...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.

Cross post with blueshoes and same basic point.

Ours cry more if you're in the room trying to be reassuring!

I don't know. DD never slept through until she was almost 5 then I had a blissful year and a bit of sleep before DS came along. He's 3 in a few days and guess what.... hes never slept through either.

My lowest point was when I started fantasising about being admitted to hospital (with something serious but non fatal) just so that they'd administer drugs which would allow me to enjoy hours of uninterrupted SLEEP. At that point DP was working away half the week so I was having to get up and do all the school runs with a small baby in tow having been up half the night. When he went to nursery I made sure he went a week before I went back to work and spent virtually the whole time in bed in an exhausted mess.

Its getting gradually better a the DC's get older but I am still usually woken 4-5 times a night by DS.

I live in a country where CC / CIO is highly used. I actually used to lie to the pediatrician about DS1's bad sleep because she just tilted her head at me and told me that it's ok to leave him to cry.

When he was diagnosed with reflux (aged 12 months!) I was so glad I hadn't left him to cry. He woke because he was in pain (and was sometimes sick). Now he's nearly 4 and still highly medicated for reflux. Now he wakes cos of reflux but also nightmares/night terrors. He is scared and/or in pain. I will not leave him to cry.

Fortunately, he has recently started to accept DH at night (he wouldn't for the first 3 years - he just screamed and was sick) so now DH sleeps in DS1's room with him. It reassures him and he wakes but goes back to sleep quickly. And no-one has to get out of bed because I co-sleep with DS2.

DS2 can be left to grumble his way to sleep for his daytime naps. But I can't do that at night because he wakes DS1. When DS2 was a newborn I was regularly up 20 times in the night between the 2 of them. Now I just don't care. I co-sleep and will do until we stop. And that will be when it suits everyone in the family.

And yes we tried everything with both of them. Both of them screamed until they were sick with sleep training and dd got so distressed she took to sleep walking still at least she was asleep!

Thank you ladies. I've loved this thread. It's made me realise that my version of normal is, well, normal and that I'm not alone.

oh yes, the early starts. I recently went to stay with DB.

DS2 woke very late for him (tired because of the journey) which was 6am local time. By the time my nephew woke up (9am), DS2 needed to have his first nap! We found it very hard to coordinate the two boys throughout the weekend (DS2 naps around 9am and 2pm, DN napped once around 5pm!)

I'm on ML with 9 month old DD who has had hourly awakenings for nearly three months now. Because I'm on ML, I can nap a couple of times a day and go for long walks in the sun, fuelled by caffeine. DH had recently started doing the nights on weekends to give me a break. The plan was for me to find a new job when DD is around a year but I don't think I can do that unless she starts sleeping again. I'm also supposed to be learning to drive in this zombiefied state. Wish me luck!

I am in awe of the long term suffering many of you have gone through. I haven't (thankfully) but have a friend who is into her 7th year of it and as many of you say, is always ill with colds or other lurgies, goes to bed at 9pm, has no social life and sounds the weekend sleeping shifts with her husband during the day to try to catch up. It doesn't seem like much of a life.

I too don't understand why people won't try some form of sleep training. I can see that when there are SN it may well not work, but when other people say they KNOW it won't work, I question this - how can you know until you try.
I understand that people with 2 are fearful about sleep training waking the other child and also that there will be a pretty grim and worse period before there is improvement - but much of this seems to be short term pain for long term gain to me. The only thing I can think of, is tht people are SO exhausted already, they cannot see the long term gain to be had, only the short term pain of sleep training, and their current exhaustion means they can only think about getting through to the next day, not the bigger longer term picture.

Is accepting there will be a lack of sleep and this life of exhaustion,illness, fogginess and no social life, really the only way? I can see that if you have tried lots of methods and they haven't worked, acceptance becomes less disappointing that constant thwarted hopes, but to me (and I clearly say this as a person who has not had sleep deprivation) the costs of long term sleep deprivation seem so significant, I think I would have to refuse to accept it and keep working at it. I would do sleep training and if it meant crying, I would do it, to break what I would see as a damaging pattern for both the children and myself.

One friend of mine suffered this issue. She hired a sleep nanny. It cost her over £1k but it dealt with the issue and she says it was the best money she ever spent. I think I would do this too if necessary.

I know all of you long term sufferers have reasons for approaching the issue as you do - of course it is your choice. However, I know I just couldn't accept it and would have to go for the solution, even if it meant using up a years worth of holiday and separating the 2 children into 2 houses so they could each be sleep trained at the same time, or paying a night nanny ...or whatever.

For all of you....I hope this period, which as everyone says....will too pass, passes very soon.

Lack of sleep is the major reason we only have two children. I dealt with it by developing PND, being hugely grumpy, subsisting socially, reducing any professional ambition. After five years of rubbish sleep I now get seven hours a night when I'm not suffering from insomnia. And on this 7 hours I honestly feel like I could rule the world! I've taken on more responsibility at work, I'm exercising, eating well and socialising more.

Just to provide a slightly different perspective. I'm happy to 'admit' to sleep training as a resulting sleep deprivation. My daughter slept terribly from 3.5 months, waking more and more frequently, eventually 90m intervals. I was on my knees by 7 months. Mean tempered, dazed, starting to hate the while experience. Sleep trained her at 7.5 months including a couple of nights of letting her cry for 5m intervals and she immediately started sleeping through.

I hated the whole idea. Hated hearing her cry for even those short intervals. But it worked beautifully. She's mostly slept through since with just a few early wake ups and rubbish nights around 10.5 months.

Amazing decision for us. I am a much nicer mum, partner, friend and now colleague than I would have been and my daughter was instantly happier too.

Everyone picks their own approach and this method probably wouldn't work for every child but it's not true to say there are no other choices than to keep getting up every night for years.

I don't agree that you get used to it. You get used to doing it, but I never got used to feeling like total shit. It never became normal for me.

DS didn't sleep through the night for two years. The first six months in particular were hideous and I was a total zombie - and I went back to work when he was three months old.

I can totally appreciate why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. It messes with your mind. You can't function properly. You take it out on the people who care for you the most.

Mums at baby groups told me their babies were sleeping through from 6 weeks and I had to really hold myself back from punching their smug faces.

I had nights where I sobbed, all night, and other nights where I just soldiered on with resignation that this was my lot.

I am 30 weeks pregnant and I am DREADING the first six months. Absolutely dreading it. If it wasn't for the fact that I know it'll get better eventually I don't think we would've had another one.

And it turned out that both my children suffered from sleep apnoea and had abnormally large adenoids. Only dealing with this surgically had the effect of improving their sleep, immediately. So sleep training didn't work for a reason.

Oh and despite all that, we never did cry it out. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I figured if he was crying he needed me and he was too little to tell me why. I was tempted though.

I'm with you Danger! I called my mum when dd was 5/6 weeks old howling down the phone that I couldn't do it anymore!
She was sleeping through by about 6/7 weeks. I need sleep and if I'd have had to endure some of the sleepless nights detailed in this thread, I think I'd have been close to death!
32 weeks pregnant now and I'm dreading the early months! People are asking if I'm excited and I keep replying with 'no, I'm scared!'
Hi Gooo (waves)

Some days I just get on with it, others we all sit and cry. Dd (5) slept badly until she was around 3. We did gradual retreat with her and now she's brilliant. 12 hours every night bar illness.

Ds (18mo) is awful. Has never slept for more than 3 hours and usually up every hour. I'm on my knees. Have been suicidal. Regularly think about driving the three of us off a bridge. I have begged anyone who will listen for help. Gp, hv, psychiatrist, cpn. Nothing. It's a living hell.

It's amazing none of us have been badly hurt. I am unable to keep us safe. I have no idea how mums manage to go back to work on so little sleep. I could not do a job in this state.

DS is sleeping through (for now?) but I found the sleepless nights absolute agony. He'd wake up for a feed seemingly only 15 minutes after he'd fallen asleep after the last one, and I'd want to break down and sob with exhaustion. Somehow you do just get on with it, but it was hard.

We're planning to try leaving her for a few minutes to see if that helps but I couldn't do full-on CIO. At the moment, I'm picking her up as soon as I hear her little voice crying 'mama', but I'm aware that may not be the best way.

My DS was an ok sleeper until the four month sleep regression, then he started waking pretty much every hour, sometimes taking two or even three hours to resettle again. I wanted to die - I had really bad PND anyway due to a horrible birth and DS's constant screaming with colic and reflux, and the sleep deprivation almost killed me even though I had wonderful support from my DP. I swore I wouldn't ever do controlled crying but at six months I snapped, we tried it and DS slept though for ten hours! Ever since then, he's gone down at 7-7.30 in the evening, then we don't hear from him again til 5am or so, with the occasional lie in of 5.30 or early wake up at 4.30! CC doesn't seem to work on him in the morning, though he naps like a champ too now.

six night shifts completed and barely any sleep during the day and I'm happier then I was after 1. Starting to think my body has forgotten what sleep is.. I'm sure it'll remember just as my three year old (bad sleeper) wakes up for cuddles tonight.

I'm not sure whether I could have coped with him shouting "mama" to me, though.

Dd is one and has never slept well. I struggled to sleep when I was pregnant too so it's been going on since before she was born. Actually the day I gave birth I had had zero sleep for 3 nights and was so tired I barely had the energy to push!

I have noticed my skin has really gone down hill over this year. It looks dehydrated no matter how much water I drink and how much cream I put on. Me and dp have had some awful arguments about nothing much. Lots of days I feel OK energy wise but some days I'm in a complete slump. I feel guilty that I'm not doing as much with dd as I should but some days I find it hard to move! I don't eat enough but what I do eat is crap so although I'm a healthy weight, I'm probably not healthy. I'm not back at work yet, I don't know what it will be like when I am.

I was never against cc but it just doesn't seem to work for us.