to think that mothering is completely different for people whose babies sleep

[tinierclanger]

I know we're very lucky really, I have friends whose babies are ill, or have had bad reflux, and some who have split up with their partners.

But I still can't help thinking that those people I know who seem so sunny about the whole thing all the time, it's because they have babies who have slept through from a very young age. I love DS and we have great times together, but I think I would be loving it even more, and finding things so much easier, if he had been sleeping through. I feel quite divided from the sleeping-through mummies, like they have no understanding at all of what it's like to be permanently chasing sleep, and feeling guilty about feeding in the middle of the night.

AIBU really?

tattycoram My friend fell asleep with her newborn and toddler in the car and hit a lamppost. Fortunately they were all ok but car was a right off...people do underestimate how utterly shattering it is

Thecrackfox - same here - how people have babies who are two years or less apart i have no idea....There was absolutely no way ...either my husband would have walked out or i would have done..

mine is nearly 6 and we are now thinking of another.

Also suffered from depression and no bloody wonder, i was misrable, and suffering from physical and mental torture.

I'm so glad they were all right. I used to sometimes wait for ds to fall asleep in the car and pull over in a quiet street and kip for half an hour. I live in London though so would avoid driving if I felt it was unsafe. It would be harder to do that in the countryside.

Sorry, that was to Stillenacht. Yes work has really suffered, just can't bloody concentrate on anything

Stillenacht - I have never heard of a link between ff and autism. I think as a mum you blame yourself for everything though Anyway, glad you found a routine that worked for you both. I didn't get on great bf ds. He was a hungry baby and I think perhaps my milk production was poor. He also had colic and reflux. I later found out my thyroid was underactive - which can affect milk supply and certainly would've made the sleep deprivation even more hellish. I somehow struggled on for 7 months (combined bf and ff from 6 months) but didn't enjoy my maternity leave as I was so bloody knackered the whole time.

YANBU. I am an 'orrible grumpy cow who - after 6 months of no sleep - whinges constantly about being knackered; has a crap relationship with DH as a result of being knackered; looks rubbish as too knackered to diet, exercise properly, put on make up, wax bikini line etc.; and just generally feels miserable, run down and a bit let down by the whole parenting lark.

My friend whose perfectly sleeping DD is exactly the same age as my DS loves every minute, adores her (superbly supportive) DH, looks fantastic (having lost a stone and a half already) and is just generally totally uncynical about being a mum.

I try so hard not to compare my experience with hers but it's impossible...

However I do adore my DS as he is fabulous and totally worth it. And MN has saved my sanity of course!

I thought that we were "due" a sleeper after dealing with DD1. Ha! That's the reason why we had another - it couldn't possibly be as bad this time around, right?

Unfortunately what we found was that DD2 needs even less sleep. I find myself reading the baby manuals - at 6 months a typical baby gets 10-12 hours a night and will nap in the day for 3-4 hours, which can be marshalled into 2 convenient sessions, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. I must be a complete maschocist.

I can completely relate to the "being so tired that it makes you physically sick" thing too. We are very concerned about DH getting enough sleep so that he doesn't get sacked, but I sometimes think about whether I'd employ a nanny that got as little sleep as I do - would I really think her capable of caring for my children?

God yes, YANBU. I feel faintly traumatised remembering the first year of dd's life. Anything is possible if you're getting enough sleep; I was OBSESSED with it.

witholding sleep is used as a torture technique to disorient and break the prisoner.

I feel so so sorry for anyone who has children who don't sleep. If mine get up at 6 I think it's a trauma

Well for one I am glad ds didn't sleep. Ex never understood the problem of ds not sleeping -he is a heavy sleeper and could never be roused to help.

He rang me for ds's bedtime story and said
"Ds isn't coping well with being away from you. I think we need to stick to alternate 3 day weekends (Fri eve-sun eve). He got up at midnight and i couldn't get him to go back to sleep until 6am and then he got for the day at 9am."
Me "oh that happens alot when he's not feeling settled or there is change"
Ex "oh"

I am chuffed that NOW he gets why I was always so tired! Not feeling guilty about the fact that my mobile was abandoned somewhere downstairs and he couldn't get hold of me to help
Have to give him credit though as he has got him back into a bedtime routine of going to bed for about 8.30pm not something that has happened for over 6 weeks since his last trip to daddy and our holiday

michkit, lol at you jumping at the chance of a night away on busioness to get some sleep. I had my gallbladder out recently and I was actually looking forward to it for precisely that reason....a night away from it all!!

I know that dd sleeping through had a major impact on my mood. Im not very good without sleep, and get very irritable. DD slept through at 13 weeks thank god 10 - 8.30 and i felt like a new woman. After 6 months thhough we had a six weeks period with an undiagnosed ear infection, which wasnt much fun for dd and brought me to my knees with knackeredness. She is FULL ON during the day mind, and i always end up knackered and literally aching all over when she goes to bed, so i see it as my pay off. DD has been a good sleeper and eater, so im nervous about what the next would bring, although i wouldnt mind a bit more of a placid personality next time! oh to have one of them babies that sit in the pram observing the world or playing gently with a toy...... must be a myth...

YANBU

I had 2 dd's who slept through from being very young and was lulled into a false sense of security that all babies did this.....then ds arrived and I've not had a decent nights sleep for nearly 2 years.

He's gorgeous and I love him but he has been very hard work and if he'd been my first...he may well have been my last.

I keep telling myself that it won't last forever and that at some point...soon hopefully...he will sleep for more than 3 hours at a time and in his own bed. He will won't he?? [hopeful]

When DS was eighteen months I signed up for a very boring conference in a far away town so that I could have a night in a lovely quiet hotel room but the sodding alarm on the tv went off at 530 . It must have been set by the previous occupant

hi feralgirl, wondered where our sleepless gang was at.

YANBU

i fantasize about getting more than 3hrs unbroken sleep

DS1 was an appalling sleeper until he hit 14months when over night he went from waking every 2-3hrs to sleeping from 6.30pm til 6.30am.

DS2 appears to have an inbuilt 3am alarm as no matter what time he's fed during the night (12oclock or 2.30am) he's wide awake and bushy tailed bang on 3am and its doing my head in.

I havent had unbroken sleep since about april 07

meant to add, there is only 11months between my two boys

Ds didn't sleep and he was a difficult demanding baby who never seemed happy (in retrospect he was probably sleep deprived as well!!)

When I say not sleeping I mean waking 4-6 times a night, at least one of which would be for 1-2 hrs before ds would go back to sleep. I was beside myself with exhaustion, irritable, weepy and depressed. I did manage to get him to sleep during the day for naps at around 7-8 months old but only by putting my life on hold to make sure he slept in a quiet place every day.

When I went back to work when ds was a year old he still wasn't sleeping at night and naps happened but only with a lot of fuss and crying. Even though ds sleeps much better now (4.5 yrs old),I still remember the inner rage and resentment whenever anyone made comments that displayed their complete lack of understanding.

My boss at work was incredibly unsympathetic as her children had been bad sleepers but felt she had just dealt with it and so should I. I didn't actually say much at work about it but if I ever mentioned I was a bit tired (usually in reply to being asked about it) because of ds's sleep habits she would say thinks like 'oh you are always tired" or you're not still going on about that are you?". T those times I wanted to kill her and we usually got on quite well most of the time.

I also remember a conversation on the phone with my sister (has no children) about how she was ill and was so exhausted because she had been unable to sleep properly for a week. I made all the right sympathetic noises but all I could think was ffs, I haven't slept in a year!

Ds started sleeping for about 7-8 hours around 18 months old but it wasn;t consistent until he was about 2.5 years old and even then we had many periods of illness and other wake-ups. He now sleeps about 10-12 hrs most nights a and has since about 3.5 years old.

Parenting is MUCH easier now for so many reasons but more sleep is a major one.

I loved my job dont' get me wrong but i admit one of the BIG reasons I stayed in it was that it meant I coudl afford 5 hrs extra childcare than I actually needed for my 25 hrs work. I used them to nap - I also used to take every chance I got for an overnight conferance etc.

I vividly remember leaving a work meeting at 3pm, due at another one at 7pm and trying to work out if I could sneak into someone's allotment shed to sleep in that 4 hr gap.

Ds2 was a much better sleeper than ds1. He is a different temperament, but I do wonder whether being the second was also a factor.

Ds1 was so demanding that I simply didn't have time to do the feeding/rocking/cuddling to sleep thing. Ds2 learned to settle himself to sleep very quickly - I just couldn't drop everything and go to pick him up. I never let him cry for more than 5 minutes, but he seemed to settle into a routine better, as he had to fit around Ds1.

Totally agree. DD1 was a complete nightmare feeder and sleeper - one hour feeding, one hour sleeping at night. No naps at all during the day - arrghh

I was grumpy for 2 years. And it was the reason dh and I took a long time before we could face having another.

DD2 was a dream - feed for 10 minutes, sleep for three hours during the day and at night only woke once a night from birth.

If I'd had dd2 first, I'd probably have wanted loads of babies!

Lack of sleep turns you into a completely different person. I still feel guilty that I wasn't as nice a mummy to dd1 when she was a baby - I was totally besotted with dd2 because I was getting sleep.

The only good thing is that I have seen both sides, and realise that it had nothing to do with my parenting- just the way they were - so I try never to judge how other people deal with their babies - well almost never

DS1 now 8 has never slept properly, whereas DS2&3 are great sleepers (if DS1 doesn't cause them to wake!).
We are a lot more patient with the younger 2, I think because they do sleep better. (DS1 is also very stroppy, due in part to tiredness all the time, his school work also suffers).
I'm so glad I had the poor sleeper first as the other 2 literally seem like a dream in comparism. A friend of mine had a good sleeper first and a poor sleeper second, she found that really difficult to deal with!

My experience of being a mum to DS2 is so different to my experience of being a mum to DS1. In fact this thread has made me cry and I'm usually such a cold fish it's shocked me how much this issue (sleep deprivation) has affected me and my family.

DS2's record for night waking is 22 times. Throughout the past 18 months I have become a different person and I'm really ashamed to admit that the bond I have with DS2 has been severely affected by the anger, frustration and just bone tired melancholy I have felt. I was never an angry person before. Being woken by a rising wail countless times in the night has shaken everything I thought I knew about myself. The overwhelming feeling I have, looking back over the past 18 months, is guilt. I desperately wish I could have enjoyed DS2 more and that he would have had a happier, less frazzled, more competant mother. There is nothing to bring his baby time back and that makes me feel really sad.