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.

@ColdColdColdColdCold I've got 4 children, it is really easy to assume you've got it right when in fact you've just been lucky with the method you chose or the baby you have. I've got a mixture of eat anything/fussy eater, sleep anywhere/awful sleepers, terrible twos tantrums/laid back never had a tantrum. Actually the awful sleeper did grow out of it, as did the tantrummer and the fussy eater. They were all treated the same but surprise surprise they all had their own personalities.

Mine dropped his naps at 20m which was a blow lol, though he would still have maybe ten minutes or so in the car out and about. Doesn't nap at nursery at all. He doesn't need it I think as he's getting 13hr straight overnight now. I wouldn't say mine has high sleep needs as his total sleep has always been within the realm of what's expected.

His sleep was shocking for the first six months, absolutely awful, so I don't think he was necessarily 'destined' to be a good sleeper, or that it was anything we did other than the sleep training, we tried every trick in the book during that 6m to help him but he just had no capacity to fall asleep without help and would wake every 40-60m and then take hours to fall back asleep, it was hell. I miss the naps once they dropped but can cope with them knowing that I get a good night's sleep every night!

It is ridiculously hard when they are wee - all the things you describe are entirely normal. It does get better though

When he wakes up crying have you tried just picking him up and letting him sleep next to you in your bed? He is too big now to be squashed.

I did this with my youngest when working. We both got more sleep as a result. And eventually they don't want that physical closeness anymore and they just stop. Except for occasional nightmares or when they are ill.

It's hard to make good decisions when you're exhausted. I wouldn't rule out taking time off work, but try other things first.

The first thing I'd suggest doing is take a day of annual leave, keeping your normal childcare and just catch up on sleep, till you feel some way human again.

Secondly, try one new strategy for addressing the sleep issue. I personally did the co-sleeping thing for years and years (I was a single parent so it was easy) and loved it, and we both slept well and it helped our bond. Not saying that will necessarily be right for you, but there are other suggestions upthread. It's about getting into problem-solving mode.

If that doesn't work, take another day of annual leave and catch up on your sleep. The aim is to be in a clear frame of mind for making decisions. You might get to the point where you decide you have to leave work for a while, but don't make decisions driven by desperation. A lot depends on how easy it's likely to be be to get back into your area of work and how it it likely to impact on your relationship/finances. Don't make long-term decisions based on short-term circumstances.

I took a break from my career OP when I had mine, for me it was the best choice by far. We are all different of course, but for me it was just all too much, no sleep, maxed out at work, no personal care, just going through the motions, and kind of missing out on those first little kid years I couldn't get back, just to get through each day. Looking back some kids just don't sleep that much, it's just how they grow, and some do, point is it doesn't match at ALL to adult sleep and adult work commitments. When I left work I could just enjoy it all a bit more, not be so burnt out.

FWIW I ended up starting my own company as I'd been out the workforce so long and I've never been happier so it worked out great long term.

Your assertion that "Parents who choose to do this will likely be less emotionally in tune with their babies overall* isn't borne out by the evidence. You're welcome to hold that opinion but the evidence says otherwise:

"There are a number of good randomized trials which speak to this. One representative study from Sweden, published in 2004, took ninety-five families and randomized them into a sleep-training regime involving a form of “cry it out.” The authors focused on whether behavior during the day was impacted by the nighttime—basically, they asked whether the infants were less attached to their parents during the day as a result of being left to cry during the night.

This particular study found that, in fact, infant security and attachment seemed to increase after the “cry it out” intervention. It also found improvements in daytime behavior and eating as reported by the babies’ parents. Note that this is the opposite of the concerns raised about “cry it out” methods.

This study is not alone. A 2006 review of sleep-training studies, which included thirteen different interventions, noted the following: “Adverse secondary effects as the result of participating in behaviorally based sleep programs were not identified in any of the studies. On the contrary, infants who participated in sleep interventions were found to be more secure, predictable, less irritable, and to cry and fuss less following treatment.”

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14989452/

aasm.org/resources/practiceparameters/review_nightwakingschildren.pdf

Anyway, I'm not here to try and convince anyone of the benefits of sleep training, the evidence is there for anyone to peruse and draw their own conclusions on. But I make no apology for recommending something practical and effective to OP other than sucking it up. She needs to sleep. So does her child. Even if it's not something she's ready or willing to explore at this point, knowing there are things she can do to work through this can be helpful. So many parents seem to feel as if they're at the mercy of whatever their baby naturally wants to do with regards to sleep. It's fine to follow that approach if it works for you all, but if it doesn't you're not helpless. There's a lot you can do.

@ColdColdColdColdCold I don’t understand your posts.

You say that this is a cautionary tale for people who don’t sort sleep out under one. But now you’re saying this:

“we tried every trick in the book during that 6m to help him but he just had no capacity to fall asleep without help and would wake every 40-60m and then take hours to fall back asleep, it was hell.”

So… how would you have felt if, at 6m I’d told you that you were a cautionary tale for people who didn’t sort out sleep in a crucial first 3 months period?!

You’ve said it yourself - some babies don’t have the capacity to do something.

There are lots of great sleep techniques that are worth trying because they might work for your child, and great if they do.

But you’ve illustrated perfectly in your own experience that you can’t just put one timeline on “sorting sleep out”.

It’s a bit rude to call other people a cautionary tale.

Yep, I only have one and I that's why I can only speak to my experience with helping my own terribly sleeping child learn how to sleep better. And there's a wealth of evidence around the benefits of sleep training, nobody has to do it but it's worth knowing it's there if it becomes intolerable. There's a tremendous amount of evidence showing that sleep training works for many, many children, both in the short and longer term, and that it can even improve parental depression (obviously, poor sleep is a risk factor for poor mental health).

It's great that your poor sleeper grew out of it, I'm genuinely really pleased for you. Unfortunately that doesn't always happen, and some people aren't able to wait for the possibility of that happening, because their basic physical needs aren't being met in the here and now. It's such a personal choice and everyone has to do what's right for them, but when someone is at desperation breaking point due to lack of sleep I personally find it more helpful to share what they can do to get more sleep than to tell them that if they keep going (can they?) at some point it will probably get better.

I think the lack of sleep is what isn't working for you. I agree with the above poster about sleep training. I don't doubt it's hard but a hard couple of weeks could make all the difference. Everyone needs sleep to function well. Good luck.

@ColdColdColdColdCold “So many parents seem to feel as if they're at the mercy of whatever their baby naturally wants to do with regards to sleep.”

So… you in the first 6 months of your own baby’s life then? 🧐

I don’t even disagree with a lot that you’re saying about sleep training. It’s right for many babies.

But you can’t just decide that your baby gets a free pass to be untrainable for 6 months, and therefore everyone else’s baby is a cautionary tale if they’re not trained by 12 months.

do you, i left and became a sahm as we knew we wanted two close in age and well you dont get this time with your children back. This whole cult of women working full time then mumming all night and still managing us mental. Do what you can and dont feel ashamed for not being able to manage night wakes and a full time job, I know my OH couldnt do that so why are women expected to? Xx

Sorry, you're right. It was rude of me to say OP was a cautionary tale. I should have thought it and not said it. Apologies OP.

I don't think I'd have cared if you'd said my terrible sleeper at 6m was a cautionary tale for not sorting sleep out earlier because I tried so many things TO sort it earlier, almost everything under the sun, and the recommendation for the Ferber method is to use it at six months or beyond. So I couldn't have done it any earlier, safely (some choose to but I wouldn't have gone against the recommendation personally). I was fully aware that it needed sorting out, just everything I tried wasn't working and I couldn't do the sleep training until he was old enough!

I just see so many comments on parent forums about how you just need to keep going with poor sleep because it will get better, just persevere, it's biologically normal, you can't teach sleep and so forth, that I think it's important to highlight that yes, you can do something about it, you don't have to just go with the flow indefinitely and hope it gets better.

Might it help to think that this just IS quite an unhappy phase, for you and DS?

There will be happier times. When you've got older children you start to be able to look back and see the changes and the phases, the happy settled times and the grim difficult times.

It does sound hard but very normal. My two didn't really sleep reliably well until they went into their own toddler beds at around 2 years 9 mths.

My son at 17 mths was seriously miserable. He was teething, trying to get going with walking, I was wanting to stop feeding him in the night.

Times do get get better!

Sounds like you have a ridiculous number of things going on here - but the overwhelming thing is that YOU are exhausted. Lack of sleep in an adult really messes you up. It is used as a form of torture for a reason.

My advice - find a way of taking 2 days off completely. Either your husband steps up and deals with the child OR hire a night nanny for a couple of nights and take yourself off by yourself to a hotel and sleep. Once you have done that you will have a better perspective on things.

Sleep training divides opinion and I know this but the fact is that it has to work first, and I’m really, honestly, not at all convinced it will. I suppose instinctively I feel he needs bringing closer rather than being left. If he’s scared or in pain, he won’t sleep. If I felt honestly like it was just a matter of getting help from a sleep consultant I would do it but I don’t.

Anyway,

I didn't feel at the mercy, I was doing a lot to try and help him learn to sleep. Trying to sort out day/night confusion, routine, lack of eye contact in the night, etc. etc.

The recommendation for the Ferber method is to use at six months or beyond.

Just trying to provide a counter to the comments I see frequently about how 'sleep is biological, can't be taught, it'll improve when they're ready, do what you can to cope as this is inevitable until baby decides otherwise'. I'm encouraging being proactive about sleep instead of just accepting that terrible sleep is a given and choosing to give up work because of it.

My baby was pretty resistant to everything before six months tbf, which is why I'm so glad we took the plunge with sleep training as soon as he was old enough to. I wouldn't wish that sleep deprivation on anyone. I've apologised upthread for saying cautionary tale, that was insensitive and rude of me.

This really jumped out at me. I so so so empathise with you. I went back to work when DC1 was 14 months and stopped when he was almost 2. It just wasn’t the right thing for our family. Or can DH go 4 days and you go 3 days? I can’t help thinking that it’s so hard on small children when they have 2 parents working full time. Of course some people have no choice but where there is an element of choice it’s good to think about options. I feel like small children are much closer to being little animals, all full of needs and feelings. They’re not rational. They just need what they need and some need mummy an d daddy more than others. My DC2 was always incredibly clingy, both as baby and toddler, and a terrible sleeper too. Have you tried co-sleeping? My DC2 settled better and slept later in the morning when in my bed. So everyone got more sleep. I put rolled up towels between us so I didn’t get kicked in the night!

Her toddler sounds like a normal toddler, adhd is hard to diagnose in children that age.

Could it help to research the evidence around sleep training so you have the facts instead of just people's opinions?

As a starting point there's a really good chapter in the book Crib Sheet (mentioned earlier) which outlines the evidence for/against sleep training.

This blog post is a modified version of the relevant chapter, edited by the author herself:

emilyoster.substack.com/p/sleep-training-is-it-bad?s=r

If you've decided you don't believe it'd work then that's completely your choice and your right to feel that way, but if you ever get to a stage where you're considering it but just don't know enough about the evidence then there's a place to start. I was dead against it before researching it as I'd only heard the opinions of friends who were more into attachment/bedsharing style parenting. Once I started to read around during pregnancy about hot topics like sleep/feeding etc. I learned a lot. The opinions of randoms online (me included haha) are meaningless, go to the source and read about professionals who study this stuff for a living.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope things get easier for you soon, I really do. My heart goes out to you. You sound shattered.

Lol at male life pattern.

I could not be a sahm. I love my DD and didn't hate the nine months spent at home with her. I also don't dread doing it again when her sister is born in August, but I couldn't do it long term. I just don't find it stimulating enough. I find it boring and a bit lonely. We are all happier now I'm back at work full time, and DD is at a nursery that she loves with wonderful kind staff.

But my toddler sleeps. If she didn't, things would be much, much harder, so I sympathise with the OP.

I sort of agree with your wider point though that it's a shame modern society almost mandates that two parents stay at home. It would be far nicer of families had the choice. My DH has dropped one day of work since I went back to work and would like to drop another, but we can't really afford it

That’s literally the point.

If money was no object, I absolutely would have taken time off work and made the most of being a mum to young children, even without sleep issues. If you can afford it, life's too short not to imo.

thing is that a lot of conditions cannot be diagnosed until the child is older. I knew as you do in that mother way that something wasn’t right from the day he was born. The day he was diagnosed and, more importantly, that I was given coping strategies was such a relief.

it is really hard when you are struggling and people tell you it’s because you have done something wrong. And let’s face it, most parents only have one or two kids so cannot possibly know what every child is like.

I did use a sleep consultant to help with day naps when he was an infant and that was helpful, but nothing anyone did or didn’t do could remedy the broken nights. I’m talking waking hourly every night until age 5, then down to 3 x a night until 7.

I took career break, OP. I went back after mat leave and lasted until DC was 16 months. It was a stressful job in the city, and I felt like I was failing at work AND parenting. We cut our outgoings and bought a much smaller house. I was sad to give up work but couldn’t do both, however I’m happy to report that I went back to work FT once DC was in pre-school and didn’t have any issues re-entering the workplace; it’s much more common now. Do what feels right for you.