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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To wonder how you all stay awake?!

12 replies

2boysandus · 04/10/2017 07:03

Come my eldests bedtime (8pm) I'm flippin knackered! We barely get a page into the story before I'm yawning my head off, trying to say words through 20 yawns a minute...

I have a baby too who is a terrible sleeper - accepting it how it is as the eldest was the same, so not a problem - which is what knackers me out!

I then have to get up around 5 for work (self employed, writer). No potential for change on that front. Though the baby has been up up from 4.45 last few days which makes it difficult!

DH has the baby on his 2 days off per week, (not nights when he has work the next day, driver, I wouldn't make him lose sleep and be a danger on the roads), but I can't seem to catch up!

Day naps also not an option.

Any ideas?! 6 pack of red bull a day do you think?!

lighthearted post as I know it's life and parenting and I bloody love it all

OP posts:

fucksakefay · 04/10/2017 07:07

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

StaySexyDontGetMurdered · 04/10/2017 07:10

I think you've answered your own question! You've got a baby who doesn't sleep and are up at 4.45 most days, I'd be knackered too.

I think you've just got to ride it out and have early nights where possible. It won't be forever.

Pollydonia · 04/10/2017 07:10

Baby times are a looong way in the past for me but I used to go to bed the same time as the kids a couple of times a week and my dparents had them for a night once a month.

Original poster

2boysandus · 04/10/2017 07:10

I often fall asleep straight after my eldest - but numerous wake ups in the night still put me down to around 5 hours a night of sleep usually!

some wake ups I wake and just can't go back off for an hour or so which of course isn't helping

I'm thinking 2020 looks like a good year for sleep, if following the same path with the youngest as the eldest!

OP posts:

londonrach · 04/10/2017 07:12

I go to bed when i put dd in bed and mm and fall asleep with minutes. As shes now a year i managed an hour downstairs last week!!! By 9pm. dh and i are tucked up in bed. My dsis the same and my friends. Think most people do that in the early years. One day ill get an evening

ZeppelinBend · 04/10/2017 07:12

I have a terrible sleeping older one and always has been. I have since developed a strong coffee addiction and head to bed at 8.30 once they go to sleep. Don't always sleep (night owl myself) but at least I'm resting in bed.

Original poster

2boysandus · 04/10/2017 07:14

Definitely, coffee ANYTHING is fine with me!! Sure is one of those things we just do isn't it - I wish I could stop yawning though, the story must sound ridiculous when I'm trying to read it!!

Wouldn't change it for the world though :)

OP posts:

astoundedgoat · 04/10/2017 07:16

Are you actually going to bed and sleeping from 8? If not, you should!

DH and I went to bed at 9 most nights until dd2 was sleeping through consistently. No shame in it!

whatsthecomingoverthehill · 04/10/2017 07:17

I'm just wondering why you need to be up at 5 to work when you're self employed! Not that it make a difference if you're up at 4.45 anyway.

Original poster

2boysandus · 04/10/2017 07:25

I'm asleep always by 9. But then usually being woken again by half 10, often hourly.

I have to work at 5 as I need to meet morning deadlines.

Self employed but contracted so if I take work I have to do it by the required time. I certainly can't stay awake late to do it, as by 6pm my brain concentration levels are shot.

OP posts:

Evelynismyspyname · 04/10/2017 07:42

My DC3 woke hourly for 2.5 years. You just have to exist through it, there really isn't anything you can do unless you want to go down the road of investigating ways to "fix" their sleep, which I know isn't always possible despite what some people think. I had two good sleepers first so thought I knew what I was doing - you have to have a truly terrible sleeper (not just a child who has a bad phase or a baby who wakes a couple of times at night) yourself to get it.

I'm surprised you can't get back to sleep - fairly frequently I fell asleep on his floor or the toilet and didn't even make it back to bed! I remember being in a weird surreal state of constantly feeling the slide into sleep and the jolt out of sleep without reaching deep sleep, and that is what broke me - by the time his sleep started to improve I was quite physically broken, with all sorts of aches and pains I hadn't had before.

I don't know how you can be with it and clear headed enough to write to a standard you get paid for whilst surviving hourly night time waking - hats off to you, I think you're doing better than most would be!

LePetitPont · 04/10/2017 08:02

I hear you!! 3 years in with a rubbish sleeper (we managed 3 nights of sleeping through til 7 or so then brexit hit and DS1 was clearly in favour of remain as he hasn't slept past 6 since!). New baby DS2 following in his footsteps...

So we go to bed about 9, I try to nap with the baby on nursery days and snooze in the mornings as DS1 will be entertained with CBeebies apps on the iPad.

Re bedtime story yawning. We use the various hypnotherapy ones about tired rabbits, sheep etc and yawning is positively encouraged! It always works for me

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