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.

You need to do shifts!
So he be in charge for 6 hours and you sleep in another room with earplugs if needed then swap. it's completely unfair you're the one dealing with it all. You both need solid sleep. It's the only way forward

Could you go for a sleep for a couple of nights to grandmas to give yourself a rest xxx

The big question for me is why isn't your husband sharing the load?! No wonder your exhausted having to do it all on your own! You need to sit down and have a chat about thus he is also a parent and should be helping with your child, even him getting up once or twice would help you get more sleep

Just to weigh in on the sleep training… by all means give it a go but some children just don’t respond to it.

I had a sil who was a very experienced nanny help out when dd was about a year old, she was determined to ‘fix it’. She gave up. It was still useful because it validated the situation and that it wasn’t just me being crap! She did say that the will and nerve you need to train just isn’t there if you’re exhausted which is why she stepped in.

ideally your DH needs to be the one to do it 1. Because it breaks the routine of you being the one to settle them, 2. Because he’s got energy reserves that you just haven’t.

Totally agree with this. I'm in the trenches over here, too. It's brutal.

Personal question, do you breastfeed? I sometimes wonder if that has anything to do with it. Friends who bottle feed seem to have babies/kids who sleep more at night... or maybe they've just sleep trained, so that's why. Totally anecdotal though.

I haven't had a full night sleep now for 4 years. And when did my oldest sleep through the night for the first time (as in 12h)?! At 3yo - literally the first night after we brought his newborn baby brother back from the hospital. I could have cried. Not even one or 2 nights of full sleep in-between.

No you aren't dramatic, you are too soft on your Husband! The 2 of you made those babies together so the 2 of you need to share the burden of looking after them and taking it in turns to deal with the sleepless nights rather than it all being on you. I would book myself a night away and leave him to it while you SLEEP!!

Travelodge.

You leave home as soon as little one is asleep, you go straight to bed and turn your mobile off. You sleep. You return home in time for breakfast. Repeat until you feel a little recharged.

DH needs to step up here.

My second child never slept and when she was 13 weeks old I got pregnant again!
my second slept literally 1 hour and that was that!
Even when she got older she never slept, she’d be up at all hours, obviously as she got older she would stay in her room on her own and then when older again she could go downstairs and do as she pleased, but we’d hear her up and about lol sorry to say it was heaven when she left home at 20! 🤣🤣
I couldn’t wait for her to have children and then it would be pay back lol, but no both her children absolutely love sleep both sleeping through the night from 3 months old!

YABU- nobody cares how tired you are because literally everyone is tired. Everyone has their own stuff going on, own problems, and it’s not a pitty party. Get on with it, adapt and stop moaning, the moaning will be draining you more!!!!

Tag him in and leave the building. You need to recover for your own sanity. Make sure you do this regularly..

What about a sleep consultant? I mean I have no experience with one but a suggestion maybe..I think with your situation I'd be trying anything

Oh believe me he “hears” the kids he just chooses to not get up, I had one like that once - waste of decent oxygen

Everything you’ve written is true. My youngest is now 4 years old and only now I am finally getting a good night’s sleep, in the sense that if he wakes up and calls me I sometimes don’t hear him. Eventually I do or he comes to me, but I have finally managed to go back to sleeping deeply enough. Mums are superheros and we don’t get enough credit

My 18 month old who was sleeping through for about 6 months has thrown the towel in entirely on this sleeping lark. I've been finding it really really tough as I work full time also

4 year old finally falling asleep on her own but comes into our bed every night and kicks the shit outta us.
We take it in turns. I got cocky. I may have even bragged a little about how she slept without sleep training. What a fool I was.

I think this as well OP- my DD didn't sleep through till she was 4 and my son still wakes up regularly in the night aged 7- husband does nights so not much help, and I work full time- when they were small I swear I did a day's work and didn't remember anything i'd done once I came home -my concentration was shot. I don't think my brain works as well as it did before kids and 10 yrs broken sleep. I got a less demanding job in the end. It's something that needs to be talked about more.

Your DH needs to wake up - I would wake him up and go back to he's. Cheeky sod!

Even when I was on maternity leave my DH would do some of the nights (I ff) because otherwise I was a mess the next day and was suffering enough with PND and PNA

It's so hard. To be fair my 18 month old doesn't sleep too badly but only because I BF and cosleep so she can kind of feed while I sleep. She would wake up constantly in her own bed. If it helps, age 1 was tough for us and she's got a lot better since then.

My youngest didn't sleep through the night until she was 4. YES 4. As a baby she was a dream. She woke ever 3/4 hours. She slept less as a toddler. A good night was 3 wake ups a bad one hourly wakeups. I was so exhausted that i couldn't concentrate on basic things. I was having accidents cutting/ burning myself when cooking. I couldn't actually understand when people were talking to me at times their words didn't make sense to me. Anyway, I also have a husband that could possibly wake up and expected me to wake him up if I needed him to "help". In the end I explained that he can help now or he can do it all when I'm institutionalised because I was ready for a breakdown. Resent it having to get that far to be honest. I think it's aged me terribly.

Yes, sleep deprivation when kids are small is horrendous. Your husband needs to share the load.
I'm going to repeat a recommendation that someone else has already mentioned above (similar to you, my husband would sleep through the night wakings).
Out system was that I'd to sleep between 9 and 9.30 and my husband would stay up until between 12 and 1 watching telly. During that time he was responsible for the wakings (no issue with him sleeping through them as he was awake at the time). He'd then go to bed between 12 and 1 and I'd do the wakings for the second half of the night having already had 3-4 hours sleep.
Give it a try.

I agree with this too!
Sleep deprivation is so horrible. We had baby twins who shared a large cot beside our bed. I would go to sleep in the spare room at 7pm (honestly) and my husband would stay up dealing with the wakings/feeds etc until 1am, at which point he would turf me out of the spare bed and we'd swap places. It was awful even then, because they'd only sleep 40mins at a time between them. But we got through it! Just about.
I'm so sorry your husband isn't already stepping up, i hope you can get him to understand
I think being sleep deprived generally for the first 3 years has left me almost unable to sleep properly. I used to be such a great sleeper! Even when the twins are in bed now I take ages to fall asleep, I wake several times a night!
Sending solidarity I hope things get better for you ❤️

Hi @Philllyeagles writing this without reading all the replies but sending solidarity, as a mum who has had 2 solid nights in over 6 years (one of those was on scout camp of all places and the other I was so late to bed children probs didn't have any more waking left in them lol).

Sleep deprivation is a significant health issue and I don't believe chronic sleep deprivation to the extent we're talking here has been truly researched (I looked once, but not since). After mat leave I went back to full time work in a senior management role waking 8 times a night. I now wake 2-3 times a night and can't believe I managed 8 before. We have a 3yr age gap between our children so when the eldest improved sleeping, DD2 came along to extend the experience!

Co sleeping has been a huge help, I did see you said you already do this. Stick to your guns on that. Best for you and baby. Is baby developing as expected/within usual ranges? Sorry, not great with terminology.

When we just had DD1, even waking x8 per night I was smashing my job (goodness knows how). But now I have 2 children and so significantly sleep deprived I'm really not and I'm looking for a less senior role and reduced hours.

If you had a physical illness which resulted in all the symptoms you have of sleep deprivation, would you go to work every day? Would you expect yourself to manage all the things you did before you got ill? Would you take the medicine to get better? I'm not preaching, as it's taken me 6+ years to realise the true impact this has had on me. Mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, practically etc.

I don't blame you at all for putting your child first. But be kind to yourself and don't expect you can carry on like you did before. Good luck, I really hope you get your husband on board x