To ask you for your sleep deprivation stories?

[FancyPants20]

I'll start...
This one time, on my way into town, I thought I'd forgotten my car key, and was pondering whether I could risk leaving my car unlocked while i popped over the road to the pharmacy. I was, at the time, driving into town in my car.

Went out for day wearing different coloured boots, different time I took out the wii remote instead of phone.

On school run dd got cooed over and asked her name I smiled and said thanks its Mia....it's not Mia.

Cried at self service tills as it wouldn't stop saying put item in the basket.

Panicked after letting someone in via intercom they wouldn't know what number I lived (they had to press number for me to let them in)

Did full food shop on conveyor belt then cried as left purse in car, only to walk back to car and purse was in my pocket the whole time.

She's 3.5 and still doesn't sleep so still do the forget mid sentence thing.

I’ve said this before talking about the crazy things you did post birth. DD was about 5 days old and I had literally only had a few hours sleep since she was born. DH was trying hard to be supportive but I just couldn’t shut off when she was crying, and she didn’t settle for those first few days so I didn’t. He finally demanded I go and get some sleep and he’d watch the baby, but I kept refusing. In my totally sleep deprived state I was convinced that I was going to die in my sleep and that DD wouldn’t have a Mummy and DH was going to find me dead in the bed. I remember being so certain of it, it was horrible.

I ended up crying and telling DH, who very sweetly came and sat on the end of the bed for the entire time I slept so he could ‘check on me’. Once I actually started getting some sleep I felt so much better and stopped being utterly convinced I was about to die

Thought it was a good idea to move and renovate a house when DS was still a non sleeping baby (though we'd have been waiting a long time as he was school age before he slept through the night).

Got to the stage of soft furnishings/furniture.

Went to Laura Ashley and spent £££ on new furniture and custom curtains for the whole downstairs.

I'd carefully measured (and re-measured).

Filled in the form in the shop with all the measurements and signed it - stupidly after a particularly bad night from DS.

8 weeks later and curtains arrive. I'd juxtaposed the width and depth on every bloody curtain so none of them fitted. Curtains alone had cost £6k.

Wept then shit myself about what DH would say (note: he's lovely but in reverse I'd have been hard pressed not to be cross about a £6k fuck up).

Rang the store and then customer services and initially got the "you signed the form, your responsibility" response.

Kept pressing customer services until I got hold of a manager and in my desperation had the presence of mind to point out that they had some culpability on the basis who orders a set of curtains 2m wide with a 60cm drop by way of example (all the curtains were obviously really "odd").

Also pointed out how much I'd spent on other furniture and the fact I'd been planning to buy more curtains for upstairs - which I would no longer do.

Upshot got escalated Head of Customer Service and after 24 of some of the worst hours of my life (whilst trying to hide this from DH) they finally and thankfully agreed to re-make them on the basis I'd commit to the order for upstairs (no biggie as I was going to do that anyway).

I don't think I've ever been so relived in my life and it took me 2 years to "confess" to DH who found it hilarious (though he admitted he wouldn't have been laughing if it hadn't been rectified).

They are bloody lovely curtains though (and yes I made DH come with me to do the upstairs order and double check all the forms - something he was quite bemused by at the time wrt how stressed I was and how many times I double checked it).

Funny ones: wore odd shoes on the school run, sat rocking the Moses basket whilst I was breastfeeding, forgot my age, and was unable to work it out from my date of birth, couldn’t recognise my husbands face at one point after 5 sleepless nights, it’s like his features melted off his face.

Bad ones: dropped my 4 day old son off the bed and onto the floor. My eyes were open but I just wasn’t there. Fell asleep driving, swerved across all three lanes of the motorway. Luckily was very close to a service station so I pulled off and rang my mum and dad who came up, my dad god love him paid for me spend the night in the travel lodge attached to the hotel and they took my youngest to their house for the night. He was 8 weeks and my husband had been working away on and off.

Took out the bins every day for nearly a week. I couldn’t remember what day they were supposed to go out and I couldn’t work out how I’d find out.

Realised that the kettle took 90 seconds to boil and I couldn’t let that 90 seconds pass without seeing it as a Potential 90 second nap opportunity so I laid down in the kitchen floor whilst it boiled.

Left my keys in the front door and the door wide open. Only realised when there was a stranger in the hall calling hello.

Bumped the car three times. Minor things but still.

Left the handbrake off the car in the supermarket car park. It rolled back into the trolley park. They put an announcement on the tannoy. Bloody scary as it could have rolled into anyone or anything.

DH filled the car up with petrol without taking any cash with him. He’d only left the house to go to the garage to fill up, and was coming straight home. He had to phone me from the garage so that I could pay over the phone.

I'd have to have more hands if I need to count the amount if times I've left the house keys (with car keys) in the outside of the front door. My car is parked a meter away and anyone could turn the keys and get in the house. Luckily only nice people have knocked and alerted me!

Also middle of the night hallucinations about a newborn abandoned - and about to fall off the bed (and he was safely tucked up in his bassinet)

In Southampton the ikea and west quay multistories are next door to each other. When ds was 8 weeks we went to Ikea then popped to west quay. I spent a good 90 minute searching the west quay car park for it. Was sobbing. Then it suddenly came to me. Was in the ikea one

Post-natal, had been in hospital 2 nights prior to EMCS, then in for another 2 nights. New midwife comes on shift and asks for babies name. I hand on heart couldn’t remember, just started at her blankly

I stopped behind a queue of traffic at some traffic lights. Except the cars were parked and the lights were on green 😆

Prior to a level exams (where I'd done loads of sleepless studying nights) I fell asleep as my private tutor was talking to me one to one. This private tutor was the son of my mums friend who had done a biochemistry degree so I'd offered to pay him for some lessons to prepare me for the exams. He must have thought I was completely crazy that I fell asleep as he was talking to me. He then just let me sleep (sitting up, mouth hanging open no doubt) for the entire hour lesson and then charged me for it anyways. Probably the easiest £20 he ever earned.

I have also fallen asleep in below freezing temperatures in Alberta, Canada in December. I had partied all night, walked around all day with friends sightseeing etc. That when I was walking back to my accommodation (we were staying with a host family) I found myself falling asleep as I walked. My vision kept going funny and I kept jerking awake and finding that I'd wandered out into the road or down a random direction. In the end I sat down on a random porch and legit just took a nap! I feel lucky I didnt get frost bite from being out asleep in the cold.

Lastly - my friends and I all took part in a charity walk. From one German town to another. My group got lost and we knew we had to get to the destination town before or a certain time or face losing all the money/sponsors raised. So we decided to just not break for the night and keep walking. So many of us experienced mad hallucinations that night as we walked through the forest wearing our sleeping bags (as it was so cold). I kept seeing weird lights or shapes dancing through the trees. I also had incidences where I'd think someone had said something to me or that I'd had a conversation with someone in the group when I hadn't - I'd just dreamt/imagined it all as i was walking along like a zombie.

It was interesting to see how lack of sleep affected some of us worse than others. Sounds like a given, but I'm so glad some members of the group wearnt affected and so were able to help steer/look after the members of the group (like me!) who just kept falling asleep mid-walking and wandering off! We thankfully made it in the end! And I lay down at the meeting point on the grass and fell asleep immediately of course.

Post natal hallucinations in hospital, imagining people who couldn't possibly have been there in the room.