Dying of no PISSING SLEEP, will anyone mourn me?

[SnailandtheWail]

DS is three months old. I love him, I do, but I’m about to leave him out for the magpies.

He has NEVER slept for more than three hours straight, it’s usually two, last night it was one hour at a time.

There’s nothing wrong with him that I can tell. He’s fed. He’s changed. He’s safe and warm. He’s winded. He doesn’t have a dummy. He hates swaddling so I bag him. He will happily go to sleep but he can’t stay asleep. He knows what night is, he’s out and about loads in the day, it’s only the odd day I watch back to back episodes of House while he naps on me. I don’t breastfeed, for reasons I don’t care to go into except it was fucking hard and I thought my breasts were going to rot and fall off. I

For various reasons I sleep with him in the spare room. One of those reasons is that DH doesn’t do any night waking, I do it all. He has an incredibly important job that is fiddling with computers 9-6 at a sports company and people might die if he’s too tired to do something with their computers. He has offered to do a night here and there but there’s so much moaning and lamenting about his tiredness the next day it’s not worth it to me because it makes me want to boil his head in salt water, like a big ham.

This morning when I said I hadn’t slept he informed me that it might be time to ‘look up some tips or get a book’ to help DS sleep through. Because by now, apparently, he should be happy to sleep alone in his crib and sleep for 5+.

Well no one has told DS that. In desperation I have been trying co sleeping but he’s still a pain in the arse and I’m still not sleeping. What are these ‘tips’ I'm missing or is DH just being a condescending twat? A woman from my NCT suggested cranial osteopathy but it sounds like hokum. I couldn’t get on with wonder weeks. It annoyed me as HOW can it be one size fits all and it just feels like it ‘works’ through confirmation bias. All the other 7 babies in said NCT are apparently all sleeping like dreams 9pm -7am with max two wake ups. I’m thinking of leaving the group because reading that honestly makes me want to throw my phone in the river.

I don’t think I’m looking for any answers here. It’s a vent and hopefully some solidarity and also please give me sympathy that I am probably not going to see my impending 36th birthday because this will be what kills me.

I was quite pretty so previously would have had an open casket, but I now look like Nosferatu so that will no longer be an option.

i don't have tips. But I'm loving your recepie for condescending partner head. Would you serve that with apple sauce or something else?

Your DH is being a twat. We had LOADS of sleep books and they were best used under the legs of the cot to make the mattress the right height to sidecar it.

I also left my NCT group full of lying witches with their stupid potato babies who did things like “sleep” and “not have colic”.

I did everything right: fresh air, night and day, blah blah blah, and DD woke hourly at a minimum til she was 18 months. Tiny, adorable bellend. (She sleeps through now! My looks recovered briefly but it turns out that work and parenting saps you more than sleepless maternity, sorry about it.)

Give up, stop counting wake-ups (let the night pass in a blur), cosleep and cuddle – the baby will still wake but you’ll be horizontal and expending less energy, and focus on YOUR SURVIVAL:

Hot coffee. Equally hot shower. Bracing walks. Cursing at trees. Scrolling mindlessly on Mumsnet. Mainlining Haribo. Handing the baby to your useless husband each day at dawn/5am in the winter so you can power nap before the day begins. Early nights. Find your people, the ones with equally bastard babies, and rejoice in their company. Delete the NCT fuckers. More Haribo. Read every single terrible MN sleep thread while nodding vigorously in solidarity. Make up many “go the fuck to sleep” lullabies. Get a sling and make DH learn to use it and off he goes each weekend/evening/morning so you can sleep. Bonus points if he WFH and can sling nap the baby during meetings. Live off oven chips.

It will end one glorious day and… you will actually feel worse and gross for a bit because your body is so behind on sleep, one night is merely enough to remind it of what it’s missing and you feel fucking horrendous for a while.

I have no answers for you but solidarity, I’m 8 weeks in with a baby who has never slept more than two hours at a time at night. He’s got a cold this week too so won’t be put down at all. I’m starting to think he’s a bit of a dick to be honest.

My eldest slept through from about 3 weeks and I was that awful mum who actually told other mums about it. Until now I thought it must be because I did all of the right things from the books. I’ve done nothing different with this baby.

No tips but sympathy! We are 6 months in with our little sleep demon. I have read some books and tried some tips. Baby is not interested in complying and still wakes on average hourly. Co-sleeping actually made things worse for us as she then decided she needed a boob in her mouth all night and woke up within seconds of falling asleep when she slipped off. Not sure I can offer any reassurance beyond that it is apparently possible to keep surviving on a pathetic amount of sleep. Although we are at least usually getting some daytime naps now if that offers any hope?

TBH I don’t think your DS is that unusual really. I have a 10 week old and while she’s demonstrated that she’s perfectly capable of sleeping for 5 hours straight, she chooses not to on the whole, and still has nights where she’s up every 90 minutes.

My tip would be to tell your DP that the advice is for fathers to take over nights at the weekend for FF babies, and to demonstrate their stoicism and bravery with a stiff upper lip ie no whining allowed. Or whining is only allowed proportional to the number of hours sleep lost since the birth.

My other tip would be to brine his head in Coca Cola before cooking. I think it’s a Nigella recipe.

Have 2 shocking sleepers. One is 3 and now only wakes up once or twice, the other is 16m snd still wakes up a lot. Really sympathise. My best advice is to try to reframe your thinking. I used to find a 2-3 hour stretch at least a good stretch and if I was able to get a couple of those chunks I had done 6+ hours snd that was always at least a reasonable night!

Both children have colds and last night was truly the night from hell. Really feeling you this morning. Not sure how it’s going to go when baby number 3 arrives. Agree with PP it’s not helpful when everyone else’s babies sleep! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I feel your pain. DS was like this. He too was the worst sleeper in our NCT group. The most active. Started crawling at 16 weeks. I was constantly on the go to the point of exhaustion.

The only thing that helped was a book called The No Cry Sleep Solution and... Cranial osteopathy. DS is now a strapping 13 year old but I still remember those tough, tough first few months. .

Also agree with cuddling. I find myself less irritated by the wake ups if I cuddle them close and smell them

I never found the magic bullet myself, OP. All of mine, bless 'em, were utter wankers for not sleeping... I love them. God knows. I love the bones of them. But those early days? I'm still recovering from DC1 and he's at uni!
So, OP, I give you this gift... it kept me sane years ago. When it was written, I had a non-sleeping 8-month-old (who decided to keep up these shenanigans until JUST before his 3rd birthday... like he was giving ME his birthday gift of just finally sleeping!).

It just helped reading it! I returned to it frequently.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1960846-So-sick-of-being-so-angry-all-the-time-because-Im-so-fucking-tired

And my husband also can’t do much as has a vitally important job that today apparently involves going for steak with a client.
Your DH needs to do more though. Mine finishes work at 7:30pm, he gets 30 mins to eat then I hand him the baby and go to bed until 11, he takes him again in the morning for an hour before work so I can just get enough sleep to not die.

@CagneyNYPD1

My two were also by far the most active; I wonder if there’s a correlation?

Agree with others. Your husband is a twat. You need to tune out the whining about his tiredness like you would ignore a whinging chid and just make him rep up anyway. If he can’t do nights (and mine made it more trouble than it was worth too) then he can do the evening shift until midnight and the early shift from 6 so you can grab a bit of sleep.

I also second the sugar and letting things slide approach. I sleep trained all of mine around 8 months. Agonised horribly the first time but knowing I had that end date in mind really helped with the subsequent babies. So maybe setting a future time when you’re going to tackle it might help. Good luck. Sleep deprivation is the absolute worst.

My god I could have posted this exact things 10 months ago. Even down to the incredibly important computer fiddling other half 🙃. Honestly though it might seem more hassle than it's worth with all the moaning the next day make sure he does at least one night a week, that'll ensure you see your next birthday. And other than that I've no tips other than lots and lots of coffee (you know humans are 60% water? Yeah I'm 60% coffee) and if you can just take some naps through the day. Sod the housework. If your husband won't do night wakes he can do the fucking cleaning and cooking. If he says anything then you can tell him he gets to not do it when he's survived on no sleep for 3 months.

I find myself less irritated by the wake ups if I cuddle them close and smell them

Yep! This helped me with my underslept rage (sounds horrible, but it's real! You get sooo ragey when you're sleep-deprived). I would just hug those little non-sleeping jerks until all the lovebugs ate the rage away.
Hugs and cuddles are miraculously healing for everyone.

Just to echo other posters when it comes to non sleeping babies it is not you it’s them. My two eldest never slept, youngest slept like a dream and used to shout at his sisters to be quiet as he wanted to sleep. It will get better mine are all teens so survived but yep, lower standards and do not seriously contemplate you have early onset dementia and go to the Drs twice because you have put all the food which should be in the fridge away in the cupboard next to the fridge and have left your bag with keys, mobile and purse on your front doorstep. Luckily with a potty on top so no one nicked it. It’s tough but use the humour in your writing to get through it, a great post btw, if you can write that sleep deprived you could win a booker prize when rested

@CagneyNYPD1 Mine was an early crawler too. I remember some bastard saying “once they crawl they sleep through as it tires them out”. She’d already started crawling and did it fuck, it was like renewable energy – harness her and she could solve the climate crisis.

@hotmeatymilk applauding loudly

1. Your husband is a bellend
2. Ditch the NCT group
3. Find a friend who has an unsleeping baby

I’ve had two children who were allergic to sleep… fucking soul destroying.

You could try sleep training but never worked for me (only tried on first) so I just had really shit sleep. Didn't try on second as he had more of a stubborn personality, so just coslept and resigned myself to shit sleep. I knew the drill by then! It does get better, but it is a hard slog and you need to lower your expectations a bit with what you can achieve in a day, or you will just feel worse. I tried to get out of the house at least once a day, even though I was a zombie, and found it really helped.

If you are not bf (which is fine before people jump on that) then there is no reason why your partner can't help. Mine still got up on the odd occasion to settle my son when I was bf and on maternity leave (he has to concentrate in his job too as it is precision engineering) your DH is just being lazy. If he isn't willing to help at night he needs to help elsewhere and make your life as easy as he can do.

Your post made my morning as have been in a similar position for the last few months. DH can read the books and sort out the sleep if he thinks that's all it takes.

Op I would mourn you, because your post was v funny (much as I FULLY sympathise with how crap you are feeling right now).

There's one thing that helped baby DS2 to sleep that I hesitate to mention, because it's...unmentionable these days. He much preferred to sleep on his front, and would sleep much better that way. As I'm sure you know, this comes with an increased SIDS risk which is why it's not recommended these days. So please check it all out, talk to your health visitor etc if you wish, if you decide you want to give it a try.

Otherwise - you've got to get your useless DH into gear too. Who cares if he's tired? Welcome to parenthood motherfucker, we're all permanently exhausted. The first 18 years are the worst. If you're not bf you can leave him with the baby for a night or two while you check into a hotel. Maybe do this every weekend, until he stops moaning like a useless fucking wimp. Fucks sake.

(my DH was much better than yours from the sound of it, though he used to complain about having to get up every day with toddler DS1 while I slept in with baby DS2. 1. I was doing every single night waking with DS2 2. DS1 was rarely up before seven! You've had a full night's sleep! Crack on petal!).

A good tip I have for you is going out to the late night supermarket on Friday night and accidentally forgetting where you live until Monday morning. Luckily you happen to pass a nice b &b so got stuck there.

@Goldenhedgehogs

Omg I hope my third sleeps like that!

Just had a huge go at my DH who couldn’t be bothered to take DS for a walk in buggy for 5 mins as he will sleep happily outside quickly then bring in, and instead rocked him in buggy at home. Whcih makes him cry. Which I can’t listen to. So guess who is now feeding the baby to sleep and won’t be able to unlatch and is just stuck here needing to wee for what I still
Hope will be 90 mins. All after the night from hell.

Mine is 6 months and wakes on the clock every 2 hours. He has done some longer stretches of 3.5 hours but not often. It is very tedious. My first child slept 7 till 7 by 5 months old. I think that has made the shock of this one worse.

No cry sleep solution is good. Otherwise I would work on getting daytime naps right. It's rare for men to do much at night IME. They like to give unhelpful advice and moan about being tired instead.

@user1471462428

1. Your husband is a bellend

1. Ditch the NCT group
2. Find a friend who has an unsleeping baby

I’ve had two children who were allergic to sleep… fucking soul destroying.

Definitely agree with number 3. I had a smug friend who had a 7-7 sleeping baby from 3 weeks who told me it was because she had such an amazing routine from birth. Having friends with non sleeping babies made me realise she was just a lucky shit who was going to get a shock if she had another child.