Petrified about sleep when baby comes

[mytypeonpaper]

So we're planning to start trying for a baby soon and I'm just petrified about the lack of sleep! If I don't get 8 hours I'm a mess I usually average about 9 hours a night. Our friends have just had to a baby and he's 4 months old now and just dosent sleep! How do you function!? Please tell me it's not going to be as bad as I think 🙈 I know all babies are different but how much sleep did you average when they're small?

That’s 12 years on 😊

It’s fucking awful. Dd1 is 7, still wakes twice in the night. DS1 slept straight through from a few months old (but is the devil when awake ) we’ve had both experiences.

DD1 broke us really. But get help in if having a neat house is your thing or let standards slip, easy food ready prepped - I also found a laundrette to do our washing, pil took them for walks when I was despo and wanted a nap. I took much more mat leave with DD as she was up every hour around 9m old and I couldn’t cope. But you get through it.

Also ignore every fuckers advice about non sleepers if they tell you it. I’ve heard it all. Do what works for you.

DS2 is 4.5 months now, but when he was born I genuinely forgot how bad the sleep can be. For the first 8 weeks he wouldn't sleep anywhere but my chest. Not in his crib, not on DH, solely on me. I was starting to see things in the corner of my eye, shapes etc and was about to call the GP because I thought I had post partum psychosis. DH sent me to sleep in another room one night when DS1 was with grandparents and I woke up a new woman.

Now he's this age, he goes down at 9pm, feeds at 4 and then sleeps until 7:30, which is usually when his big brother comes in to wake us up because he wants to see his baby brother before he leaves for preschool.

The one thing that saved me was DH realising how much I was struggling, so he has taken over the night feeds (I feel a lot less guilty now that there's only one feed in the night instead of three). Mainly because DH will do the feed and fall straight back to sleep, but I'll be wired and up for hours post feed.

DS1 is about to turn four, and he's a dream at sleeping. Quite often, if the baby doesn't wake him up he will sleep until 9:30/10 on a weekend and has done since he was about 18 months.

You cope. It's not great. In fact, it's often hellish but you get through it. I can never nap during the day, when the baby sleeps it's my time to have a cuppa and do some laundry or prep dinner.

Its different to say being unable to sleep because of a snoring partner. For me if my baby needed something it was like my body just woke up automatically and performed whatever task needed doing. If baby is crying and needs a nappy change you just do it, you dont think about the interrupted sleep in that moment. I co slept with mine and if you are confident in doing it safely and feel you are low risk (eg breastfeeding, non smoker, haven't been drinking, baby is healthy etc) it makes it much easier. In fact I actually find it hard to sleep without my youngest by me and he's nearly 4!!!

You just sort of have to get on with it.

To be honest by the time you're sleep deprived you've pretty much committed to the parenting thing, it's not like you can give them back

BRB my 3 yo is shouting me 🤦

Really unpopular on here - but Gina Ford routine was amazing. Both mine slept well and didn't cry when they were put down as they knew what to expect. So it is possible but you have to put the effort in with keeping to timings.

Honestly, there are things you can do to make it easier. It's just that a lot of them are frowned upon.

I had PND and PPD, both of which were exacerbated by exhaustion. Because of that me, my HV and my mental health team worked together to figure out ways we could maximise my sleep while still meeting my daughter's needs.

1. They begged me to move DD to her own room ASAP because her snuffling and grunting was stopping me from getting ANY sleep. I eventually relented at 4 months (when the SIDS risk drops significantly although of course still before the 6 months recommended by the Lullaby Trust.

1. I breastfed for the first few weeks and then moved to bottle feeding (next time I would aim for mixed feeding but I was so ill I just couldn't manage it). This meant DH and I could take turns. For me, the wake ups weren't the problem - it was the being on alert listening for her. When I knew it was DH's "turn" I managed to sleep much more easily. We still take it in turns to be on duty two years on and both sleep better on our nights "off", even though she sleeps through now!

1. DH took 3 months off. This was by necessity as I was so ill I wasn't allowed to be alone with DD (not through fear I'd harm her but because I had been suicidal). Next time we would actively arrange this ahead of time through shared parental leave. Probably for two months. Gets you through the worst bit.

1. I prioritised sleep over everything else. The housework, seeing friends, spending time with DH. My HV reminded me that it wouldn't be forever and I could do all those things again really soon. I found this really hard to do but she was right. It was no time at all before things got back to normal.

1. I was militant about DD's sleep hygiene. Nothing disrupted her bedtime routine or her nap schedule. I tried to avoid being away from her own cot as much as possible. I kept the house quiet and dark when she was sleeping. This wouldn't be for everyone because it was very restricting for the first year but it worked for me because it helped her sleep better.

1. I didn't have to sleep train as she naturally started sleeping through but I absolutely would have followed one of the gentle sleep training methods once she was night weaned if I'd needed to. I also never took DD out of her room when she woke in the night unless she was ill.

Many of these things won't be popular here. But they worked, they maximised my sleep, kept me sane and kept me alive.

DD was a sleeping dream. She slept through from 5 weeks old.

DS was a nocturnal nightmare. And a winter baby. Cold dark never ending nights. What worked for me was a side-sleeping cot, him in a grobag and I’d feed from the middle of the bed side when I went to bed, then feed him lying down on the cot side when he woke. He’d barely wake me, just enough to get my boob out and latch, and he’d just fall off and sleep when he was done. The next time he woke I’d do a nappy change in the dark, back in the grobag, feed from the middle side then dummy in and back in his co-sleeper cot. Basically the whole night I didn’t get out of bed and wakefulness was gentle not a massive jolt. He slept through and about 5 months.

First you function on adrenaline....then you want to cry but you adapt and you will be surprised that you cope as you have too. I've had 15yrs of little sleep now...think it's the norm!

I found that it wasn't the lack of sleep that got to me (I totally embraced sleeping when the baby slept, my house went to shit) but learning to sleep in two / three hour bursts.

But that's the thing, you learn. And you'll surprise yourself with how little sleep you can actually function on. Yes it's hard but it's not forever.

@thenightsky oh dear god the nipple twiddling 😩

I've had 3 children and all were great sleepers. I have friends whose children were exactly the same. It doesn't mean it will be awful for you OP.

I’m not going to lie, the sleep deprivation due to my first child almost killed me. I’m not even exaggerating, I was mentally destroyed. It took him til 12 months to sleep through the night. I feel physically sick thinking about how I functioned that year (I barely functioned tbh). I learned that I really really don’t cope with short bursts of sleep. Even after a year I wasn’t used to it.
However, on the flip side my second slept through at around 8 weeks and even before that from birth she would only wake max twice in the night so it was all fine.

So basically it’s luck of the draw. You might get an amazing sleeper from the get go!

It’s honestly not worth worrying about, expect the worse and anything better is a blessing.

DD1 was an atrocious sleeper but I still had another baby who slept through at 5 weeks but you’ll wake up anyway to check their still breathing.

Sometimes it sucks, but it doesn't last. And most people just learn to cope, you adapt and adjust.

And the instant panic when you wake up and they don't! Many times dh and I have been awake at 3am because that was dd favourite wake up time, until she stopped......

The first few months are hard but you are also on maternity leave so can sleep during the day if needed or spend the day in your pjs if you’re exhausted. We sleep trained our daughter when she was 4 months old and she was sleeping through 7:30pm-6:30/7am. So we had 4 tough months and she’s been a brilliant sleeper since.

right now i have a 18 month old and a 8 month old. the older one is better but right now he goes to sleep at 9pm and wakes at 5am :( and my 8 month old wont go to sleep properly until 10pm and wakes up at 8 am and throughout the night twice for bottle, im shattered.. its worth it but i die, sometimes i sit on the sofa in the morning just staring at the black screen of the tv because i feel like a zombie and it makes me feel like a bad mum. sometimes i regret everything and other times i cry because i feel bad for regretting it because they are so lovely and mean more to me than anything else, my life felt like sh*t before them but its so hard right now.

You just manage- you think you won't, but you do.

Or you can sleep train from 6 months (we did at 7 months). Not earlier than 6 months though.

Or you may get a good sleeper! They do exist. Good luck - and don't let it put you off. A year or so of bad sleep out of a lifetime really isn't that much.

I didn't find it that bad. Or maybe I was so tired I didn't remember. Must have blocked it out pretty well as we have a toddler and are about to have another.

I never really tried to impose too much of a routine. He's always gone to bed late and started sleeping through early. Maybe just lucky, I don't know. He has slept through most nights for 8 hours plus for well over a year now.

@TheGirlWithAPrince it will be ok, your babies are warm, safe and fed - 9 month sleep regression for me is always the final hurdle in baby kingdom and after that you start to regain your adult life somewhat.

Have you tried waking you 8 month old up 20 mins early at a time to get them on the same schedule? I had the same problem with mine getting up 2 hours apart, destroys your day with naps thrown in.

1. Hormones are built to cope with it
2. You DO get used to it. I honestly was a monster if I didn’t get enough sleep and wondered how on Earth I would cope. I probably have at most 5 hours (broken up over about 9) now and I’m completely used to it. If my daughter sleeps through (it’s happened 4 times and she’s 3 ) I still only have the same amount of sleep! My body clock has changed.

Every child is different

My nephew slept 12 hours from birth, he had to be woken for a feed.
His 2 and a half now and still sleeps for 12 hours... 7.30pm-7.30am

His mum is planning more.... She doesnt know whats gonna shit her 😂

I'll be honest, I'm similar to you, need about 8 hours, and I had my son quite late in life at 38, and I'm single, so I was absolutely petrified about this. In reality (for me) the first 3 weeks or so were hard but it turns out my son loves his sleep more than I do lol, from about 6 weeks he was sleeping 12 hours at night (I know, every parent reading this now wants to kill me lol). This was interrupted for a while when he had colic but apart from that he's been amazing. Now 21 months he actually asks to go to bed 😂.
When my son was born I lived in a tiny one bedroom bungalow so he was right next to me in his cot, but when he was 6 months I moved to a bigger house and immediately put him in his own room which meant my sleep was uninterrupted unless he actually cried, I don't wake up at the slightest movement any more.
So, if you and your partner take the night feeds etc in turns and you put your baby in their own room as soon as possible it helps. Other than that I'd keep my fingers crossed that your baby takes after you as mine does lol. It's worth it.
Another thing, breastfed babies need fed much more often which will mean lots more night feeds. I didn't know that, I only ended up bottle feeding because I had some medical issues, and it's not a brilliant reason for choosing not to breastfeed but, having a mum who is a zombie isn't great either lol. Good luck.

It’s bloody horrific.... or at least, it can be.

I was expecting a huge lack of sleep but nothing really prepared me for the reality. After about 10 days I freaked out and was hallucinating and crying - my husband was properly scared of the state I was in.

But with a lot of support I made it through the difficult early days. Dd slept through from 3 months, except for a few blips during illness, teething and sleep regressions.

I felt more prepared this time around but ds is 8 months and nowhere near sleeping through. I get about 5 hours of broken sleep a night most of the time. I manage by repeatedly reminding myself that it’s a relatively short term issue.

I miss lie-ins and solid sleep but my kids are so so worth it.