking quite a few of the night feeds. Oh, forgot to add that bubba needs rocking and cuddling to sleep!! Arrrgghh ;-) x

Ipswichwitch, absolutely laughing at your mouse fart comment as its so true for us too. If my husband snores, she wakes!! I too get very homicidal thoughts towards anyone who wakes the bubba knowing how long it's taken me to settle her.

Redtowel, I echo your words entirely. I am very seriously considering paying for a night nanny who will spend a week with us and sleep train her as I just can't function any more.
What really angers me is when you hear "well, my husband sleeps in the spare room so her can get a full nights sleep as he has to work" WHAT THE HELL ARE WE DOING, SITTING ON OUR ARSES ALL DAY???

Shetland, mine was FF from day one and still fed every hour...I remember the doctor saying, try to make her wait and space the feeds out. Yeah right when she is screaming blue murder at 1 am. I took to wearing ear plugs on a daily basis.

Mrs Jones I went back to work when DD was 5 months old (I don't live in the UK and we have shit maternity leave).

I wept with exhaustion and horror at going back to work, but then a light went on in my brain as I realised that DH would now have to split the nights 50/50, no excuse that only he was working!

Am I the only one that is so scarred by it I will never have another child or do people just resign themselves to it and crack out another anyway? What are the chances of getting two non sleepers?

I'm late to this discussion, but ds1 is 9yo and still doesn't sleep through the night. He has SNs and wakes frequently. I'm used to it now, but some nights are worse than others (particularly those when he is up for the day at 4am, as usually it's 5am - amazing how much difference that one hour makes!). It was awful when ds2 was a baby as they were both waking up at night at different times.

I have twins who are teens now and I can't get them out of bed, but I do clearly remember the horror of the first few months.

I used to fantasise about being run over by a car, not seriously hurt but enough for a night or two in hospital, alone, sleeping.

Another thought was stealing something from a shop and spending the night in a police cell, alone, sleeping.

LP, so no other option than just to deal with it, although tbh when I was with ex, he had no patience to deal with night wakings, so was pretty much on my own then, too. I am constantly amazed at how little sleep my dc1 can get by on.

Redtowel I had the same thing with DH. He refused to do nights in the first three months as I was on maternity leave and he was working. I went back after three months and then he started helping and moaning about it. I felt no sympathy - I actually got a couple of nights sleep!

I did seriously consider whether I could do it again but decided I wanted a second child. I am shit scared I will get another non-sleeper but when I look at DS he has been easy in many other ways - weaning, potty training, behaviour etc have all been easy and so I figure there is always something that is a challenge and for him it was sleep.

If anyone is friends with anyone expecting a baby the best thing you could ever offer them is to have the baby for the night while they go and sleep in your bed in your house away from the screaming. I would've killed for that kind of offer.

And... I am tempted to buy us both Fitbits this time so when he's bitching about being woken by the baby I can show him I've survived on two hours broken sleep and he should suck it up and stop his moaning!

red I have two - with 6 years between them. It took that long for me to get over DD1 (Although DD2 was and is comparatively easy anyway)

I worked as a hospital doctor in Ireland (before EWTD was implemented) for 8 years. During that time I generally worked at least one 26-36hour shift per week, and during my worst rota was on a 1:3 meaning I did that every 3rd night. One week I worked 120hours. Got comparatively lucky as a new parent- baby still wakes once at night at 15months but never woke more than that apart from a short while period at about 6months. You do learn to cope, when you have no choice. But quality of life suffers terribly.

I sympathize with those who have fantasized about hospital stays. I was lucky enough to be hospitalized with severe tonsilitis and got an overnight stay with lots of drugs. AND HAD THE BEST NIGHT SLEEP EVER. followed by breakfast in bed. I was devestated when they discharged me.

I sympathize with those who have fantasized about hospital stays

Oh yes, I've definitely done that, even once we were past the sleepless stage - the thought of that time of enforced rest and not having to thing about anyone or anything for a day or two.

In fact I was most disgruntled when I went in for surgery recently and having been told I would definitely be in overnight, was unceremoniously kicked out 3 hours post op!

I'm rather late into the discussion, but after a terrible night's sleep I thought venting could be kind of cathartic.

DS1 slept like an angel until a few weeks ago when all hell broke loose (now 16 weeks). He's gone from one feed throughout the night, to waking every hour for a feed. My health visitor says it's a growth spurt but I am slightly dubious as this has been going on for weeks now: he'd be the size of King Kong with a growth spurt lasting this long!

I hallucinate too OP, in my half-sleep half-zombied state, I convince myself that I've not put him back into his cot, that DH has rolled onto him, that he's entangled in the duvet or that he's fallen onto the floor! (He is always in his cot by the way). It really plays tricks with my brain.

Caffeine and pinching myself seem to keep me on my feet in the daytime!

1. Formula milk is a bit heavier than breastmilk - more filling, so it might be the more sleep conducive option.

2. To help ME, not my DD! when I felt knackered and as if I couldn't be bothered with her baby/toddler busyness, I used to run a bath and share it with her. Having a bath kept her distracted, and saved me from snapping.

Mind you, on the scale of exhaustion described in this thread, I must have been below ten, while some of you are in the nineties. You are saints.

Oh the hospital fantasies! I had these too.

I also watched the shawshank redemption and my first thought was: a good nights sleep in my own quiet cell. My second thought was: delicious time alone.

Prison was my fantasy.

I had 2 terrible sleepers too and I still remember the feeling of being perpetually hungover and achey. Bones aching, feeling 90 years old, this kind of fog in my head all the time. The feeling of surviving because you don't have a choice.
I went back to work ( not out of choice, had to) when DS1 was 4 months old, and for DS2, 5 months old.
The doc sent me to have xrays with DS1 because I was in so much pain. Turns out it was just tiredness in my bones. I used to wait to go to the loo at work because it was so painful getting up from my chair.
DS1 used to wake up every 2-3 hrs, until he was over 3 ( with a brief respite of a few months when he slept through around the age of 18mths )
DS2 started sleeping through the night at around 2.5 years old.
Both would start their day at 4h30/5am anyway, even when they slept through.
Agony
Torture
constant arguments at home due to lack of sleep ( who wanted children, hey? all your fault )
getting up in the middle of the night and going to sleep on the front room floor with baby just to avoid arguments with insomniac partner in a foul mood. night after night after night. Then work.

shudder

I have to wake both of them up in the mornings now, revenge is best served cold

I dream like that all the time and mine is 8 with SNs. Hard to settle up before dawn. On melatonin which is a freaking lifesaver!... When it works :/

If there's a bug going round school I wonder if he'll get it and sleep for hours. Nope. Even the flu will not knock him back for a bit :(

YRs to the hospital fantasy. I used to dream about a sleep hotel, like a Japanese sex hotel, where you could leave your baby in a nursery and rent a bedroom by the hour.

I was exhausted but functional on at least 4 hours of sleep, even it was in little stretches of half an hour or so at a time. Any less than 4 hours in total and I started forgetting words and doing strange things and acting in a mildly drunk sort of way.

I woke up with mild nausea every day, and kept myself going with chocolate. I read virtually nothing but fanfic for 5 years, and put on three stone.

They are now 5 and 8, sleep fine and I am able to concentrate again and am on a diet

Oh yes, the idea of a night or two in hospital....even with the nightly rounds and other noise it would be blissful sleep!

I was perilously close to falling asleep at the bottom of the slide in the playground yesterday. Having just come down it, it was just the right curvature and so comfortable that I thought I'd just stay for a minute or two. Dangerous!

The day mine started doing full days at nursery, I went home and slept all day for the first two days. Utter bliss. I remember some friends (without children) being horrified .

Me and DH were terrible at the competitive tiredness thing. He was holding down two jobs to enable me to have a year off, I was doing all the night feeds. We were both knackered in different ways. Just be kind to each other is my advice for those of you still in that awful stage.

Has anyone ever met anyone in RL with sleepers like theirs? I hear so many horror stories akin to mine on hear and feel
Such relief but in RL have only ever met one person who has had similar experience.