To ask what your "mum burnout" looks like?

[PaddleBoardingMomma]

Would really like to hear your opinions on how mum burnout makes you feel and how it manifests for you.

I have a 5 year old and an 8 month old, still up 4-5 times in the night but it's brief (a little bit of milk or her dummy has fallen out) no long nights awake pacing her about the house crying thankfully, so can't really use that as an excuse but...

I'm exhausted. Properly burnt out. I find myself wondering if it's normal, or am I just weak or pathetic or dying 🤦🏼‍♀️ I'm always on edge, more anxious, argumentative, I feel like I'm stuck on a loop 😩

So what about you?

Thanks @Owieeee

And thank goodness for 'normalising' sleep issues. Because I genuinely don't know what I would have done were it not for the early waking threads on here. I still remember the thought, "DD is up for the day at 4.17am, at least the MNers will understand". She wasn't tired or grouchy, she was fine with next to no sleep.

And yes to the unsympathetic on here, I tried a gro clock, black out blinds, reward charts, cold, hot, up, down, charm, strange. I tried food and milk and solids and no milk and water and shh pat and pick up put down and routine and co-sleeping and own room, later and earlier bedtimes, bath, story, swaddled, naps, longer naps, shorter naps, no naps, and every bloody thing. It was 24 months so I tried them all long enough to be routine. And NOTHING helped. I'm a bloody expert on sleep.

She turned 2, slept 12 hours a night and is still brilliant.

Can relate to a lot of these posts (sadly nor the one about babies sleeping through at 6 weeks [grin. My DC are 4 and 6 but I feel burn out has been slowly approaching over the years. Both DC were poor sleepers, and DS's behaviour is very challenging. I feel like it's all hitting me now, I'm not coping, I'm very stressed and irritable, even the smallest thing can send me over the edge. I hate myself for being like this but I don't know how to make it better?

@MrsTerryPratchett loving the quark reference 😂

Perfect thread for me right now...

Mine looks like sobbing, throwing plates of food, screaming i hate my life, im selling the house, im leaving you, fuck off..doing no housework and sitting in with no makeup on hair unbrushed unshowered in Pjs eating biscuits 😭

@FTEngineerM

You're very welcome.

I sometimes end up kind of grunting at my 4 year old instead of replying to her, and running away to sit in the toilet for ten minutes at a time.

[quote FTEngineerM]@MrsTerryPratchett loving the quark reference 😂[/quote]
Me too

To all the knackered, exhausted, and thoroughly depressed mothers, please get some help if you're struggling with kids sleeping or lack of it. (Qualified people, not Mumsnet 😅) Sleep deprivation is an actual form of torture, and yet we're meant to just suck it up because there is a small human in the house? Just reading some of the previous comments, sleeping through at 6 weeks is very unusual (although I'm sure very appreciated!) as most babies need a night feed until the 8 month point. But, there is a huge difference between up 4 or 5 times in the night or just once when you can feed and pop them back down. If I hear one more time its normal for babies not to sleep... Nope! It's normal for them to cry all the time... Nope! I sought professional advice when my daughter was eight weeks old, my husband was away for two months, and I needed to sleep, to shower, and to generally have a minute to sit and breathe. It was the best thing I ever did. There is so much you can do to help babies sleep and be comfortable and be happy, that doesn't involve any CIO, or shutting the door and leaving them to it until the morning. And no you won't cause long term damage and no your baby will not turn out like the children in Romanian orphanages or similar.

Can the sanctimonious and/or fake confused people who feel the need to comment about babies and kids waking at 8 months (or beyond) just take their lofty judgement and waft off back to the land of snooty perfection where you were? You’re not needed here.

I hope this post doesn't sound smug because that's not at all how I mean it. I clicked on this thread because "mum burnout" resonated with me - I have 15 months between my 2 DC, and looked after them alone for a while when they were babies/toddlers while exH (who was still DH then) worked away. I had recently moved countries, didn't have any friends or family in the area and it was fucking awful, to be honest.

I wanted to write out what "mum burnout" felt like, but I can't remember. They are 14 and 15 now, rage inducing as teenagers sometimes are, but the mum burnout feeling has gone so completely I can't even describe it. I now look back at that time with rose tinted glasses. I have photos of the pair of them looking adorable and even though in theory I do know that objectively, it was one of the hardest times of my life and how I used to cry trying to fit the double buggy and the weekly shop into the boot of the Corsa, while the DC cried in their carseats, I can't remember how it actually felt. I guess I'm trying to say, this time will pass

Mine are 23, 16, 14, and 12.

I swear It’s almost like you never feel properly rested very often at all once you’ve got kids.

General business, but also the mental burden of motherhood.

I simply crash out on the sofa in the day sometimes to catch up on sleep, they’re all old enough to at least leave me to rest when I need it.

Attach a dummy clip to a favourite cuddly. Helps them find it then when dummy goes and they keep the cuddly they still have a form of comforter.

I did sort of get used to no sleep, but I totally lost my memory. My kids birthdays and ages, my own age. No idea. I'd get in the car and have a complete blank. What pedal does what? Where am I going? My DH would have described me as a lovable ditzy character but honestly I was just so sleep deprived.

These experiences would be described as full on trauma, or PTSD. If the sufferer was a man.
Mothers are abused by our culture.
I'm in it too. My youngest is ten but he bugs the hell out of me and I'm still not enjoying my life because it's full of tedium and isn't my own. It's not always about sleep, but of course lack of sleep makes it all much worse. Had that too, just different days now but I have the misfortune to have one very challenging one as well as one who has grown out of challenging.
I'm still a shell.
I knew a woman, mother of three who died suddenly. I was a bit jealous of her at the time.
So awful.

Mine is complete decision fatigue.

I don’t know what’s for dinner/ what DD should wear/ where DH’s mum’s birthday card is/ if there is another bottle of shampoo/ how we should spend our weekend.

Just do it and don’t mention either for lots of praise for finding socks.

I’m coming out of my mum burnout and a huge part was deciding not to try to be supermum and leave some things to roll along or not as the case may be.

My daughter fighted naps, it was so, so difficult to get her to sleep, she would cry for 30 minutes at top of her lungs and fight it. She would wake up in the night anything between 4-8 times. It was sooooo hard. She dropped her naps altogether at 20months.

The night time sleep improved after 2nd birthday and from 2,5years she sleeps 12 hours most nights without waking up.
She has never ever fallen asleep on her own whilst playing or sofa, or in a high chair and only a handful of times in the car seat past the age of 18 months.

I wanted to punch people that talked about how their routine is the key for getting baby to sleep. I wanted to shout “fuk off you smug bith” in a middle of a mums catch up.

I was very shouty and short tempered. I’m naturally a very calm person that doesn’t swear. It was hard. She’s 3,5years old now and I feel like a sane person again.

My whole body hurts the whole time. I can't make simple decisions. I constantly think 'just fuck of' in my head, and sometimes my eyes roll so much my head hurts.

I stay up too late watching utter crap as that's my only time to myself.

I feel totally broken, anxious and a mess the whole time.

My first had silent reflux that lasted eighteen months. It was brutal. Screaming all day and night without much respite. Naps that lasted twenty minutes, strollers were a no, car rides led to worse screaming. I was a wreck and developed Hashimoto’s at that time. Now my eldest son is 10.5 and a really mellow, lovely boy, so irritable babies/toddlers don’t necessarily make irritable big kids.

My second did sleep through the night by 10 weeks, and by god, I felt I deserved every bit of having an easy baby.

DD (6) swapped multiple wake-ups for not going to sleep until midnight. DS is a dream going to sleep but wakes early. I work full time. I'm exhausted, rely on unhealthy amounts of caffeine to clear the brain fog, am snappy and feel touched out. I completely agree with the sensitivity to noise that someone mentioned. Nothing more irritating than DHs music and the whine of the DC makes my head want to explode. I just can't concentrate anymore with all the noise!

Mine feels like absolutely paralysing melancholy, where the only energy I can muster to do anything with, results in me doing something silly like a home haircut or accidentally plucking too much of my eyebrows off.

It's also working part time, like minimum hours, and still feeling absolutely exhausted and in tears at the thought of returning to work full time in the future, if I can't even handle it now.

It's also complete and utter distraction and inability to focus on everything, staring at a wall thinking it's been a few minutes but it's actually been 6 hours.

@NeedAHoliday2021

Attach a dummy clip to a favourite cuddly. Helps them find it then when dummy goes and they keep the cuddly they still have a form of comforter.

Please stop with ridiculous comments like this. Like people wouldn't have fucking thought of that. Honestly until you have a shit sleeper you have no fucking idea what it's like to have a shit sleeper. I too thought I knew how to get babies to sleep...mine has proved me very sadly so I can't be one of these smug "just do this" mum's. It's easy until it's you going through it.

I'm up with my non sleeping almost 2 year old, my 3 year old will be up by 6ish ready to go for the day, he just does not sleep through and I've tried everything, so tired and worn out (also have covid at the moment) this thread has helped so much tonight/this morning! X

Thank you for everyone's comments on this thread. Some of you have articulated exactly how I feel. It's such a relief I'm not alone

Mainlt feeling irritable. Hope you’re doing ok op

I don't want to be the dick that asks where the Dads are in all this exhaustion, but I am.

Mine are teens now (and that comes with its own new and interesting problems), but when they were tiny, my husband took on as much as I did. I BF both, DS for 11 months and DD for three years (DS self-weaned when I was pregnant with DD) there's 14 months between them.

You've got to be a team, it's exhausting. As I was BFing H would get up and do every single nappy change in the night. He'd get up with the oldest every day whilst DD and I slumbered, when DD was older he'd do breakfast every day whilst I had a bit more sleep. He did bathtime every night as I'd been with them all day. He rearranged his working life to be at home for their first three years. I appreciate that this isn't possible for everyone, but he was (and still is) an equal parent, 100%. So I never felt burnt out or resentful.

Small children are HARD WORK, relentless. If you haven't got someone else on board, shouldering that load it's almost impossible.

Prioritise yourself. Sleep as much as you can and DO NOT let anyone else shirk their responsibilities.