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?

I wont lie op...its torture but becomes the new normal. You kinda function but you with other mums if you go to a group who the same. You all sit there like zombies. However before you know it that time has gone. Some people are lucky and its all done and dusted by 4 months others arent and still not sleeping after seven years. Youve no idea which baby you get a none sleeping or sleeping one. However you need to look at the bigger picture. You get a mini person in your life that is almost magical (although yesterday i had a toddler three year old plank on the floor yesterday its also hard work). Being tried comes the new norm.

My youngest son is 2.5 years old and has only just started sleeping through. I had the same experience with my first son too.

For the last God Knows how long I typically survive on 5 hours sleep a night, usually split between two and three blocks.

It is hard work and exhausting. I won’t lie.

But as everyone else has said, you will have no option but to deal with it, so you somehow cope. Minimal sleep and barely functioning and waking around like a zombie becomes your norm.

OR - you may get a really good sleeper. It’s pot luck.

You do get used to it because you have to. But my now 6 year old DD didn't sleep reliably through the night until she was 4.

Before you have children you need to know if your partner will GENUINELY share the load.

I’ve got a 1 year old and through some tough sleep periods DH and I have shared the nights where possible ( I breastfeed so sometimes it just makes sense for me to be the person that gets up).

Don’t put up with any nonsense about sharing nights. It’s not an option to not do them.

It s hard. Worst sleep deprivation.

If it s a serious issue for you then make sure dh will do shifts and go for bottle feeding.
Hire a night nanny.
Hire someone in day so you can nap.
Hire home help so you only focus on baby and napping.
Forget housework and shopping. Get help in.

I hated it. My daughter didn't sleep through until 4 years old. Nearly split DH and I numerous times. I am not like I used to be because of it.

Yeah. We found it utterly horrendous.

19 months with a non-sleeper.. you just get on with it, there's no other choice.

I work full time too, she often is up at 4.30am (as well as in the night before then) and then I'm on the go until bedtime.

Red bull is my saviour.

I was like you, really needed my sleep. I still do now so I go to bed really early 😂.
Il be honest, it's hard! My dd would wake up every two hours when she was younger and I had many meltdowns during the night BUT there came a point where I kind of just got on with it. It became normal and I didn't get upset about it anymore. Just cracked on the best I could.
A switch flipped when she turned 2 and she began sleeping really well. She sleeps through the night now. Once they start sleeping through the cloud lifts and you feel human again.
What I will say is that when you are going through it, it feels as though it's been going on forever and it's never going to end. But once your through it, it all feels like it happend so quick.
Currently pregnant with ds and not looking forward to doing it all again but this time I know it's not worth me wasting my energy and sanity getting worked up over it. I think il be a lot more laid back about it this time.

The really really broken sleep only needs to be at its worst if/while you breastfeed. It's the only thing your partner can't do, and between you you can tag team.

The worst stages are 0-2m (When they might wake every 2-3 hours for a feed. Then from 2-4m most babies will do at least 1 longer sleep of 5 or 6 hours without waking.

Then the 4 month sleep regression hits. 4-6m is hard - some babies just wake constantly. By 6-9m all the parents I knew had sorted fallen into 3 camps: sleep train, co-sleep, neither. The last bucket are the ones sometimes end up surviving on hardly any sleep.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t think I can have another. Our daughter is four and sleep is not consistent still. She can occasionally do a couple of nights on the trot sleeping through but normally I’m up twice a night or so and I have found it brutal. The ironic thing is I don’t need much sleep, or I didn’t think I did pre children and thought that I could manage on a few hours here and there but I can’t. It’s relentless for us, but still worth it.

OP it is a logical concern as others have said.

People do love to tell your all their horror stories though. But without wanting to sound smug, I slept through the night from 6 weeks old and ds slept through the night from 5 weeks old. So it doesn't have to be 4 years without sleep! And the 4 month sleep regression doesn't happen to everyone.

The first few weeks are hard but nobody expects anything of you and you can sleep when baby sleeps.

If you value your sleep, don't have kids!

(through the night was about 6 hours at a stretch - which gradually got longer)

Hi OP, I was worried about that too especially as DH has an illness that features chronic fatigue as one of its symptoms so I knew the nights would all be down to me! So we’re now two kids in (both crappy sleepers) and I have to say it isn’t as bad as I thought. Going part time at work really helped: if that’s an option for you when you return to work then def factor it in. On my non work days we just have calm, quiet days so I can recover enough to cope with the rest of the week.
Also COFFEE!!!!
Really it’s tough but definitely for us not a reason to not have kids - we can cope and I’m assured that once they’re teenagers I’ll be struggling to get them out of their beds (Can’t wait!!!)

How’s your DH without sleep. I felt like you and came to a deal with DH that he would do the nights. We FF anyway for lots of reasons.
DH was fine with it, he isn’t a brain surgeon or anything and needs less sleep than I do. In the end DS was a good sleeper anyway.
It isn’t written that it has to be the mum who gets up in the night!

My DC is 8 and still doesn’t sleep more than 5 hours. You just get used to it over time.

Red Bull and flapjack is mostly how I survived DD’s first 3 years. She didn’t sleep for more than 3 hours at a stretch until just after her 3rd birthday (and she was bottle/formula fed from 3 weeks). I had moments where I actually thought I was going mad.

I love my sleep but somehow I coped. I had two with 21 months between and they both used to wake up.

I now know that as a baby grows older, you can manage their sleep. There isn’t any need to go for months or even years with broken sleep.

It is tough but I think that people that know they can’t function are quicker to get a good routine started, more likely to do sleep training etc. It doesn’t solve everything and you might still get unlucky. But it also isn’t just the baby years you have to worry about. I don’t think anyone every emphasises the ability of a 3 year old to muck about at night.

My first was a dream sleeper. Full 12 hour nights from 10 weeks onwards, wasn’t really affected by teething other than the first two teeth. But, when she got her own bed at 21/2 she was terrible for quite a few months. she’d be up for a wee or she needed socks or any other number of random reasons. She is easy to settle but I have cracked down on letting her into our bed as it was an easy way out at first but meant I didn’t sleep so was counterproductive.

My second was an even better sleeper and I got her in a far better nap routine during the day. She is basically textbook but really suffers from teething and has been poorly a lot. When she is teething she’s up every hour.

I’ve been lucky with both of mine but also very routiney and that has made a difference too.

The lack of sleep actually starts in the 3rd trimester, well it did for me so I was quite prepared when DS was born. Late pregnancy is like trying to sleep with an exercise ball attached to you and the restless legs.... my god!

I think I actually got more sleep when DS was a newborn compared to late pregnancy. I used to get up to pee or walk around my bedroom in late pregnancy at least 6-7 times a night. However DS generally only woke around 3 times a night for a feed and/or bum change and a cuddle

My DD didn’t sleep through until she started school

I have pregnancy insomnia from the point of conception and my son was very wakeful. I got pregnant again at around the time he started sleeping for longer chunks. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since the summer of 2017. If you had told me it would be like this in advance I would have been horrified, and it is hard, but tbh you get on with it because there isn’t much alternative. And actually it’s not the hardest part of having children for me (the worry about them is much worse!)

And just to be clear, those of us who had wakeful babies/children didn’t not value our sleep or feel it was unimportant or anything. No one starts out thinking “oh i just don’t care whether I get no sleep at all”. I got really fed up with people saying things like “well I really value my sleep so I prioritised my child sleeping through” etc as though I made my child wakeful out of choice. I did everything I could, but ultimately he just needed time.

Also you can't rely on sleeping when the baby sleeps. Some babies don't nap well either! (Mine naps for half an hour at a time at the minute - no matter what!) some only sleep while being held too...

DD1 was like this. Fed for nearly an hour, napped in my arms then screamed until the next feed. If I managed to get her into the moses basket/pram, I was lucky to get half an hour and, as I said previously, I'd rush around doing jobs. My MIL was wonderful - she'd take DD out and push her around the streets to give me a bit of respite. I did a lot of dozing off whilst feeding.

At 3 months, we were lent a wind up swinging chair, which also gave me a bit of respite. They were fairly thing so needed winding every few minutes - I imagine that, after 20 years, they are much better now - but at least it was a break from the constant crying.

You just learn coping mechanisms and do whatever it takes to get through.

At one point I was so tired that I woke up one morning and genuinely thought I'd put the baby inside our duvet cover - I was scrambling to open the poppers to get him out
Me too, been there, got that t-shirt. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

At 3 months, we were on holiday and I hurt my back. At night DH would bring DD to me and I'd feed lying down. He'd take her and do the nappy and try and settle her. I realised this made a huge difference as I didn't wake up fully and wasn't awake so long. This became our weekend routine. I also fed her in bed with her tucked up on the moses basket mattress. If I was lucky, I could then lift her back into the basket without her noticing. You find ways to cope.

It’s really hard. I need a lot of sleep to function so basically I’ve barely functioned in the last 5 years 😐 My eldest started sleeping through at 2.5 and my youngest is approaching 2.5 now so I’m really hoping we are coming towards the end of this life now 💤 You just get through it though because you have no choice. I would never go back and not have children even knowing what I know!

I am the same as you re sleep and have a 2yr old who has only slept through the night a handful of times and takes hours to go down in the evening. It is really hard going if you have a baby who doesnt sleep - but you get through it (albeit grumpy and physically hurting). And it won't last forever...that's what I tell myself!