To wonder if bad sleep leads to a sort of trauma?

[Sleepupset]

Hear me out.

DS was terrible. I knew babies didn’t sleep through the night but somehow naively didn’t expect it to be as exhausting as it was. Things actually took a turn for the worse after moving into his own room, he would go to sleep fine then wake up about three hours later and refuse to go back down. Co sleeping for me equals no sleeping so that wasn’t a solution, but was sort of forced into it. It was horrible and lasted until he was 18 months. Then after sleep training he woke at 530 for a year.

Its left me a bit anxious and very upright about sleep. I get very worked up if he doesn’t eat much because I know that can mean a bad night. If he wakes early (the 530 wakes have stopped) I get all tense thinking they’re going to start again.

DS is now 3 and reliably sleeps through 95% of the time so I don’t know why I’m still so uptight about it and I can only out it down to a bit of trauma! Is anyone else in the same boat?

Yes I'm like this. DD1 wasn't a great sleeper (although she's now 4.5 and is really good), and DD2 was awful (she's now 1.5 and an ok sleeper).

But I definitely recognise what you describe - the knot I get in my stomach when I hear DD2 wake in the night is awful. With DD1 I was similar to you with food, really stressing about the possibility of her waking up hungry. I also co slept with her for a couple of months out of necessity and barely slept. We stopped that and sleep trained her after DH found me basically hysterical at 3am, sobbing at him to just take her away from me.

Then I had very severe PND after DD2 was born (I'd had it to a lesser extent after DD1) and the exhaustion did not help at all. I was close to suicide. I find lack of sleep extremely difficult to deal with and very stressful. DH did all the night wakings with DD2 because I was a wreck. She was just brought to me for a feed and then he'd take her again.

I will say that as DD1 has got older and her sleep has got better and better, I'm more relaxed about her, so I'm hoping DD2 goes the same way. So yes, I think lack of sleep can send you a bit mad.

Absolutely. DS isn't a great sleeper and can't settle himself to sleep so if he wakes I need to go into him. It's very stressful and I often wake in the night having dreamt he was calling for me which is infuriating.

My Dd was born with a heart defect which meant, coupled with an undiagnosed tongue tie, there was a period of time between her being 5 and 9 weeks old when she basically didn’t sleep at night at all. I was just feeding, winding, feeding, winding all night. Exh was entirely useless. She was sleep for periods of time during the day when her grandmothers were helping out and pushed her around town in the pram, that was the only sleep I got (about two hours a day if I was lucky). I was having hallucinations by the time she had her first operation and I barely remember that period of time.

It was then about a month after her op when she became more like normal babies of that age, but she didn’t sleep through totally reliably until age 5.

Im very traumatised by sleep deprivation I am sure.

Yes, absolutely. Absolute torture.
DS is almost 10 now but was a horrendous sleeper until about 3 or 4 and woke up at the crack of dawn until about 5.
I am still blown away by the fact I can plan sleep now and often ramble on about it after a few drinks 🥴
Thankfully DS2 who was NOT PLANNED was much better but I can still feel that defeated tension in my body at any night wakings or little triggers like them not eating a good dinner.

I still go to bed counting the hours of potential sleep and now refuse to set an alarm clock or miss sleep unless I have to.

Am free of it now and they are totally worth it but fucking hell, DS1 almost broke me

I remember feeling the anxiety but my experience is it passes as the years pass. Unlike a true trauma which reverberates. I don't mean that a dismissive way but more descriptive. There are many things about the tough times of parenting that do fade. My experience is that the exhaustion and mental anguish of a non-sleeper is one of those. I have a vague sense it was awful and have every sympathy. Bit I can't recall the detail and feel no lasting damage for me or either DC.

My traumatic birth has never left me and I can recall details many years later.

My DD (4) is generally a good sleeper but we have had periods of very little sleep in the last 4 years. Recently, she's been waking us up in the middle of the night. All she wants is a cuddle and then she happily goes back to sleep in her own bed but then I'm wide awake and have to get back to sleep. When I haven't had enough sleep for a few nights I get teary and very emotional so I agree that lack of sleep can certainly affect mental health and emotions.

Not sure the sleep deprivation itself can cause trauma but maybe the events causing it? I have 3 sen children my middle one 8 has never slept through the night I've not had more than 3 hours straight of sleep since then I tend to get 5 hours of broken sleep on average a night worst nights zero. I get pretty run down and in effect become poorly, I do however have ptsd from the hospital stays that we have had with her a couple when we thought we was going to lose her and the anxiety rears it's head everytime she has a cold or there is a virus in her class at school. My sleep is dreadful and somehow I can cope relatively normally now like my body has adapted though I definitely get spaced out more often then most people