To think sleep deprivation is serious?

[Philllyeagles]

I haven’t had a full nights sleep in a year and a month now, that’s how old my youngest is. She’s been very attached so no we haven’t been able to have her stay out so I can rest.

she is getting more confident so may stay at grandmas with her big bro soon! But this years give me a lot of reflection (maybe because I’m awake so much. Lol)

The best nights we’ve had (less than a handful though) is 4/5 hour stretch. Only got 1 waking during these nights. Felt fantastic.

A normal night is me seeing every hour of the night. Whether it be for 5 minutes to give her a cuddle or an hour as she’s woke and is chatting. It’s been tough :/

early on people checked but as she’s older people don’t care. I’ve went to work and again. It seems no one cares and this sounds silly someone on our teams call last week was like “wow I can’t function I only had 6 hours sleep” (that’s fine I’m not berating them) and I thought that would be fantastic tbh!
for me anyway.

I feel like I’m expected to be 100% in every aspect of my life and not be affected by being so drained. My 100% goes to my kids of course. My husband made a comment about how I’ve changed and I stayed silent but wanted to scream at him. He doesn’t get up in the night , he doesn’t hear the kids. He’s had breaks. He sleeps through. I am so drained and what a stupid fucking comment to make when I put my
heart and soul into trying to raise our kids to be the best people they can grow to be, and he’s nitpicking me for being different than the energised 20 year old he met!!!! (I’m 27 now)

Am I dramatic? I feel like people don’t get how real and how draining it is to not sleep properly. To have a bad night, and know you can’t catchup on sleep. To fuel yourself with red bull so you can do emails and calls falling asleep.

Not necessarily, some food allergies have a delayed onset on symptoms (within 72 hrs) so therefore it’s not very clear. My sons symptoms were not the same every day and when I looked back it was because he had a certain level of tolerance to dairy. CMPA is very common (most common I believe) and under reported as many cases are self managed at home outside of the Gp. If your child has loose stools, intermittent vomiting, runny nose, rashes for example (like mine did) then it’s worth speaking to your GP/ health visitor. Naive me was looking at every symptom individually. At 2 years luckily you don’t need to consider prescriptive milk formulae. My son is 4 now and working on a milk ladder and has slowly reintroduced some diary again.

I'm sorry op. I'm in the exact same boat so I really understand how you feel. Currently awake as I've just put dc back to sleep twice already. Same age and same wake ups! It's really really hard but one day they'll start to wake up less. My elder dc was the exact same as this one with the same sleep habits but slept through at age 2 and has been a fantastic sleeper since. So that gets me through, knowing I did come through it at the other end. Saw a thread earlier of a 3mo sleeping through and just felt a pang in all honestly (even though amazing for those parents!) I can't even imagine. My DH can't do the nights due to nature of work, and no family support, so I really do get it. You're aren't alone! Hang in there. It will be so great if you could get them to stay with grandma soon. That will really help you recharge so something to look forward to.

That’s really helpful, he does have intermittent vomiting and rashes which is one of the reasons we’ve started the food diary! He was breastfed for 15 months so I do wonder if that would have masked it compared to if he had been on formula (fully speculating here but will see how the food diary goes!)

Sleep deprivation is horrific and I almost lost my mind (literally) as a result of not sleeping when my baby was seven months.

Take action. For your sanity & welfare.

You cannot pour from an empty cup.

my advice is anecdotal here. My son tried so many creams for the rashes (they were awful on his face) and nothing worked. The intermittent vomiting was so random but now I know it was because some days he has more yogurts/ milks etc than others. He still had all these symptoms while breastfeeding. I have a new baby who has exactly the same symptoms, after 2 weeks k put myself on a dairy free diet and he has no GI symptoms or rashes. Any time I slip up on my diet then his gets something. I feel so stupid and I’m medical so if it wasn’t obvious to me I don’t think the vast amount of the public know about this which is such a
shame. There needs to be more awareness on this.

So sleep train. Stop letting her be 'clingy'.

I spent a week in hospital when my youngest was a few months old. I still got no bloody sleep as I was on hourly obs throughout the nights!

Thank you @Mumsie2024 that is helpful! He is definitely intolerant to something as I can tell some nights he had awful tummy pain but we’ve not put a finger on it. Always assumed his face rashes were dry skin but no cream has ever helped like you say.

When the cause of your kids sleep issues is back to back illness, ear infections and teething there’s not much sleep training can do.

We’re not looking for your sympathy. Why are you even on this thread if you have nothing helpful to offer.

Really feel for you OP.
We had this for years. Zero family support. I remember realising it was serious when I had visual hallucinations.

Literally offered sleep training...

Hey ho. All Kids have periods of shit sleep. If it's getting relentless, at least try and change something.

Is it just me that doesn't keep doing the same thing over and over and expect change to happen?

Sorry OP. I hope you get some sleep soon. Your H sounds a bit shit too and you probably don't feel you can face sleep training alone. You can do this 💪.

@Hercisback1 you did everything the same for 12 months, OP is only one month further along.

and to repeat, great it worked for you but sleep training is not a magic bullet for everyone.

YANBU OP and you have my every sympathy but seriously your DH needs to step the fuck up. We have an 8 month old who wakes 2-3 times a night; in the week I deal with most of it and pray he goes off again quickly (sometimes my prayers are answered, sometimes they're not) but on a weekend when DH is not working I sleep one night in another room with noise cancelling headphones and he takes the whole strain.

If the crying doesn't wake your DH then he needs to simply stay up a whole night or even half a night now and again when he's not working, it won't kill him with a nap the evening before and in the day after.

Good luck, would be interested to hear how you get on. I hear these symptoms in baby groups all the time and I am screaming inside! It’s an easy fix if that is the issue.

Do you even have kids or are you from the dark ages? This is so unhelpful.

@Philllyeagles

If your not so lovely H “can’t” hear his own children then get him to take them out at the weekend so you could catch up on sleep during a day.

Been there,done that with useless now XH who also “didn’t hear” kids waking up 2,3,4,5 times a night. He slept through every night. Several times I had to stop on the way back from work and get out of car because I was falling asleep behind the wheel. How the hell I didn’t crash I don’t know. Now I know XH didn't care.

To those of you saying “sleep training”. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Feeding, breadtfeeding, colds,teething, food intolerance,ear infections and finally autism with a child like Duracell bunny.
At least 5 years of broken sleep.

OP, get your H for a serious talk. Time for him to shape up or ship out. “They want you not me” was also XH excuse. Well,they are also HIS kids.

Good luck 💐

We are experiencing this recently with our dog, and haven't had this much of a disturbed nights sleep since our youngest was a baby and she is 25! It is a KILLER! Getting four hours in a row feels like a luxury and I find myself waking up anyway even if my dog doesn't wake me. We are taking her to the vets to see if there is an underlying issue as she has not been herself since new years so who knows, I may be getting 7 hours sleep a night soon (I won't hold my breath).
There is a reason sleep deprivation is used as a torture device

I completely understand. I'm back at work now after maternity leave and my baby wakes constantly through the night. My manager is being lovely about it but I'm not able to give 100% at work and eventually it'll start pissing colleagues off

Absolutely not unreasonable at all

I fell asleep once at the park, standing up, pushing my son on the swing

It's absolutely bone numbing

My parents were shocked when I went to bed at 9pm - no clue whatsoever

The worst part for me is that when I’m lying in bed I’m just anticipating the next wake up so even though I’m absolutely burnt out exhausted I can’t fall asleep!

^

Way up thread but yeah, this

The Fear And Impending Expectation - blardy awful

Sleep deprivation is hell but doesn't only affect people with young dc. You don't know what people who 'rile' you are going through when they say they are tired, for all you know they might have conditions that make sleep difficult even when they're able to rest, or other things going on in their lives that mean they can't just go to bed. It's not a competition.

I also don’t get enough sleep and always wake up feeling resentful.

Sleep deprivation is awful and it impacts some more than others. To each their own, but we got a night nurse to gently sleep train our DD for that reason.

Does anyone remember this reality tv channel 4 show from the early 2000s where they competed sleep deprived? How the hell it was allowed to run was beyond me!

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/04/shattered-legacy-of-a-reality-tv-experiment-in-extreme-sleep-deprivation

@imtheholidayarmadillo yes I do know that, but I'm talking about the average Joe at work who has had a couple of bad nights sleep, with no children. Plus I'm not exactly feeling empathy when I've been woken up every hour for the past year.
Sometimes you need to just feel what you feel. Of course I feel riled when I'm chronically exhausted and someone from work chips in that they feel tired. Of course I want to jump down their throat and of course I feel riled. Of course it's not rational, which is why I'm not a raving loon and act on it.
I don't really care about the million reasons why someone can't sleep, when I've been battling sleep deprivation for far too long.

And that's understandable. Despite having no DC I'm often sleep-deprived to a similar extent due to a lifelong sleep disorder which is why I'm awake now at 3.40 a.m. (Not playing top trumps here btw, merely giving context.) It's hell sometimes, and yes it can be galling when people appear to be making a big deal out of less severe sleep deprivation. All I'm saying is that parenting isn't the only cause, and you don't always know what might be going on behind the scenes.