help me calm down and get through the day

[classyinpink]

I did not get any sleep last night. My smallest around 20 months did not sleep at all so at the end I had to go to sitting room sofa with a duvet at 1am and try to sleep there with her on me. I know it's because she has cold and is teething but I'm SO fed up. She has managed to put her hand in her nappy everytime she did number 2 so that I had to give her bath twice already. I have the cold too so I just feel like it's 2 in the morning now with banging headache and horrible mood. I'm being extremely grumpy with her this morning and feel awful about it. Help me feel calm and relaxed with her as I want to be better mom today...

Don't know if this will help, but try thinking about the moment you first held her in your arms, remember how amazingly perfect you thought she was. Now look at her and see how she's growing and changing and yet throughout those 20 months she has loved you more than anybody else, because you're her mummy!

I'm hoping it makes your day a little bit easier - it's what I try and do when dd has had me up half the night and dp is working away

oh thanks. well the moment she was born wasn't great with this one! first birth was great but this one was not. I won't go into details but I suppose I know that it's not her fault she needs so much of me at the moment. I'm taking codein with coffee now and trying to calm down and the wee one is sleeping on my back. still thumping headache but will update how it's going.

Poor you! Try thinking forwards - one day soon she will be grown up and will make her own way in the world and you will remember fondly the days when she needed you so intensely. Hope you have a better day today.

Put everyone to bed this afternoon and then take yourself off to bed as well. Sleep deprivation is a killer and makes everything look bleaker than it really is. If you have a partner, friend or relative that can take the children off your hands for a few hours and give you a break, go for it.

Oh, poor you - that sounds horrendous.

I don't know what you do to try and relieve cold symptoms, but we find the combination of a Karvol plug in vapouriser and a humidifier help our DD (similar age) to sleep better when she's got a cold. The humidifier in particular has an amazing effect. The first time we used it, it turned DD from a coughing, weeping mess into a sleeping angel within five minutes - and she slept all night. A pan of hot water strategically placed has a similar effect.

I expect you've got your own methods, but in case you haven't tried the above.....

Good luck, I hope you get some decent sleep tonight.