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.

No useful advice from me either - I have read ALL the books, websites and even paid for someone to help with DC1 - in my experience, nothing really works, DC3 is 6 months and is going through a delightful stage of waking every half hour. But it does improve, DC1 is school age and I can't even remember the last time he woke up at night, DC2 has been pretty reliable for the past year or so, she's nearly 3. What saved me with the first child was going to bed when he did, even if he woke multiple times I got bits of sleep which seemed to help.
@hotmeatymilk I wish you had been around to write that post 5 years ago, it's so true and I wasted so much energy I didn't have worrying about what I was doing wrong that everyone around me seemed to do right.

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.

Sounds very familiar

This isnt unusual at all OP.

I'm going to go against the mnet grain here though, and say co-sleeping doesnt always help. With my DS it didnt! He woke he eleventy billion times more with mummy the milk cow on tap than in his own cot and started sleeping really well when in his own room. DD it did work for sometimes but the only thing that really helped was gentle sleep training.

Yours is a bit young for that though, in your shoes although I dont love dummies I might be reaching for one

LTB&B (bastard and baby)

It's not you OP. I have two children. One didn't sleep through the night till he was 7. Years, not months. He still wakes regularly now but at least stays in his own sodding bed.

The other slept through the night from 9 weeks.

Didn't do anything different with them and they both have wildly different personalities.

However, I'd really consider telling DH that you are checking into a hotel for one night to get some sleep. Even if it's just a cheap Travelodge. You need to look after yourself as well. If you're at a hotel, you don't have to deal with DH till check out time

I think if you can be this funny on no sleep you should seriously write a blog and take up a career in comedy

@hotmeatymilk

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 relate to this so bloody strongly

The good news: you are really fucking funny and I want to be your friend, and there is space under my nonexistent patio for your twat of a husband.

Eventually I got to the point where as long as I was lying down with my eyes shut I didn't care about much else and I did whatever it took to get the baby quiet in a way that allowed me to be horizontal. Also, I sleep trained at the earliest opportunity.

Do you have any money? If so, hire a night nanny. And a sleep consultant. And book a night at the Premier Inn and tell your stupid bastard husband that he IS stepping up, and if he utters a single word the next day about being tired, it's the Nigells coke brining for him.

I remember those early months...hell......only way got through it.... DH who like your husband has a vvv important job took DD at 8....I went to bed at 8. He bought her up at 11 fed, changed etc....she slept till 1 or 2 then I slept from 8-1 or 2 then pre prep machine..bottle and down in 15 mins...slept till 4. It was that long 8-1 that kept me going. Also a playgroup for babies... (No children over one allowed so no good if siblings) but we all arrived there and babies popped in middle and fed tea and biscuits......over the weeks we half dead mums started to chat and welcome d new mums in....best group ever. Cried when dd reached one and we couldn't attend. It does get better. DD slept through from four months with a mini blip at 8 months
However my dsis 11 year old yet to slept through. Think talk to DH re the evening...he can watch a film a d hold baby if necessary. And find a more supportive group. Hugs and know how you feel. X

@SnackSizeRaisin

That makes me feel better

My only tips my mum swears by and they worked with mine as well though I'd say some of these you're already doing.

First one is total darkness every night never turn on a light have a little night light so you can see enough to get out of the room quietly but no lights once it's bed time or through the night even changing nappys etc in total darkness (it's difficult at first but easy enough to to adjust to)

Second no interaction through the night if you've to pick him up do of course but don't talk don't make I contact and don't react (it's horrible as they're always smiling up at you I find)

These worked for me and for my mum on all of us but I doubt they'll work for everyone!

I know it’s always a controversial suggestion, but this was me and it was KILLING me. We sleep trained at 6 months and he has slept through ever since. He is now 2 years old. Changed our lives. We’re happier, he’s happier. Total win. We did controlled crying. Honestly he cried for a few nights and then he slept for 12 hours straight. I kid you not. TWELVE HOURS, evey night, since he was 6 months. Before that he cried and cried for hours every night with us trying to settle him. Sleep training actually reduced our child’s distress. No regrets at all.

I wasted so much energy I didn't have worrying about what I was doing wrong that everyone around me seemed to do right.
💖 I was diagnosed with PND, prescribed antidepressants and referred to a support group and I 100% ascribe my misery to the “what am I doing wrong?” feeling that was bloody backed up by the NCT crowd offering “helpful” advice and crap like “I keep night wakings quiet and dark”. As if I were breaking out the disco lights and vuvuzelas.

My happiness soared once I adopted the “fuck it, my baby doesn’t sleep but she is a bright and glorious squidge” approach – sod the books, sod the routines, delete Huckleberry and other apps, sling naps til she was in nursery, cosleep, survive. I found my one mum friend with an equally demonic baby and we thrived.

Everything has already been said about your DH but I would try a dummy (for the baby).

Agree with other PP - great post that made me smile. I’d probably buy one of your books. And sorry that sleep isn’t great, but it’s just pot luck and very little you can do to fix them. Your DH/VIP needs to help. What a nice parenting life he must be having!

Thank you for the solidarity…I think I may yet live to see out this day.

DH is working a half day today because I was crying before he left for work, I went to peel a banana and I thought there was a tropical spider on it.

I’m not even scared of spiders but it sent me over the edge.

So it’ll be nice because I can nap, or maybe I can’t because I’ve drank an entire cafetière of coffee, and DH will jolly along to the shops and the cafe for lunch with smiling cooing little troll DS and they’ll have a gay old time.

Then DH will say ‘do you feel better? You look better!’ when they make their grand return, and I will again fantasise about boiling his head. The Nigella recipe is a great suggestion.

Fair play for remaining funny at times of great rage. I do NOT have that skill! I think with your first it does take the menz a while to understand, sadly. Are you bf or formula? As if the latter, there is no way he should not do nights, and even if bf could help. I’d encourage you to try to endure the irritation with his moaning and try to get his help, even for him just to have more respect for what you are dealing with.

I have a very lovely friend who has so far made 3, yes 3, babies who have slept through from about 6 weeks old. I do not make babies who do this. In fact, I make babies who will fight sleep with their last breath. All I can say is do literally anything which will allow you to close your eyes at any time of day or night. Your DH can be given the choice between having his head boiled or picking up the slack with the housework which you won’t be doing any of as if you’re lucky enough to get the baby to nap in the day you’ll be horizontal and snoring within 5 seconds of hearing that deep breathing which means your tiny demon is fast asleep.

Hi OP

I think your thread title should have been 'my husband is a fucking useless piece of shit and I want to boil his head'.

You're not breastfeeding, he only works with computers (I'm assuming it's not something safety critical like air traffic control data in which case I take that back!) and he is leaving it all on you.

Your baby is normal, at the shit sleeper end but still normal, and people only get through it by gritting their teeth and sharing the load with the other parent. My husband did more than yours, he did a lot of driving and I was breastfeeding! I had a fucking awful sleeper as well, at this age there is nothing you can do...there are 'gentle' sleep training methods but none of them worked on my baby and I think under 6 or 7 months is a bit young for sleep training as they still genuinely need food through the night. On bad nights he used to take the baby in the sling/ pram / car and drive around for a couple of hours so that the baby would leave me alone for a bit and I could get a bit of sleep. Mine were bottle refuses but I'm furious on your behalf that he could actually help but is choosing not to (and being grumpy about it or agreeing to help fhen making a massive deal of it is effectively refusing, its manipulative). He could easily go to bed very late and you very early so you could get an uninterrupted 3 hours. Or the other way round he could go to bed at 9 and get up at 5 while you have a lie in. And do more than his share of night feeds at the weekends to compensate. I assume he has weekends off from his Very Important Job and there is absolutely no reason he couldn't do 50 50?

Honestly you need to sort this out with him, if you don't you will resent him for ever, you will never forget how much he let you down. The baby has two parents and it's not fair that one of them is making themself ill, or a danger when driving, through lack of sleep, while one carries on as normal because their contribution to the family brings in £ while the other is 'only' looking after a newborn. What kind of person watches someone they love struggle and just lets them get on with it without insisting on doing their share? It's so selfish

I'd have the talk and then force him to do it. Tell him in advance you'll ignore all manipulation or moaning or better still I'd book into a hotel or stay with friends or family on 'his' nights just so he can get used to it, bond with the baby, and you can have a proper break without a mardy bastard stomping around waking you up anyway out of spite at doing 'your' job.

We lasted til 6 months then got a sleep trainer in, we did the disappearing chair method, and it worked straight away - I dont think its suitable for younger babies but feel free to PM me and I'll go through the information so at least you've got it if you want to go down this route when he is old enough

Good luck!

If you can still keep your sense of humour while all around you are acting like twats then your doing something ok. And the world would definately be the poorer without your wit

Both mine were poor sleepers up to the age of at least 3. I remember the horror of the nights after DC2 arrived when the baby and toddler would tag team - I'd just get one to sleep when the other woke, and rinse and repeat. Like some horrendous effing dystopian nightmare (with a side order of colic). I will admit like a PP to allowing front sleeping for DC2 after 6 weeks of torture, which at least allowed for a couple of hours unbroken. I'll await my escort to the gulag imminently.

There isn't anything wrong with your baby or what you're doing. It's normal for young babies to wake frequently and part of their healthy development (although I realise it's shit for the adults).

The only problem here is your dh and his shitty excuses. My dh is a paramedic - I think it's safe to say people will die if he doesn't do his job properly- yet he is very involved in plenty of nights, after all he doesn't work 24/7. If he's not on shift the next day he is getting stuck in during the night and even when I try to send him away so he doesn't get too tired, he refuses and tells me that the baby and I come first. He would do anything for us. Your dh needs to step up and give you some rest.

Oh op I feel your pain! Kids are dicks. I had 2 marvellous sleepers. I was smug mum. Then #3 came along.

They’re 15 (years not months) now and still haven’t slept for a full night. Just not their thing. Fortunately they no longer wake me up to tell me they are awake but it took a while to reach that stage. Sorry!

No advice regarding the baby but for your own health you need to insist on a couple of things. When husband is home in the evening he takes over baby duties until his own bedtime. Use that time to sleep. Not dishes. Not laundry. Not it.will.only.take.me.five.minutes. only sleep.

Another is husband takes over one morning at the weekend, say from 6am its his baby. Invest in earplugs and sleep until you naturally wake up. If you don't wake up until dinnertime that's fine but do explain to husband you will be expecting dinner as well. I assume you would do that, so he can too.

Otherwise nap when the baby naps. You will soon train your body to take power as. Good luck!

As is usually the case, you have a dh problem.

As soon as he gets back from his trot to the shops with the troll doll, sit him down and tell him that from 6pm Friday to 11am Saturday every fucking week til the end of Time ds is his responsibility.

That you will leave the house if you have to, to ensure that you get that protected time.

And to the poster who said "most men dont get involved" - talk about perpetuating the problem. We arent all married to fuckwits.

I went to peel a banana and I thought there was a tropical spider on it

I am so tired that I pictured this as you trying to peel a banana with a peeler and assumed that was your problem 😆🤷🏻‍♀️

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.

This!

Honestly your DH really needs to step up

My exh used to say he would be “sued for negligence” if he gave me even one hour of I disturbed sleep. First nail in the coffin of our marriage there.