AIBU to think work isn’t working for us?

[Workingisntworkingforme]

When I had a baby, it never really crossed my mind I wouldn’t work but now I’m in the position where my life is extremely stressful. I’m not necessarily looking for advice on managing that stress, but I would be interested in peoples thoughts.

DS is 17 months and I’m concerned about him. He’s never slept through and frequently refuses to go to bed until late, won’t go back in his cot after waking which happens around midnight after bed at 9, up at 6.

I look awful. I’ve aged ten years in the last 9 months. It’s really taken a toll on me.

Im not doing a brilliant job at work either because of this, I am only just keeping my head above water.

DS is ridiculously clingy because (I think) he doesn’t see enough of me in the week. I go to the toilet he has a tantrum … I do a lot with him but that in itself is so so tiring.

I am really thinking work isn’t working for my family. And I am thinking of the family as a whole here.

I know I’ll get flamed as a lot of you manage it but I’m only talking about me here.

It depends entirely, I think, on the role of your DH in all this, although you haven't shared this with us. In the context of a happy, 50-50 married relationship where you jointly own your home and he is prepared to properly support you financially and otherwise, what you suggest could well make sense.

If there are any power dynamics issues, if he is lazy, if he will expect you to take on even more because you are home then it could make things worse. And if you aren't married or don't jointly own a home, there's a risk there too.

I agree you have to find some kind of sleep training though. Your child is definitely old enough and sleep seems to be the biggest issue.

Also, if you think you are clinically depressed as opposed to depressed by the situation, you should see your GP because being isolated at home could make it worse.

And yes, there are lots of ways you and your partner can use annual leave at the moment to both get a rest. Dont forget parental leave, which is unpaid but you can have 'book' upto 4 weeks off a year (both of you) its for things like settling in at nursery. If uou can contemplste losing a salary altogether, you can manage an unpaid week or two to catch up on sleep.

18 months is a peak for separation anxiety. It should pass.

It would make far more sense to address the sleep issue with some committed sleep training than to give up work.

i used a sleep consultant for my eldest and it was brilliant. I have used Ferber for my youngest and that worked fine too.

Your baby is fine. Nothing is wrong except that he knows that if he yells enough, you will pick him up.

Jesus this is so cold. How about they have missed their mum and want a cuddle? A baby can absolutely be capable of distress at not being with their mum during the day and be clingy, and have sleep disruptions as a result. OP if you are in a position to work less and want to spend more time with your baby then do it. People will try and scare you saying it will ruin your career but some things are more important.

Exactly. I’m not sure what OP is trying to achieve and sense she has convinced herself giving up work is the only option. My eldest did sleep through until 2.5 when we sleep trained. My baby started at 9m cause I didn’t want to relive that again.

This is such a cautionary tale for people with poorly sleeping under-ones who don't get it sorted when they're tiny. I know most babies will end up sleeping better as they get older but some don't. My friend's 2.5yr old is still getting up multiple times every night needing to be nursed back to sleep and it's killing her, she really wishes she'd sleep trained as a baby as it feels so much harder to do now.

You NEED to sort the sleep out, that's the issue here, nothing else. You can't be expected to function at work. This kind of thing is why it's so frustrating to see people tell parents of babies and young toddlers to just stick out the poor sleep because they'll eventually sleep better. Quality sleep is NECESSARY for your health and wellbeing, not an optional thing you can do without indefinitely.

I think it's well past time to take charge and get him sleeping, he's plenty old enough. You say you've tried some sleep training methods but clearly not thoroughly enough if you stopped when he cried for long enough. You don't need a sleep consultant, they'll just educate you on evidence based methods. I'd recommend joining an evidence based sleep training group on fb (respectful sleep training/learning is the best one I've found) and reading through the files on the different methods and choosing one. If check-ins were winding him up more, try extinction. There's a wealth of evidence that it can really help and zero evidence of any harm caused by sleep training (you can put your mind at rest by looking at the evidence if you're concerned, there's a thorough but easy to read chapter in the book Crib Sheet by Emily Oster which looks at both sides of the evidence). It can't be nice for him either to have broken sleep every night and be reliant on you to get him back off and no doubt being overtired is affecting his behaviour too and possibly his capacity to learn.

There's nothing you've said that requires flaming, you thought you were doing the right thing in keeping going with how things were and perhaps didn't have the right support or information to sleep train. You're not the first person and won't be the last to find themselves at 18m with a terrible sleeper wishing they'd sorted it out sooner. It gets more difficult the older they get so while he's still this age and presumably in a cot I'd crack on. Ferber worked a treat for us, you don't have to soothe them in the check ins you're just going in to let them know you're there but importantly getting out of their way so that they can learn how to fall asleep independently. It's no wonder they wake up screaming if they've fallen asleep by your side and then wake and you're not there!

I'd recommend an earlier bedtime too, at 17m DS was going to bed at 5.45pm and waking at 630am with three hours of naps split into 1hr/2hr in the day. Are you tracking his sleep at all? Do you know if he's getting the recommended amount he needs for this age?

The NHS have sleep clinics in some areas so don't be afraid to ask your HV or GP for a referral, it might be a way of getting some structured support without shelling out for a sleep consultant who'll only educate you on the evidence based methods that are already available to anyone to read about.

Good luck, it's not too late to turn it around. Once you've got him sleeping you can decide what you really want to do about work. I suspect you'll be miserable working or at home on such awful sleep, and that once you're getting a full night's sleep each night it'll feel more manageable to work. I could do a ted talk on how revolutionary sleep training has been for us and so many other families, it can be difficult to implement but giving your child the ability to get quality restful sleep and to have parents that are well and rested and happy is priceless and worth it.

Lordy you poor thing, you must be so exhausted.

I think that if you need to and can afford to, take a break from work. They’re not little for long and there will come a day when he sleeps better.

I don’t know if this will be any help but my baby was a very poor sleeper and eventually I gave up and put him in bed with me. He’d still wake but at least I didn’t have a field trip through the house to pacify him. At about 7 he was diagnosed with a sensory disorder and I started using props like a weighted blanket and little weighted wrist bands and omg our lives have been transformed. Now sleeps v peacefully.

I work 3 days - Mon, Wed and Fri. I think it's great. I'm only ever at work or in the house for a day at a time so it's all very manageable.
With regards to his sleeping, could he be napping too much in the day? Could you cut his nap to an hour and see how he goes at night? Good luck.

You need to tackle the sleep.
Co tact your health visiting team for behaviour and sleep support. They normally have a nursery nurse team who come out do assessments and put plans in place for you. if you have concerns about behaviour you need to start getting in assessed and help now.

@ColdColdColdColdCold

so says every parent who has never had a baby with a disability that impacts sleep (and everything else)

Some babies cannot be “sorted” by training, some are born with conditions that make them super sensitive to disturbance.

Here's what I'd be thinking about:

Is your partner happy with you giving up work? If not, I don't think it's fair to force him to support a whole family.

Are you married? If not, you're putting yourself in a precarious financial position. If you're not, you can always do a registery office job and have the big celebration another time if you want.

Do you think you'll want to go back to work and at what point? Is there any way you could keep your hand in and make sure you're up to speed with any developments? Depending on the job, it might be worth speaking to your manager about your plans - you never know, they might have a vacancy when you want to come back.

But if it's practical and you (as a family) want to do it, I'd say go for it on the whole.

I’ve skimmed through these responses a bit so I’m sorry if I’ve missed anyone or anything.

Some things that did jump out at me - the sitting ON you even though you are next to them, yes, definitely us! Sometimes I think it’s adorable, other times I’m horribly irritated and exasperated by it.

Giving up work doesn’t solve the sleep problems but what it does do is let me breathe. I can cope on a bad nights sleep when all I have to do is go to some toddler groups and the park and so on. Coping on a bad night when trying to meet the demands at work is something else. (And believe me that is in no way a suggestion that that’s all SAHMs do, I know it’s frequently really tough. It’s just that you’re more in control of what you do and how you manage it.)

He is in nursery from just before 8 to just after 4, and I do think it’s a long day for him. I think there are benefits too, in an ideal world my life would be DS nursery mornings only, I spend the morning catching up on house stuff then the afternoons are ours. But this is not an ideal world!

You're absolutely right, and I should have put that caveat in there.

I'm just going by the OP, where OP doesn't mention anything about her baby having a disability or health condition related to this. Of course if that's the case then this is more complex and needs specialist input.

There may be an issue with his ears affecting sleep, and he’s also got some molars coming through. I don’t think it is just that, as he’s never slept well, but I do think that’s possibly a contributing factor.

And when I’m reasonably chilled myself I see this, but in the stress of my absolutely manic life I can’t. And take the bad sleep ridiculously personally.

I’ve had two boys like this, they are 12 and 10 now and still not the best sleepers in the world (and also still very affectionate and cuddly so there are positives too)
Sleep training did not work with ours, we tried different things and nothing helped. We just ended up letting them sleep in with us and playing musical beds for a few years so we all got the most sleep possible.

I couldn’t have coped with working a full time stressful job but I’m not sure it would have made any difference to the sleep and clingy ness. I worked part time, my husband had them some of the time I was working and my mum who was the best granny ever had them the rest so the my were always totally comfortable and safe. I spent loads of time with them and they were still clingy and bad at sleeping. It was easier for me to cope though working part time as I didn’t have to come home from a full days work and get everything else done that needed done so that’s a consideration for sure

One of mine was like this, we did co-sleeping for 3 years. I never thought I'd do it but honestly I was so desperate to sleep I'd have done anything in the end.

@ColdColdColdColdCold
”at 17m DS was going to bed at 5.45pm and waking at 630am with three hours of naps split into 1hr/2hr in the day.”

At 17m my daughter co-slept, settled like a dream for me (I was happy to co-sleep) and woke once in the night for a quick feed and back to sleep easily. She slept from 20:30-06:00. She was in nursery 08:00-18:00 4 days a week and settled easily for a nap - no issue that I wasn’t there. However despite the expectations of others around her, the closed blinds and quiet, no mum to seek attention from, professional experienced nursery staff… she never napped for more than 30 mins and she’d dropped that well before turning 2.

Every child is different, and I think it’s fair to say that in the random drawer, whatever sleep methods you or I did or didn’t use, if you got a 17mo that would do a 1hr + 2hr nap - you got a sleepover!

My friend had a son in the same nursery as my daughter. 3 hour nap every day! Despite the lights going back on and children playing after lunch. He’d just stay asleep on his roll mat in the corner.

Some people get a child who needs a lot of sleep - others of us don’t!

As a teen, mine still sleeps far less than her friends.

At the risk of being flamed as well, I agree with you. Babies are biologically programmed to be with their mothers, and mothers their babies. We've tried to shoe horn women and babies into a Male life pattern (as that's the default) and called it feminism.

*got a sleeper (not a sleepover!)

I was going to say that all that sounded normal to me, but then ds was diagnosed with autism, so that’s not going to be reassuring.

I was a sahm through this and it felt relentless. I got quite isolated - he didn’t do well in play groups. Because I was the sahm, I did all the night wakings so dh could work on a full night’s sleep but I wasn’t napping during the day either because ds was so full on. I think that period of sleep deprivation damaged my health.

I regret not keeping my hand in. Being at home has been great for my family but I’m not sure it’s been great for me.

It is an uphill battle to return to work. Both in terms of being taken seriously as a candidate, and in trying to reassign family responsibilities when everyone is used to things magically being done (and will seeing what you do all day)

One thing jumped out that you think he’s clingy because he’s in nursery - I think you should take a look at the nursery setting and see if it suits him/is meeting his needs. Some dc don’t do well in a busy, noisy environment with frequent staff changes. A child minder or nanny might be better for him.

If you can afford to, cut hours and listen to him. He will only gain if you are there, whether SN or no..

zero evidence of any harm caused by sleep training

And yet there is a mental health crisis in this country with unprecedented numbers of teenagers & young adults with anxiety and depression. How do you know this isn’t linked to ‘detached’ parenting styles which use cry it out etc sleep training methods. Parents who choose to do this will likely be less emotionally in tune with their babies overall and there is a wealth of scientific research that shows babies brain development in the first 2 years is crucial in determining future outcomes.

The answer shouldn’t be forcing babies, who have no say or choice, to bear the consequences of a society that forces both parents to work full time rather than recognising the importance of having a parent at home for the first 2-3 years of their lives. More weight should be given to their needs and what is normal developmentally.

Forcing a baby to sleep through the night before they are ready is not helping eg their needs, it’s ignoring them.

He is quite a boisterous child - that’s another thing that’s changed. As a baby he was very gentle but now he’s very rough with other children and jealous.