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?

@LouHotel Thank you :D she is definitely getting better, its just for example if we put her down before 9 then she will just wake up before 10:30/11 and stay awake for hours where as if we put her down 10-11 then she will stay asleep til morning with maybe 1 or 2 bottle wakeups which i dont mind because she feeds herself in the cot and i just remove the bottle when she is done.

but thank you so much, thats what keeps me going is that i know i make mistakes and sometimes i stress too much but they are warm and always have a bottle

I’m like you. I need my sleep.

Dd slept horribly and only when touching me. I was a wreck for many many months.

Things improved a bit when I accepted her schedule. She needed to have night be midnite to 10am. Once I shifted our entire schedule, I got some semblance of sleep. Not much, but some.

I had pregnancy insomnia from 5 months so getting woken to nappy change, feed and soothe back to sleep was actually better than hours and hours of being awake and uncomfortable.

It's the only sleeping in short bursts and always knowing you could have to wake up any second that really took its toll - I could cope on a few hours but doing it day in day out is exhausting.

My oldest was pretty good - once or twice a night until 7 months when she took a dream feed at 11pm and went through to 7.30.
With ds I remember telling the GP I was getting 5 hours a night which she said was good until I said that was in 3 chunks. Not so good. He didn't sleep during the day either. I was losing my mind. Once he started crawling he suddenly turned into a perfect sleeper, 12 hours at night and a solid 2 or 3 hour nap.
You do get through it somehow.

It’s literally unimaginably hard. I couldn’t have conceived of how enormous and difficult to cope with the sleep deprivation would be. Still suffering and DS is 21 months. I get 3-4 hours uninterrupted sleep a night on a good night. It’s the only time I waver in my parental enthusiasm.

Yep, it can be really, really hard. I'm glad you are thinking of these things realistically and not just of the fairy tale that can be told about how wonderful babies are.
My first 2 averaged 6 hours straight a night from just a few weeks old so I was only getting up once a night which is doable. My 3rd (and last!) child was up every hour, every night for 18 months straight. I was getting a few hours of broken sleep a night and had to get up and function the next day because I had other children to look after. I nearly broke me. I now understand why sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. I can also now understand the urge to shake or hurt your baby because the frustration can be overwhelming.

It’s very very very hard. And an almighty shock. My first didn’t start sleeping through until she was two, and even then was waking at 6am.

I was fortunate that my baby also liked to sleep. But only on/next to me. I tried during the first few days to get her to sleep in a crib/Moses basket but she woke up crying every time. So I embraced cosleeping and she and I slept in bed together every night. Plus I went to bed for naps with her every day too. Often at least twice a day during the early months. It was great!

I don’t function without sleep. Never have. As a teenager I used to go to bed for a couple of hours after school. I even went to the doctor once to try to find out why I was so tired. After blood tests revealed nothing I was told ‘some people just need lots of sleep.’ So I was really worried about sleep when I was pregnant but you adapt, though I admit I am very lucky mine liked to sleep lots too. Albeit only with me.

It is tough if you have a bad sleeper but maybe your baby will take after you with their sleep needs and be one of the ones that sleeps like a baby.

If you're not that lucky, the the biggest tip I can give (learn by my failed experience) is to sleep whenever your baby does and to hell with the housework. Do the bare minimum and accept all the help you are offered.

It took me 6 months to allow myself to sleep in the day. Until the point at which I think I nearly killed myself, the minute DD1 slept, I'd rush around trying to get all the jobs done (and I'm not at all house proud). Once I accept that it was ok to look after me too, things got a little easier.

Yes, it's awful. I always thought there should be some sort of free service, a sleep service to new mothers. I feel asleep once whilst pushing DS in a swing! It's utterly draining. Waking in the night to tend to a baby is utterly exhausting, you never feel rested. You do get used to it though, and before you know it they're sleeping 12 hours per night.

If you're not that lucky, the the biggest tip I can give (learn by my failed experience) is to sleep whenever your baby does and to hell with the housework. Do the bare minimum and accept all the help you are offered.

^

Do this. Just nap during the day. Fuck the housework.

It so depends on how your baby is !! I had two that were a dream and slept through from about 8 weeks and then my third had severe reflux and was a nightmare until he was two!! The screaming and pain he had was almost intolerable and it was mentally exhausting..he is now a lovely healthy 20 year old and as an older child a complete pleasure!!

I am terrible with no sleep, but my DH isn't, so he did pitch in quite a lot at night, even when he was working, just so that I could get some unbroken sleep. My eldest was a good sleeper, youngest was crap! If you have a supportive partner, it is tiring but bearable!

It is bloody hard going but it doesn't last forever.

No, but if you have more than one (as most people seem to do) then that stretches it out for more years back to back. However I found I got used to surviving on less sleep in the end. I now find 8 hours a distinct luxury and am fine on 6.

I feel the same and its after one night when people talk about its only for x weeks/months/years it really boggles my mind how you can say only when my attitude unfortunately ( and i hate it about myself) dives after 1 night to think it would be like that for months frightens me a little.

And i find the "depends on the baby" unhelpfulness its not like you get to choose. And if you couldnt guess today is a day where ive only had a few hours

I won't lie. It's horrendous. Although perhaps some people cope better than others.

Also one of the big reasons that I won't have another child. I've done my time and I have no desire to go back there again!

For me, it wasn't just about being woken up several times throughout the night, but being awoken by high pitched screaming. My nerves were shot!

So yeah, probably not painting the best picture for having a baby!

I remember walking around in a zombie like haze for the first few weeks but I was very lucky both my babies slept through the night really early on. I used to wait until their last feed before I'd go to bed because I hate that feeling of getting into a nice sleep to only have to wake up again. Also, I just wanted a bit of me time. Unfortunately, 12 years on because of habit I still can't go to bed until about 1am now!

Luckily my dd slept through the night around 8osh weeks. Good job to as I went back to college when she was just over 6ish weeks.

My baby is only 4 months but apart from maybe the first 2 weeks I haven’t been tired. She is a great sleeper and has been sleeping through often from 8 weeks. If she does wake I just feed her and she goes back to sleep. I think some of my initial tiredness was from the 50 hours of no sleep prior to her birth (long and painful early labour)

It's bad. But here I am at 1.30am with a baby who has been sleeping for four hours and what am I doing? Wide awake fucking about in the internet... He'll wake properly at 6an I bet but I expect him to wake shortly for a feed. I bet he doesn't!

It's hellish, but you adapt. Your relationship with your partner may or may not survive the resentment that comes with utter exhaustion, though.

DC1 is 4.5yo now and I am regularly surprised at how much you can do on an average of 3 hours of broken sleep, near enough every night for almost 5 years.

I've been pregnant twice and had pregnancy insomnia both times so I got plenty of practice before both my babies were born. It's hard the first few weeks then you just get used to it. Now I love the time that me and baby get, just us sitting here together in the night.

I'm currently sitting here breast feeding my second, browsing MN and eating crisps. It's not the baby that woke us up, it's my four year old. He usually wakes up crying at least once in the night, he worries that his Mum and brother have gone somewhere and needs me to go into room to show him I'm still there 😂 It's not just when they're babies that they'll get you up in the night unfortunately. It's amazing how you just get used to it though.

I still react with that stomach clenching fear any time I hear a random baby cry - and my two are 3 and 6!

It doesn't last forever most of you say,umm what if you have an autistic SN child who firstly doesnt go to sleep and eventually will but wake two hours later fully fresh and will not sleep till next day.been doing this for 5 solid years,3/4 hours max broken sleep every night.try that for Size!I had two normal kids before him,even their sleep wasn't brilliant.i loved my sleep before kids, it's what I miss the most and leaves me battered tortured and depleted. I'd never have had kids had I known.