To ask which phase of your DCs upbringing did you find hardest?

[ethelfleda]

Was it New born stage? Toddler stage or maybe teenage years? And why?

Our DS (1st child) is 4 months and has hit sleep regression and I am finding it tough. I keep thinking "it'll be ok when this phase passes... it will get easier" but what if I am wrong? I adore my son but I am desperate for sleep.

He is EBF and last night I hit a low. About 2am he still wouldn't settle... I didn't know what to do. I said 'shut up' to him a few times under my breath and slapped myself around the face. I don't know why - I think I was frustrated and sleep deprived. Didn't realise DH (who sleeps in spare room) heard me say what I said and saw me do what I did over the video monitor. He came and took DS from me and got angry with me and I said he thinks I am 'not capable'

I didn't know what to do other than just weep!! I am so bloody angry at myself for telling a poor defenceless baby to 'shut up' when he just needed a cuddle. I feel like the crappest mother ever to be honest and I just feel like I need a rough point to 'look forward to' when I can believe that this may be easier than it is now.

OP, sleep deprivation is used as a form of tourture!! This phase will pass and before you know it, DS will be a big, burly teenager!

We can't really afford anything like that unfortunately. I'm hoping weaning will go well once he is 6 months as he is already showing an interest in food!

I found those first years (sorry, it WAS years) when they wouldn't sleep so so so hard. Even now I shudder thinking about it.

To some extent you have to accept they won't sleep, and try to find coping strategies. One of ours was that once the babies hit a certain age, we took it in turns to do the nights, and the other wore earplugs and got a full night's sleep. But they did need to be taking milk from a cup or bottle by that stage. I think it was around 9 months.

Hang in there!

Young toddler stage, about 14 months to 20 months. DD was just so stroppy, wouldn't sit in buggy, wouldn't sit in highchair, screamed being put into her car seat, dropped her daytime nap for a while, only ate crap. She literally turned into a monster overnight! I hated it, hated taking her out, hated driving with her, I was in tears most days.

Then as suddenly as it started it stopped (mostly), I moved her into a bed (she loved it), put the highchair up for sale and sat her on a booster cushion at the table and let her walk everywhere (with back pack reigns).

With regard to you telling him to shut up - he's a baby and has no clue what you are on about. My mother used to pace the floor with me whilst calling me all the names under the sun in a lovely sing song voice (told by my grandmother) - trust me it hasn't tarnished or damaged me or our relationship. I think it's quite funny really and having paced with my own through sleep deprivation I can see why she felt better.

Be gentle with yourself and sit DH down and explain calmly exactly how tired you are right now. Ask him to help a little more so you can get 7 hours of sleep sometimes.

It will pass eventually, it sucks and it is incredibly hard but before you blink he will be all grown up and making you a cuppa. ((Hugs))

@ethelfleda what you just said about feeling guilt is so relatable. My son is 12 this year and I still feel guilt over how terrible I failed as a mother at first, just not knowing what to do. I think my anxiety stems from this in fact.
It sent me into massive depression years later, which thankfully lifted but now I’m still anxious about it. But that’s exactly how I would describe it - just soul crushing guilt.

Be kind to yourself, what’s done is done. I wish I could go back and snuggle my eldest more amongst a massive list of things I wish I’d done and not done ... but here we are. Over the years I’ve found that at age 2 - 5 -7 -8 -9-10 and now 11 every single year I have a meltdown saying to myself that it’s too late, I have no time, he’s going to be at a disadvantage because I was a shit mother etc.

The truth is he’s bloody brilliant though, the guilt is my issue and it comes from loving him so much.

You’re doing a great job. Don’t worry

Ages 7 - 10 because they are too old for younger groups/a lot of soft play areas but too young for teenage stuff/going off with their mates.

Old enough to not be able to just scoop them up and take them to play somewhere without them kicking off where you're taking them and too young to hang out with mates on their own.

Some days we did nothing due to no one agreeing what they wanted to do!

4-12 months was the worst. I used to sing 'go the f-ck to sleep you little sh-t' to the tune of 'she'll be coming round the mountain' and leave the room to scream into a pillow. You are totally capable and it will get better.

Your husband obviously isn't dealing with the screaming baby or he'd be losing his rag occasionally too. Being woken in the night and screamed at is SHIT HARD! My DD did it for 15 months every bloody night and both hubby and I threatened to chuck her out the window (we were mostly joking). You are doing fine. It is ok to put the screaming ball of rage down in the cot whilst you give yourself a moment if you need to. Make hubby do night wakings for a few days!

My DD is now 7 and has been SO SO SO much easier ever since she started sleeping at around 18 months.

First child 0 to 9 months and 4 to 5 years. He's 22.
Second child 4 to 5 years. He's 20 now.
Neither slept well as babies and were adorable toddlers but poisonous difficult 4 year olds.

Sleep deprivation is HARD, you need to cut yourself some slack.
I’m typing this whilst holding my 11 week old, who is a crappy sleeper and will only nap on me during the day. I have a lovely, involved, supportive husband but he just doesn’t understand the sheer desperation that comes from bone tiredness and spending all of your days and nights trying to get a cranky baby to sleep. I absolutely love my son, and I enjoy playing with him, feeding him and cuddling him - but I am not coping well with the sleeplessness.

Just last night my husband was horrified to be woken (from his glorious, jealousy inducing sleep) by me banging the crappy broken nightlight on the headboard to try and make it work, whilst crying and pleading with my beautiful baby to go to f*ing sleep. I’m not going to hurt or scare my son, but sometimes a few whispered swear words help me to cope.

I know that it’s an absolute privilege to be at home with my baby, and I hope I’ll look back on this time fondly (I’m already missing how he was as a really tiny newborn) - but being the parent with boobs on maternity leave is hard work, and very draining.

Anyway, I just wanted you to know that you’re absolutely not alone. I hope that your husband, friends or family members are supporting and appreciating you - someone holding the baby downstairs so that you can catch up on a couple of hours sleep can make a whole world of difference.

Ages 7 - 10 because they are too old for younger groups/a lot of soft play areas but too young for teenage stuff/going off with their mates

Oh I completely agree with this. My ds is 9 and so many things we used to do he's very unimpressed with now. A trip to the local park to play in the playground and then get an ice cream is no longer something he particularly enjoys. I really struggle with activities for him.

Don’t worry OP, you are not alone. Anyone who is getting 7 hours sleep a night has got no idea how sleep deprivation can affect you. I had two non sleepers and it was fucking awful. Ds didn’t sleep past 4:30-5am until he started school. There were times when I thought it might be possible to die from lack of sleep. Listen to this and know that other people have had worse thoughts than you!

m.youtube.com/watch?v=ip2f1eA_OOo

Incidentally mine are now 9 and 11 and nothing has been as bad as the early days yet... but I haven’t been through the teenage years yet!

@ethelfleda as a PP said, finding a mantra can help in times of great stress; mine is (DD is 4) "this too shall pass". That is so hard to hold onto in the early months of sleep deprivation and again I paraphrase a PP in that there is a damn good reason it's used as torture. My DH took so much personally when DD was new, I'm positive he had post natal depression and a book called the wonder weeks helped him immensely - it's a bit repetitive but gave him a timeline to work with.

I also realise I have many more challenges ahead, I have a baby due in about 4 weeksish too so that will create it's own issues but, I found 0-6 months some of the hardest, the shock of a new baby and a total change of family dynamic didn't help us coping with actual baby issues (and there were a fair few) 18 months to 2 years was hard, she got all her tantrums in then and then as a 3 yo we really learnt what threenager meant.

Try not to beat yourself up about telling your baby to 'shut up' it really isn't the worst thing that could be said and you will accumulate so much more guilt over his lifetime without adding more

Mine aren’t teenagers yet, the eldest is eight. According to my Mother, the teenage years were by far the worst with me but with my brother it was toddler years so it’s definitely dependent on the child.

I found the baby and toddler years to be a blur, I lived on autopilot. The sleep deprivation and monotony of the day to day routine was difficult, I can’t lie. They’re now old enough to dress, wash and feed themselves so I find life fairly easy compared to that.

Definitely the baby stage, all they do it sleep (sometimes) feed and poo. They get much more interesting when start doing stuff and there's more of a positive feedback from them. Hang in there it is tough

0-6 months is sooooo hard it sounds weird but I used to get so frustrated and tired when my son wouldn't sleep I used to scratch my legs! I also told him to shut up quietly many times! He's 2 now and the light of my life. I also have an 11 year old so far none of their stages are as hard as the 0-6 months stage x

Just remembered I used to recite the Lords prayer in the hope he'd sleep too...I'm not even religious!! Makes you go nuts

Northstar I agree - my eldest is nearly 13 and nothing has been as hard as sleep deprivation with the one (out of 3 kids) who was a truly terrible 45 minutes at a time sleeper. I really think anyone saying 7-10 years is worse has no idea whatsoever what real sleep deprivation is like, how it puts you into a 24/7 fog and makes you alternatively furious and numb, and how it actually makes your body physically ache... I did it with a 5 and a 3 year old to look after too and the eldest needing to be got up for school even if the baby had only just got to sleep after being awake hours, and it was the most difficult phase of child rearing by such a huge, cavornous margin that nothing else deserves to share the word "difficult" with it so far.

7-10 was a dream, my older two were absolute delights at that age and still are mostly at nearly 11 and nearly 13. They have their stroppy moments but they are mostly funny, sweet, amazing, helpful, incredible humans who sleep through the night :o The nearly 13 year old even cooks dinner of her own volition regularly, normally on the day I'm late home. My nearly 7 year old (former non sleeper) is officially the cutest child ever born, hilarious and surprising and insightful and incredibly energetic and kind. He's easy peasy now .

All kids are different and also the situation people live in is - if I'd lived in a flat in a city without safe outdoor space I think I might have said 7-10 was hard with dc2, and as he was a good sleeper I might have said hardest if I'd only had him or two like him. However as we live in a safe village with tons of outdoor space and like-minded neighbor kids it's been easy - he's just needed kicking outdoors to play football and build tree houses etc with his friends for several hours per day!

Nothing is as hard as real sleep deprivation, and your DH should be taking turns at weekends at least (even if only to allow you a 3 hour stretch between breastfeeding).

Eve that's a bit unfair to say really isn't it. Everyone's experience is different so to say anyone saying 7-10 years can't have experienced XYZ which is so much harder is not nice really.

I also experienced sleep deprivation too. My dd was on 2.3 when ds was born so I know what it's like to have a non sleeping baby and then having to do a full day with s tantruming toddler. Add pnd to that too and it's a recipe for an unhappy existence for a while.

My ds has horrendous tantrums (as in throwing things, breaking things, punching me and his dad, kicking us, throwing everything out the window, damaging technology, trashing his room) until he was around 7/8. He also has hyper mobility so would wake screaming in the night with pain in his legs until he was around 6/7 years old. So I know what a tough ride looks like.

7-10 was still the toughest age though because when they were little you could put them in the car, say we are going out and you could take them to soft play/a park/a country adventure park and they would be happy to go and play. Now, they don't just "get in the car" because they say where are we going then moan they don't want to do that/it's boring and you end up stuck with what to do. Yet they aren't quite old enough to go off with their mates like teenagers do.

You're right Backtobaleys I shouldn't have said that. But real sleep deprivation is so all pervasive, affecting physical as well as mental state quite seriously, so I can't get my head around how getting 7 hours sleep a night and sending the child to school 240 days a year could be harder than the 24/7/365 mood altering, body breaking, all pervasive experience of sleep deprivation.

But then mine get in the car if I tell them to, I also can't imagine the stand off you describe with NT under 11s. Yes everyone is different.

Sorry Baileys lost a letter somewhere!

However as we live in a safe village with tons of outdoor space and like-minded neighbor kids it's been easy - he's just needed kicking outdoors to play football and build tree houses etc with his friends for several hours per day!

That sounds fab. You'd probably find 7-10 harder if you lived in London with a garden the size of a postage stamp!

I have been sleep deprived...its awful but I think you forget the reality of it once your DC get older.

Yes formerbabe that's exactly what I said - it would have been hard without the outdoor space, and if I'd only had dc2 I can see how I'd have seen things differently.