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.

DC1 was a perfect sleeper. To be honest I didn’t see what all the fuss over newborns and lack of sleep was. He could barely stay awake until he was about 3 years old.

Next door had a cryer and I actually remember DH saying why don’t they just pick him up and cuddle him that will stop him

Well karma has well and truley bitten us on the arse because DC2 thinks sleep is for the weak and the only time those eyes are shut is on me and for a max of 20mins at a time. The second she is anywhere but in my arms shes bolt awake and screaming that I had the cheek to put her down, regardless of whether I’ve already held her 10 hours of that day.

So, no advice other than it’s pure luck whether your baby sleeps or not and one day all those smug NCT mothers may get caught out too just like I was

No advice I’m afraid, as I’m pretty new to this, but I do empathise. I’ve been reduced to looking like an extra from the walking dead (just more frumpy and covered in baby sick) as a result of my 10 week old babies. My son isn’t so bad; can’t exactly say he sleeps through the night but at least it doesn’t feel like he’s keeping me up for sport. His twin sister on the other hand can be extremely high maintenance. I fail to believe there is a world in which 3 month old babies actually sleep through the night. I’m sure that’s just a conspiracy theory to crush the hope of mums with normal non-sleeping babies. Just saying. I hope you get a decent night soon OP, but until then I really do feel your pain.

I’m sure it’s still MN suicide to ever say - but the demon Gina Ford worked like a freaking charm for me. I was so desperate for sleep that setting my alarm for 7 that first day even though we’d only just got to sleep at 5.30, best thing I ever did. Not for everyone (at all) but I adapted it and worked well for my 3 all very different babes.

Hope you get some rest. It’s torture I know

I had this baby too, he was my second so I know it wasn’t anything I ‘did’ as first was ok. I both BF and FF so that didn’t change anything . The books helped with a day routine so I was rigid with naps and he did go down at night but after 12 just woke and woke and woke. A few things - don’t let H away with it. I did, I listened to the ‘I just cant function’ BS and it led us to a stage years later where I am now ‘lead parent’ by default. He just has to do a few nights. Or at least stretches. I was very foolish. Insist on catching up at the weekend, and if he won’t do wakings then ask him to cook and clean. It will pass but my lovely boy is still a live wire and early esker and I think it’s just the way he is wired.

My three darling gobshites have been threatened with the bin so much that I think they think it's a viable place to live. None of them have slept through before 3/3.5 years old. The 2 year old isn't as bad as the two eldest but he still has time to catch up on being a shit sleeper I suppose. I have tried everything and none of it bloody worked. The perfect parent/ perfect baby groups got binned within the first 6 months because I couldn't handle the fake pity/ barely disguised glee that at least their little bundle slept through 🙊.

I have no advice other than insanity through sleep deprivation isn't that bad once you accept it... I mean it knackers your psyche, skin, body, health, mind, ability to think straight but hey... Details. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I'm veggie so the ham head doesn't appeal now but I'm sure in days passed I'd have used it in a nice ham stew.

Here is my gift to you: Tim Minchin's Lullaby. I watched this video A LOT when I was where you are.

It made me laugh, but more than that, it normalised the way I was feeling and the fact that I honestly just wanted to put the little fucker down and run away FOREVER.

Plus you can get your tiny, tiny revenge by singing it directly to the baby. Thinking "I hope that a dingo will sneak in and rip off your fat bitching head" still makes me smile to myself. And the little nonsleeping git is now 7 and adorable and stays in bed and quiet 7-7.

Still lolling at stupid potato babies

My DC are 10 & 12 now and I remember the feeling of being so so tired I would happily kip on a wet pavement in broad daylight.

Consider studding your DH's head with cloves before boiling.

You write like a genius. If this is you on such little sleep then you must be a deal in in real life.

Plenty of solidarity. I'm sure you've tried it but white noise helped me as dud going to bed at 8.30pm leaving 'D'H downstairs with DD for him to do a dream feed with her at 11 before bringing her in to me during the night. I had a few hours I could sleep knowing I wasn't on duty which was the only thing that kept me sane.

Thank you @TheVanguardSix for that thread link. It's arrived at just the right time for me so I'm going to spend my morning reading up on why the hell I'm so full of rage.
I've been so worried I went and had a blood test to see if its the menopause (it's not) and I've been getting in a panic that my next doctors appointment will involve anti depressants. I never thought tiredness could cause such an extreme bout of rage followed by tears. I turn animalistic and scare myself!

@Justheretoaskaquestion91 Oh god yes, this: I’ve got a friend who gave birth the same week as me and it’s like her life barely changed – exhibitions, parties, events, date nights, a glittering social whirlwind. Baby slumbering in a pram or sling through it all, and transferred without waking from pram or sling to cot when they got home.

They once – and if we weren’t friends I’d have murdered her, had I the energy – did a day trip to Paris, waking at 5am and getting the sleeping baby ready with a new nappy and travel outfit without waking her and got her on the Eurostar and halfway to France before she peacefully woke. Bloody selfie of them all, glowing and surrounded by croissants. Absolute bastards.

Meanwhile I would bounce screaming goblin baby from 4pm to 7pm, when DP would RACE in from his commute, hurl aside his coat and laptop and lift her onto his shoulder in one movement, then sprint very very fast up and down our tiny flat corridor until she finally conked out at 9pm. I’d be in the kitchen shovelling chips in and out of the oven and calling out “she’s halfway there - you’re at ‘angry frog face’ stage” every time he raced past the open doorway.

This was normal for me, I ended up with all of mine sleeping attached to my boob the whole night. We both slept like logs this way. Not great for relationships or if you’re not into co sleeping but it worked and I felt like a normal human being the next day. It stopped once they were on solids.

I don't have any sleep tips as ds is 20 now but I just wanted to say that your post (the way you wrote it not the subject matter) is hilarious. You really are very funny. I want to be your friend - you must be even more hilarious with a full night's sleep behind you.

Good luck op. I hope things get better for you. No sleep is the pits

Stupid potato babies 😂

Their babies DO look like potatoes. Bag of Maris pipers the lot of them, sleeping all angelically in their cribs 😫

One mum from NCT swears it’s because she got hers ‘into a routine’ at 3 weeks because she always gives him a bath at 6pm and plays Brahms.

I hope all her Emma Bridgewater pottery is smashed by a poltergeist.

I never thought tiredness could cause such an extreme bout of rage followed by tears. I turn animalistic and scare myself!

Sounds normal to me. Broken sleep absolutely shreds you psychologically. Before DC I thought I was a sane, well balanced and decently functional person. When I had DC I discovered I was in fact just a bundle of neuroses and violent animal instincts strung together with rage. My instinct to protect myself and my body's need for sleep even against my own baby scared the crap out of me.

[quote hotmeatymilk]@Justheretoaskaquestion91 Oh god yes, this: I’ve got a friend who gave birth the same week as me and it’s like her life barely changed – exhibitions, parties, events, date nights, a glittering social whirlwind. Baby slumbering in a pram or sling through it all, and transferred without waking from pram or sling to cot when they got home.

They once – and if we weren’t friends I’d have murdered her, had I the energy – did a day trip to Paris, waking at 5am and getting the sleeping baby ready with a new nappy and travel outfit without waking her and got her on the Eurostar and halfway to France before she peacefully woke. Bloody selfie of them all, glowing and surrounded by croissants. Absolute bastards.

Meanwhile I would bounce screaming goblin baby from 4pm to 7pm, when DP would RACE in from his commute, hurl aside his coat and laptop and lift her onto his shoulder in one movement, then sprint very very fast up and down our tiny flat corridor until she finally conked out at 9pm. I’d be in the kitchen shovelling chips in and out of the oven and calling out “she’s halfway there - you’re at ‘angry frog face’ stage” every time he raced past the open doorway.[/quote]
And you. You are also very funny. I am enjoying this thread more than I probably should

@SnailandtheWail

Stupid potato babies 😂

Their babies DO look like potatoes. Bag of Maris pipers the lot of them, sleeping all angelically in their cribs 😫

One mum from NCT swears it’s because she got hers ‘into a routine’ at 3 weeks because she always gives him a bath at 6pm and plays Brahms.

I hope all her Emma Bridgewater pottery is smashed by a poltergeist.

One of my friends who had a baby 8 weeks before me told me that she just let the baby feed all evening and then they slept for 8 hours from 11pm, and she was sure that if I just did the same mine would too! I still haven't forgiven her

My NCT group had fucking potato babies too. They just lay there smiling at nothing until they went to sleep BY THEMSELVES, the fucking spuds. Or their babies would conk after a ten minute walk in the pram and sleep there peacefully while they enjoyed a jolly 3 hour pub lunch.

You could try some baby massage, including the head, very gently.

It's all cranial osteopathy is basically.

Yes, my two were very grumpy late afternoon, DD1 particularly. I probably didn't realise how over-stimulated and tired they get.

My NCT group had fucking potato babies too. They just lay there smiling at nothing until they went to sleep BY THEMSELVES, the fucking spuds. Or their babies would conk after a ten minute walk in the pram and sleep there peacefully while they enjoyed a jolly 3 hour pub lunch

Do you know, this continued long after ours were toddling? They could go for a walk and a chat around the park with their potatoes smiling at them, perfectly content to sit in their buggy for an hour. Meanwhile my sons would be screaming blue murder, trying to escape, being let out then trying to kill themselves on mounds of grass/eat rabbit shit whilst I was trying very very hard to laugh and act like this was all fine/I wasn’t extremely stressed and also irritated by their lack of understanding.

I’m pregnant with #3 and would really like a potato baby this time 😆

@hotmeatymilk trip to Paris with a baby is just so deeply unreasonable. I couldn’t even really go WITHOUT mine now as they would be so impossible to babysit for any length of time/going into the evening for anyone else. My eye is twitching as I write this…

Fucking Paris!!

The closest we will get to fucking Paris with this imp baby is a state croissant from Morrison’s.

Plus I can’t ever go to Paris again. I no longer have a nice face to wear.

[quote hotmeatymilk]@SnailandtheWail when she was four months DD once woke up at 3am to practice blowing raspberries for a sodding hour next to my face. I made a note in my phone calendar to wake her at 8am on a Saturday when she’s 14. Revenge is a dish best served cold – a nice side dish to your husband’s head.[/quote]
I admire that devotion to playing the long game

Your husband is the problem. The easiest way to fix it is ask his mother to come round and help. Nothing like the fear of being actually seen as a lazy twat or someone else stepping up to put a rocket up his arse.

Plus I can’t ever go to Paris again. I no longer have a nice face to wear

Bahahahahaha!!!! DH asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I was like see if there’s some magical make up that takes less than 30 seconds to apply but somehow makes everything ok.

Oh god no, his mum is an alcoholic living in sheltered housing, I doubt she’d be much help @RealBecca. My own mum loves mikes away and last time we went to visit she offered to watch him while I washed my hair and I came back to her trying to make a cast of the baby’s foot out of plaster of Paris, I subsequently had to spend days picking it out of the rug and his toes.

😂 and potato baby mums dont understand that some babies arent wired that way amd look at you like you are being a pushover!

Crikey @SnailandtheWail! Awful alcoholic aside, i did chuckle at the "wtf, just why!?" expression you must have had finding the plaster casting going on...like thats the obvious thong to do when holding a baby for 5 minutes!