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 had one of those non sleepers. He’s now fifty. He didn’t sleep very much for the first three years. When his first was born, he slept through after six weeks. Much smugness from him and lovely DIL. Let’s just say their second was a different kettle of fish, and leave it there. It’s not you, it’s the baby. All the very best OP

I have so much sympathy.

I would start giving the baby to your husband at 5am so you can sleep til he starts work. That’s how I survived the worst months. Also can you nap while your baby does, if you’re both in bed together?

I promise it gets better. My son had months of waking every one or two hours but he’s now one and usually only wakes once and sometimes sleeps through. At the time those horrific nights felt so endless but with some perspective it was a short time which did eventually end. You will get through it

Solidarity OP. DC2 hates sleeping and will only sleep on me. He will not be put down, ever. I thought we had turned a corner on this but last night shows me this is not the case. He prefers to sleep with one of my boobs in his mouth but does not like a dummy. DH tries but the baby screams at him if he tries to settle him over night. Even though DH is getting q good 7 hours a night he likes to share how tired he is. DC1 was a mythical potato baby that you could put down anywhere to sleep amd slept through the night almost immediately (I never dared admit that on my NCT group chat though ) so this has come as a bit of a shock.

I had a non sleeper too many moons ago. I was a single parent working PT and I survived on caffeine and swear words.

The flip side is that 15yrs later I can no longer get DD out of bed. Occasionally I will enter the room of doom and poke the bear, responses varying from "MUUUUUUMMMMM" to a primeval grunt.

It does get better OP - you just have to give it 14 or 15 years

OP,
Your husband IS a twat.
Why isn't he doing weekend nights?

I would highly recommend osteopathy.

I brought all 4 of mine within a week because I had seen the magic the osteopath had worked with friends babies.

Definitely worth the money.

Unfortunately some babies need less sleep.

It is absolute torture managing on the little you are getting.

He has to step up.
He sounds SO selfish.

You really see the core of a man at times like this.

They put themselves first and don't have your back.

Remember that.

I think our babies must be family. Mine has never slept through, only the past three weeks are great because she only wakes twice! She's one years old...

Till ten months she also didn't fall asleep easily so every wake up (3, 4, 5 times a night) she was awake for at least an hour. (Nosferatu with hair loss here).

I'm not going to give you any tips because people with easy (or easier) babies who think that it was their brilliant parenting that made baby sleep through should get the pox! Some babies just don't respond to any sleep training, and all those know-it-alls know nothing! DH has done a night exactly twice and I've never slept in in the morning except after my operation (because I was in hospital and they didn't wake me till 8 am, the angels!)

I would love a second but can't have one because I couldn't go through that again.

My youngest is nearly 17 months and has never once slept through the night. In fact it's often 2am before she settled in to any proper length of sleep at all. And my 5yr old Wales up every night too, screaming. I am having ALL of the fun right now.

NoShitHemlock
14 years
Is that my next target? OK.only another 2 years to go till I might have a sleeping child.

SnailandtheWail your baby is doing what he is supposed to. Mine is now shoulder height, still doesn't sleep through, but understands the clock and parents need for sleep. He also still loves mummy snuggles, and (other than at 3am when I hear him wake up for a bit) absolutely fabulous and delightful.
Eat cake, drink coffee, and train the husband.

YABU to say your DH has a VERY IMPORANT JOB

Mens jobs are not more important than helping the mother of HIS child when she is struggling.

Why do women take so much shit?!

You need to pass your baby to him at LEAST 2 nights a week!

BTW, a baby still not sleeping through the night at 3 months is very common. Could be another 3 months yet before he starts to sleep 7-8 hours or more.

I hear you....non sleeping toddler 27 months now. I haven't slept more than 2-3 hours at a stretch in 30 months (from 3rd trimester). I tell myself- it gets better- they'll turn into teenagers one day when I'll be yelling at them to get up

I've found my people!

Mine also wakes in 1 hour intervals and it's killing me.

They don't all sleep. Neither of mine did. I sometimes think back to driving around, sleep deprived and am amazed I didn't have an accident.

I think Nigella has a recipe for boiled head in cola...

I had 2 hours sleep last night as my twins are teething and had all of about 45 mins sleep the night before. I'm so tired I spent 10 mins trying to use my nectar card at the tube barriers convinced it was my Oyster card. Currently sat on train trying not to cry from lack of sleep and wondering if I should just fall asleep on train and stay on it (last stop is Glasgow!)

This post has really helped me actually. When DS2 was tiny and DS1 was still feeding but 2 years old DH would always try half heartedly to help snd I would always be stuck with 2 and I came on here 6 weeks PP to AIBU about killing my husband or making him live in the shed and I ended up leaving for over a year because it was full of comments blaming me for breastfeeding and feeling sorry for my extremely loved and cared for 2 year old that I was daring to abandon him to his loving father now the baby was here. This thread has really restored my faith in MN

Love your writing OP . At least you haven't lost your wit or your brain through the tiredness.

DH nodded sagely and then piped up ‘but Tim at work’s baby slept for six hours a night from two days old so there’s no reason why they CAN’T do it’

Next time he says this, ask him why he can't run like Usain Bolt/swim like Michael Phelps/shag like your ex.

Next time he says this, ask him why he can't run like Usain Bolt/swim like Michael Phelps/shag like your ex

Hahahaha! Maybe reference a study in which how many hours babies sleep a night is correlated to their father’s penis size.

It makes me want to boil his head in salt water, like a big ham
*
😂😂😂* I love you

I would say it gets better. It did for me. But then it gets worse, then it gets better, then... yep. Basically they change all the time, one day you're dealing with one problem then the next it's something else. Before you know it he'll be good at sleeping but then he'll be teething. This is what I'm dealing with right now with my 5.5 month old. My LB used to sleep until 8am and now wakes at either 3 or 5 and needs rocking back to sleep. For half an hour of that rocking his eyes are wide open and he's trying to blow raspberries through his dummy. Send help 😩

Your DH needs to do more though, your job as a mum is also important and like his, could be dangerous if you're exhausted. Try and find time to look after yourself.

It's all well and good buying books, sadly babies can't read so they're of no fucking use!

My ds woke every 90m, regardless of how long he'd been awake the time before. He's 20 now and still won't bloody sleep!

BTW, a baby still not sleeping through the night at 3 months is very common. Could be another 3 years yet before he starts to sleep 7-8 minutes or more.
Fixed this one for you.

Everyone here is being too funny about their terrible sleep-allergic babies and it makes me want another one, as though this is all carefree larks. Someone slap me with an unused copy of The No-Cry Sleep Routine Ford Solution Gentle Baby Book, please.

Oh dear! Just pd myself honking out loud at this post! Wonderful writing!

Seriously though, my DD1 was a bad sleeper - the number of times I screamed at him that I'd throw him downstairs if he didn't stop crying and / or go to sleep. Scares the pants off me now.

Have to say DH did get up and take DD away for a bit to try to calm him (& me) down.

He also booked us in to see a cranial osteopath who sorted the issue in 1 session. Honestly I can say he saved 2 lives that day (and I was very much a sceptic).

Bloody spellchecker- I don't have any DDs. I have 3 DSs! Why do they have to put d next to s?

@SnailandtheWail take comfort in knowing that Tim from work probably also sleeps in the spare room and when his poor wife was recounting the night before he heard "baby went down at 12 and got up for the day at 6 but woke every 7.8 minutes in between"

And @hotmeatymilk mine also woke at 3 to practice blowing raspberries for a while. Adorable arsehole.

My dd was a tiny baby and woke every two hours for the first year. I fell pregnant with ds when she was 6 months old and the lack of sleep would have sent me over the edge had dh not taken over three nights a week. My ds was a much better sleeper but still woke once a night every night until he was 2, again dh did 4 nights a week. I have a 3 month old baby too and she is a dream, has her last feed around 11.30-midnight and sleeps until 8.30-9am. I never thought it possible. It's just luck. I had a good sleep routine with them all, meant nothing. This baby will go down drowsy and sleep herself. The others didn't. No real advice, just shed loads of empathy.

As for your dh I just wouldn't accept no help and you shouldn't either but that's for you to address. It seriously pisses me off when women use the useless men excuse, if he can see you are on your knees and isn't helping then that for me would be ltb territory. Unless a surgeon or he drives for a living he can help.

I just wanted to say OP, you are a great writer and you need to do a column in a major national newspaper. You are a million times better than Tim Dowling and the guy who writes about being a father in the Guardian. I'm not sure how we make this happen...