To think this is the worst thing about parenting small children?

[Iheartherain]

5 bloody am.

I thought the clocks going forward had reverted us to a more civilised wake-up time of around 6, but no.

Please don’t give advice as a year or more of trying to fix this hasn’t worked 😅 but honestly it is pretty miserable. I can’t have hobbies in an evening or watch ‘adult’ TV or nights out or date nights if we got a babysitter.

I am sick of being tired and yawning, fat because I seek sugar to boost my energy and always have a headache. It’s shit.

@Comedycook that is beyond cruel.
Totally uncalled for. I hope no one with infertility is reading this thread.

I’ve been there and remember it really clearly.
DC up at 5/530 and having to tiptoe and take them downstairs so as not to wake up older siblings or dad. ( Who was up at 630 to start a 12 hour shift with hour long commutes before anyone says why didn’t DH get up with the DC ).

I tried everything and nothing worked , my DC just had early waking body clocks.
The only thing that kept me going and made it ok was having something I REALLY enjoyed for my 530 am snack breakfast.
I would make a very sweet two sugar cup of tea and have Finest pate on toast made with soft white warburtons toastie bread.
Knowing that I was going down to have a delicious treat helped me get through the first two graveyard shift hours.
I totally get where you are coming from , I felt really lonely in those hours and also the worst was it made it a REALLY long day , by midday I felt like my day was over but still had to get through to bedtime.

DC was well behaved though in these early hours and toddled about in the living room watching TV.
I just lounged on couch and mumsnetted.

The only consolation was they had early bed time , sleeping by 7pm each night so I’d still get between 7-10 to watch TV and relax.
Hang in there, it gets better , my youngest is still an early riser at age 5 and wakes at 7 / 730 even at weekends but tbh that’s fine as that’s my natural body clock waking time anyway.

The poster I was responding to came onto a thread about a mum who is struggling to say how great it is choosing not to have kids. I think that was pretty uncalled for and cruel.

Of course because no one ever stays in contact with their parents once they become adults. And no it's not just about support....it's about creating a family around you full of love. Early mornings are a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things

No, I’m not OK @Neurodiversitydoctor . I’m pregnant and exhausted and I tried to have a moan on here and some complete dickhead has decided everything else that is hard about having a child must be talked about.

My ds would fall asleep at 9pm and wake anytime from 10:30 - 4 am.............then fall back to sleep at 7:30 when everyone else was getting up for the day! He was wide awake when he woke, be that after 20 mins or a few hours!!! I don't know how I survived.............he has autism and now at 15 he does have a better sleep pattern, but once awake that's it

Oh my god OP i empathise. It's awful. Your will to do anything in the evening time vanishes and you become obsessed with sleep. I can tell you it absolutely does get better I actually got excited recently as I got an awful dose of flu but by DC are of an age (youngest one is 4) where they can watch tv or tablets and a few lazy days at home is fine. I actually got daytime sleep while they entertained themselves (DH working from home for supervision). Despite being sick it was actually bliss

Thank you. I’m honestly not normally this grumpy but I really hate any thread by people struggling with young children being taken over by those with teens. You have a WHOLE BOARD!

I woke up at 5:15 this morning to a plastic pterodactyl in my face telling me to 'wake up!' repeatedly In a squeaky dinosaur voice courtesy of my almost 3 year old

Eh what? If the OP could get good sleep there wouldn't be an issue

I have been there with the exhaustion and I sympathise. I would say that you've posted in aibu which invites alternative opinions and debate which is why people have posted different perspectives on teens. I would suggest you take splitting the early mornings more seriously, buy ear plugs or use head phones to listen to a relaxing podcast to get you back to sleep, the parent getting up doesn't let the child back up the stairs to wake up the other parent. Given that you are so pregnant I think your partner should take the lead on getting up too. Once my kids were three and I was confident they were so glued to the TV they weren't going anywhere I would go back to bed for a bit.

To be fair you also snapped at a poster who posted a light-hearted comment about cleaning up small children's vomit in the early hours.

This is turning into one of those threads where OP is baited over and over, then when she gets frustrated by it is accused of being ‘angry’ and met with facetious ‘are you ok’ comments.

Ignore it OP.

Sleep deprivation is torture, literally. It’s used to torture people. Sleep is treated as an optional thing on here but it’s as essential as food. If OP was being deprived of food, would you all be so critical? In fact I would rather be hungry than exhausted.

My kids sleep okay but I’m sending you solidarity OP as when I have a tough night I get a taste of what it must be like for parents of non-sleepers, it must be horrific.

@Comedycook if you want a fight, go elsewhere.

@Coffeeandbourbons the thing is I’m not Ok, I’m obviously not on the brink of a nervous breakdown but I am feeling lack of sleep in every fibre of my being, so yes being told how haaaaaard it is by parents of teens does grate!

No i don't want a fight.... I'm sorry you're struggling. Your thread title on its own actually reads as quite light hearted and as if you're asking people what the worst bits of parenting are... hence why you got the responses you did. If you'd posted that you're struggling people would have responded directly to that.

Does your dh know how you feel?

You must know my 5 year old!

Or, “pretend you’re a princess who’s just found a baby dragon and you love it so much, no not that voice mummy…” 🙄

@Iheartherain I feel your pain. My 2yo daughter has always been a nightmare sleeper and has recently started waking up at 5am (having previously woken up 5-6 times a night but at least sleeping til 6.30/7). Some nights it is literally like having a newborn as she will wake up every 45m crying for me. It's so exhausting, and I'm due another one in 3 weeks. She also is queen of the exhausted morning tantrums. And it's even worse when people give 'helpful' advice or say 'oh, she's not sleeping through yet? Mine was by 3 months'. Yeah great, you were lucky. You're not some sleep guru - some kids are just not good sleepers, no matter how good you are at putting in place the right tools to help them.

Lack of sleep + pregnancy hormones creates an exceptionally potent rage, and sometimes I fear only my inability to get off the sofa without huge effort and crippling pain stops me from throttling people.

@Iheartherain this is like when you’re dealing with a colicky baby and people say “ooh just wait until he’s a toddler, then you’ll know what hard is”. That wasn’t actually true- toddlers are hard but babies are harder!

I have 3 little ones and our neighbours have teens- they sleep in until 11am some days! And they quite often give us a hand with the kids so I can’t see how teens are harder than toddlers. But in 10 years I will probably have forgotten about the early days and look back on them with rose tinted glasses.

OP, I've even where you are and it is the absolute pits. Chronic sleep deprivation makes it almost impossible to keep things in perspective, everything feels like the end of the world when you're exhausted and there's no end in sight. People are very quick to offer solutions based on what worked for their child, but sometimes what you really need is for someone to go "yeah it's really fucking shit, isn't it?" But you can't do that on MN without it turning into the parenting misery Olympics.

DS has only recently started to sleep well at 4yo. He used to wake up between 4am and 5am every morning and was often awake in the night too. Nothing that worked for our older DC worked for him. We were given ALL the advice, whether we asked for it or not...put him to bed later, put him to bed earlier he must be overtired, blackout blinds, gro clock, white noise, snack before bed, no snack before bed, he needs less milk, he needs more milk...absolutely nothing worked. I read so many books about getting your child to sleep, we tried everything and nothing made a difference. I got so sick of people telling me I looked tired, why do people do that?? If you're so tired that people can tell you're tired just by looking at you then you're obviously going to be aware of the fact you're tired! It doesn't need pointing out.

One day we just woke up, looked at the clock and realised DS had slept until 7am. We assumed it was a fluke but then it started happening more and more, then it was every day. It is glorious!! You will get there, in the meantime you just have to ignore the unsollicited advice and do whatever you can to get some sleep because at this stage its all about survival.

This is turning into one of those threads where OP is baited over and over, then when she gets frustrated by it is accused of being ‘angry’ and met with facetious ‘are you ok’ comments.

Nail on the head. If a woman posts saying she's struggling with chronic sleep deprivation and explicitly says she is not looking for advice, don't be surprised if she's just a teensy bit irritable when the unwanted sleep advice comes gushing forth, along with posters desperate to tell her its all going to get worse.

Exactly this.

It was light hearted until it got taken over! It stil is in a way. I’m grumpy but not so grumpy I can’t laugh a bit at my grumpiness. I reserve the right to get fed up when the mememe crowd turn up though.

Ordinary teens are so much easier than ordinary toddlers. And I’ve had both. At the same time.

I hear you @Iheartherain I hope it passes soon.

Indeed. It is a tad frustrating.