To wonder how to cope with no sleep at all?

[Sleepdeprivedalready]

Or at least no quality sleep, maybe a couple of snatched hours in the very early hours of the morning.

I have a child who won’t sleep. It’s destroying me and I’m so angry and resentful because of it. The weird thing is I’m fine in the day but then I go to bed and am not able to sleep or relax and it turns me into this tense ball of rage that feels like I hate my kid and my life.

Weirdly I then often can’t sleep on the rare opportunity that presents itself.

How do people cope?

Oh and also ear plugs !

OP I can hear your frustration and can totally sympathise. 13m can be a shocking age for sleeping even if they have previously slept well. So much going on developmentally and they're mobile too. I vividly remember standing next to 13mo DS1's cot night after night trying to soothe him back to sleep for 3 hours at a time (he would never settle if we attempted co sleeping). It is horrendous.

The thing is though, whilst people totally appreciate you're at the end of your tether, you're also asking for advice on here and so it's understandable that people are asking (a) what you have tried and critically (b) how long have you tried it for? When you say something 'doesn't work' - do you mean you tried it one night and he was still crying after an hour so you gave up on that method? Or do you mean you tried it absolutely consistently for hours on end every single night over a two week period and genuinely saw no improvement at the end of it? There is a massive difference between the two and often when you really drill down into what someone has done it often comes down to someone trying multiple methods in desperation, none of which work.

The awful thing is with older babies/toddler sleep you have to have an iron will if you are going to sleep train successfully, even with gentle methods, and just Not. Give. Up. Which is really hard when you are knackered. I hope you are able to sort something out soon

You have my sympathy, I had a child who barely slept an hour for the first year snd went on to wake up multiple times a night until they were 3. Usually with night terrors too where you couldn’t console them AT ALL or they would lash out, it’s horrendous so I feel for you 💐 the only thing I can say is it really really does get better, you eventually catch up on all the lost sleep, I can barely wake him now!!! You will get there too

To be light hearted I have utterly promised myself if My kids wake me up at 2am, 4am etc, I will write it in a black book and when they are teenagers i will enact my revenge by waking them up every morning the time they woke me up!!!

@Sleepdeprivedalready

Same *@Peppaismyrolemodel* re splitting nights makes us both tired but I really don’t think the travel lodge would work. DS can be really hideous sometimes.

I'm putting together the two sentences here and getting that you don't think you'd be able to leave your DS with your DH and you go elsewhere because he can be really hideous - ie you don't think your DH could cope?

If so - that is the nub of it. He may disturb you both, but reality is that you are the one bearing the brunt, actually going through it with him and getting no sleep, night after night? That you aren't actually taking turns? That when you do, your DS cries more/longer and your DH doesn't handle it well so it's ended up just being 'easier' on everyone except you for you to be the one just not actually getting any sleep? Your OP reads like that of a single parent. I was surprised to realise that you actually had a second parent there. Because usually with two parents there is always a way to share the load so this point isn't reached for one person, up to and including sleeping away from the house in order to get a dose of clear sleep.

If this is what's happening it has to stop. You CANNOT carry on like this - you will have a breakdown. Yes you need to, initially, get some sleep elsewhere and your DH HAS to cope.

Travelodge as an emergency measure. You may find that you not being there helps with a reset on DS expectations. And then yes to CIO.

OP get tough,

You and partner take alternate nights, the other goes as far away as they can and PUTS IN EAR PLUGS. No messing around, it absolutely does not take 2 ppl to deal with a non sleeping baby, it really, really doesn't, you're just using each other for needless emotional support.

I did newborn night and toddler nights entirely alone (DH died) so trust me when I say 2 people is one too many.

@Sleepdeprivedalready I actually found your posts weirdly triggering 🤣 I know that sounds extra but it just reminded me of how horrendous my daughter was with her sleep and how I thought it would never get better. She screamed in car seats, prams and her cot so I never ever got a break from her. She would only sleep on someone for the first 18 months of her life and it nearly broke me and my husband, seriously. At night she would cosleep but wake every hour or two until she was about 2.
I'm not going to make random suggestions because I know how frustrating it is when literally nothing fucking works. I just feel for you and I really hope this improves soon. It won't help you now but my daughter is now 6 and I haven't had a night up with her since she was 2. She just seemed to mellow out and now she's the chillest of the bunch.