To start a thread for the sleep deprived parents?

[Ifeelbloodyawful]

That's just for supporting one another and is a place to offload about how truly shit sleep deprivation is?

Not a thread for being told to try this/do that/CIO/read this book/try a dummy/try formula/my babies have all slept beautifully since X old (), etc?

Sometimes I don't want "solutions", I just want understanding. Just want a place to be understood, consoled, have a moan, and to remind each other that "this too shall pass" (please!) and in the meantime there is coffee...

So is it just me? Currently surviving on 3-4 hours a night, if I am lucky, and I want to give up, but obviously not an option!

Bloody Nora. Tonight has been a fresh level of hell.

I wish I could run away.

2 of my friends have a newborn each, both a smidge older than mine. I was delighted to hear how one drinks x amount every 4 hours (mine drinks constantly off and on all day and night) and the other baby sleeps 9pm til 7am with only one night feed!!

Am I the only one who, if my baby falls into a deep enough sleep in the wee hours that I can transfer him into his moses basket, and he sleeps for anywhere near an hour, so I manage to get about 30 mins sleep curled up on the settee next to him (or manage to get in 20mins pumping as I EP), considers it a roaring success?!

I’ve found my people!

DD (2yo) is still waking twice a night and can take anywhere between 20 mins and an hour and a half to resettle back to sleep.

5 week old DS who will sleep for a solid 3 hours once asleep but seems to enjoy his awake periods between 1 and 3am! Not fun if DD wakes between this time.
So averaging about 4 hours broken sleep a night between them and i’ve become a right grumpy sod at times.

High BP means I shouldn’t have too much caffeine but DD has so much energy it’s ridiculous, I need it to survive the long days that DH is at work :(

9 month old DS is waking for day at 3.30 every damn morning. It's not even morning, it's the middle of the night! It's been about 2 months of this now and we've tried everything to stop it and he just won't. So now we just give in, get up at 3 fucking 30, and drink a load of caffeine.

I risked it for the transfer. He had been asleep on me for over an hour, I should have known that would be too late to transfer. He stayed in moses basket 10 mins stirring off and on while I stroked his head, nearly falling asleep myself. Finally started crying (him not me, surprisingly) so I picked him up and held him against my chest while he settled down. Sudden epic poo-splosion rumbled him awake again. Poop was all up his stomach. Mad dash for warm water and a towel, screaming baby, cotton balls everywhere, music toy blaring, light on so I can make sure I get all the poop - plan to keep him asleep as long as possible officially failed. Wondering in hindsight if I didn't risk the transfer and potentially awaken him and his bowels, would he still be asleep? Ramblings of a tired mother.

*oh and he has fallen asleep on me again but my breast pumping is due now, after a very bad pumping day yesterday and painful blocked ducts have formed again. Risk the transfer again to save my boobies or risk my boobies to prolong baby's sleep, that is the question.

My 19 months old is being Up since1.30. Im gonna die...

Yes yes yes. I didn't actually know it was possible to survive on so little sleep for so long. I don't like talking about it in real life as I simply can't implement suggestions to improve the situation. My ds finally sleeps well (aged 3.5) but dd (14m) still breastfeeds and wakes constantly as much as she did as a newborn. I nightweaned ds by this point but we have terrible neighbours who bang on the walls and make threats if there is so much as one cry so that's just not an option. I'm honestly considering taking her to a hotel to wean her!! Haha hoping it improves without that. Sympathy for you all.

I bring a this too shall pass story... DD sleeps beautifully now. She was the worst sleeper ever to start with.

Now I am battling ds's autism and menopause sleepless nights. DD is fine once he is asleep but bouncing round until late then I am too awake to sleep til very very late.

DD (4) has started waking up at 430 onwards since the clocks changed. And I’ve tried putting her to bed later but that just means she still gets up early but we have a day of whinging along with it. She’s broken by 1630.

She is an ok sleeper now otherwise but as a baby OMG 7m-18m waking up every 30mins at one point.

Sending tea

Also-once I’m awake I find it really hard to go back to sleep unless DH takes DD out and I have silence

Here you all are! I'm so glad I'm not the only one!

DS 4.5yo sleeps like an absolute dream now but was a nightmare as a baby.

DS2 is 16 months and still wakes

ffs sorry, DS2 nabbed the phone and posted before I was ready...

He's 16 months and obviously wanted to prevent me telling you he still wakes twice on a very good night and up to every hour or so on a bad night. We've only had bad nights in the last few weeks.

He's breastfed and I assumed that was the problem so I got him self-settling at bedtime. No dice. Makes no difference. He still wakes all the time. He's probably teething because they always are but nurofen hasn't made any difference.

I'm tired. And really really grumpy. Coffee, anyone?

Mine has seen another 4am, and has apparently added conjunctivitis to his list of molars and ear infection. Yaaaaay.

Solidarity with you all. DD2 is nearly 2.5 and has slept through 3 times in her life. Usually up 2-3 times a night for about 15 minutes each so not awful but bad enough. Still bf. Also self settles at bedtime. I’m working 3 days a week as a total zombie. Thankfully I am used to it as DD1 did the same (but she started sleeping through at 23 months). Today my trains are screwed so have been running and squishing myself onto packed carriages, which will not help my mood or alertness. Yawn.

@b0bb1n - I can relate 100%! The amount of times I "try" something and then bitterly regret it is quite staggering. Hope your boobs are OK!

@Pinkybutterfly oh you poor thing. Sending tea/coffee and solidarity.

So glad I started this thread now as (coincidence?) last night was particularly hideous. DD just wouldn't settle. I mostly feed sitting up and then lay her down next to me once asleep but that wasn't working. Feeding laying down not working either as she'd just thrash about. Even my failsafe/last resort of propping myself up and dozing sitting up didn't work. At 4:30 I called DH in in dispair (rarely do this as he has a full time job but he had gone to bed at 8:30 and I was desperate as been awake most of the night). He took her for a drive and I did get some sleep until 6:17 when he got home and DS woke up. He was in a foul mood though and told me that I need to start putting her down in the day and leaving her to cry "so she gets used to it". He left for work without saying goodbye and now I feel even worse.

I'm hoping last night was a one off/something was up as she was out-of-character unsettled, even for her! I just need the odd good night to break up the horror. We used to get some nights with 4 (and once five) hour stretches interspersed into the (more frequent) bad ones, but they've stopped happening recently and I am suffering.

I am finding myself withdrawing away from the world, as I don't have the energy for even basic human interaction, and it is worrying me a bit.

@sar302 sounds like you and your DS are having a rough time. I hope he's feeling (and sleeping) better soon. Poorliness is always a kicker for any chance of sleep isn't it?

@Jinglesplodge I found self settling made no real difference to night waking for DS either. He self settled when he was DDs age and slept quite well, but that stopped at about six months and he had to be fed to sleep again for ages, and then even when he went back to self settling he still woke in the night. I breastfed him until he was 2.5 and afraid to say he only started sleeping through when I got pregnant again and weaned him altogether (with DH doing all bedtimes and night wakings).
With this one I am just lost and don't know what to do. DH thinks we should work on self settling but as above I don't think it will make any difference to how often she wakes. I also worry about her waking DS up so reluctant to let her makes loads of noise during the night. Argh!

@Ifeelbloodyawful solidarity! I had one of those nights the night before last! My six-week-old DD slept but only in my arms and only in that squirmy, thrashy, "this means a poo is imminent" way. Which she didn't manage til 6am. And then did 5.

I was actually hallucinating with tiredness by last night and DP had to just march around with her grizzling on his shoulder so I could get an hour just to feel sub-human. When he brought her back and woke me up I couldn't take her at first because I was convinced I already had her, he had to explain he had the baby, I had a chunk of duvet and a hallucination.

Still, 6 weeks today and the NHS site and all the books say I can now look forward to longer stretches of sleep, 3-4 hours at a time, can't wait!

Going back to work makes it even harder. All my nights are somewhere between "broadly manageable" and "utter rubbish". It's really on a knife edge whether I will squeeze enough sleep to get any work done, and it makes me feel so guilty about being so rubbish! He's 15mo and sleep has always been hard. We've co slept for about 8 months, he's BF and wakes anywhere from every 1-3 hours.

When DS was a newborn it was insane. He was establishing BF and he wouldn't sleep AT ALL from about 9pm-3am for the first 10 weeks. I would get in a bit of sleep from 3-6am (had some help from my mum), but I swear I would hallucinate at some points!

Can I join please! 18mo, our first child, is up every hour, will only accept bf back to sleep (goes to sleep beautifully at the start of the night without it), up for the day at 4.30 this morning.

The wider impact of the awful nights and subsequent exhaustion is seriously damaging my and DH's relationship, and he's ruled out ever having another one

@littlestrawby that sounds so tough. Has it always been hourly?

The wider impact isn't good here either. Marriage a mess (not just sleep depro but that doesn't help) and I feel like having such a high needs baby is damaging my relationship with DS too, as she takes up so much of my patience, time and energy. I'm starting to resent her for it, which is awful as she's just baby! Urgh.

Although luckily DH and I are on the same page about more children. Big fat no!

Back home with DD after dropping DS at childcare. I've just quickly done a few chores as the house is a bombsite. DD's knackered and cranky after her busy night. If she'll go to sleep I'd quite like to try for a nap myself, but of course we have bloody British Gas coming to service central heating today, sometime between 8am-1pm, so I can't relax, as they could be here at any time. And knowing their track record I'd like to bet there's a fair chance they won't actually show up.

She's falling asleep now, I should have made a cup of tea, before I sat down.

How are we all doing?

I think my DD thinks that sleep is for other people. She woke every hour to hour and a half as a newborn and theoretically we are going through the four month sleep regression but her sleep is so shit anyway nothing has changed.

I got about three hours broken sleep. I've been up since four because I just got so fed up and felt like my DH was tormenting me by snoring. I need to go to be earlier tonight but I know that I won't.

for everyone!