I'm sleep deprived, bitter, resentful..

[IcouldstillbeJoseph]

I need to vent.

I'm on my second non-sleeping baby who is now 5 months (DS is 2.5 and poorly and therefore hard work) I haven't had sex with DH in over a year thanks to an awful pregnancy and now I'm too exhausted. We are bickering like a couple of children.

A friend has just had her first baby a few weeks ago and I've just had to endure a sickening converstsuon about what a fucking 'pro' she is at motherhood. How she's fucking ironing muslins, making cakes and cant believe how well her baby sleeps. OH FUCK OFF.

I'm a flabby, haggard old frump. I want to be pleased for her. I would like some decent sleep.

I know I'm a vile person for feeling this way.
Agh.

Thank heaven for being able to post anonymously on here.

I love you all

That is all

You are my people >raises <

With PFB I thought I was such a fab mum - breastfeeding, he slept well, was healthy etc etc.

DD arrived like a hurricane, she's now 10 months old and 'spirited' into absolutely everything. Caught her on almost at the top of the stairs today. Didn't bloody know that she could do that climbing yet! Argh!

Worse thing is, she does not like to sleep. No, no. Rather she prefers to dance in her cot when she wakes. Goes from asleep to awake in a blink. Also likes to breastfeed a l l n i g h t. I am knackered.

Friend had her 2nd baby a fortnight ago and after one week was out for a night out with her boyfriend while her parents kept both her kids overnight. After one week!!!!!

I sat on the sofa weeping this morning telling dh "look at me I'm completely different, fat, old, tearful and angry.
She is my fifth child and has totally broken me.
I'm on month 30 of no sleep or phenomenal early mornings and wish I was somewhere else on a daily basis.
Feel for you.
Pro mum sounds ridiculous.

needles did your friend go out in her pjs?

Ledkr She was a size 6 pre-pregnancy, at 40 weeks pregnant she was a size 8. Seriously.

No she didn't go out in her PJs, but I know for sure that when both my babies were a week old I was shuffling round in my PJs, boobs swollen and leaky.

Oh how different we are!

I had my first at 17 and left hospital in my size 10 jeans and was probably out a week or two later.
Bit different in your 40s

Mine are all still young but when I meet those perfect mums with their perfect newborns I mentally chant 'it's all worth it if I raise independent well adjusted adults'.

Today I am shattered and run down. Have existed on chocolate and sandwiches while my husband has been away the last few weeks. I have had a sick baby all week, a sick toddler last night and a crappy birthday, lost a filling while he's been gone. P

Am chanting a lot today.

Parenting is not a level playing field.

Thank you so much for saying this. I was trying to explain to someone yesterday that maternity leave has been the hardest year of my life only to be told that all babies are difficult.......
Seriously, a non sleeper is a very different deal.
Thank you for saying motherhood is not a level playing field. So sick of feeling crap at the thing I most wanted to be good at in the world. Dreading going back to work but also will be a relief to feel competent at something again.

Just because you don't feel competent does not mean you are not good at what you do.

Sleep deprivation is a form of torture ... Don't these bad sleepers realise they are outlawed by the Geneva convention :)

Two books I'd really recommend for mothers (they aren't about how to be a parent) are Life After Birth (Kate Figes) and What Mothers Do (especially when it looks like nothing) Naomi Stratden (?sp).

They really helped me accept me and my mothering, if that makes any sense (although I'm not saying I don't have my days when I know I'm making a mess of things).

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/1787345-Has-parenting-affected-your-mental-health-Pt-2-Shades-of-light-and-dark?msgid=39970188#39970188

Can I invite you a to our lovely safe thread for the ups and downs of parenting. Mostly the downs!

I agree the catalyst is sleep.
I was a happy functioning mum of 4 until I had my fifth dc the amazing non sleeping dd.
I am literally a shadow of my former self
I have depression, pmt, I'm overweight and take no exercise have no social life etc etc
She needs to sleep!
.

Although ds woke three times between 7pm and 6:30am (which in itself is an achievement) his first feed wasn't until 5:15am! It DOES get better, although I still look a mess and am having to sit down halfway through hoovering the stairs because I feel so knackered. I haven't washed my hair in three days or had a bath since Wednesday

What do mothers do?

In a bathroom, a tube of toothpaste lies open on the floor. It's top has rolled goodness knows where. A toothbrush with some paste on it lies unused on the rim of the sink. Someone must of being disturbed who was about to brush their teeth. That person is in the next room. She's a woman, a mother with her baby. What is she doing? Well the answer depends on yourself and what you see when you look on her.

Putting two and two together, you may see an unfortunate woman with a very demanding baby who couldn't even wait two minutes while his mother brushed her teeth, but cried and cried until she has to go and pick him up. You may offer to hold the baby, but the baby is so unreasonable that he clings to his mother and won't trust you or anyone else. You may ask yourself why babies were even invented. This probably isn't you. You will have your own unique way of seeing. I'm going to end this book by telling you what I see.

I see a totally exhausted mother, pale with dark shadows under her eyes, who miraculously has the energy to sing and rock her baby in a way that he is starting to recognise. I see him relax, and his tense body seems to melt into her arms. He isn't crying now. He's whole being is attentive to the music and wonderful rhythms of the mother who is comforting him so well. It takes a long time until he finally reaches sleep. When he does the entire room seems at peace. Something momentous seems to have changed. It has been a journey, a transition from distress into harmony. The mother looks up with a warm smile. The miracle was hers, but perhaps you and I helped her by being there and seeing what she did as 'something'.

These are the final paragraphs in the book 'What Mothers Do' by Naomi Stadlen.

I have brushed my teeth today but do not come and look at my home... Toddler passed out on sofa and babe in arms. Snot plastered all over him and me.

Sleep is the key to everything - there's a reason it's used by governments to get information out of spies etc. It is a living hell living with severe sleep deprivation and a newborn. It ruined me for several years.

Ah I don't often venture onto baby threads. I had two none sleepers, with added colic and reflux.
That was 15 /17 years ago.
It really does pass. It gets better. And even better.
I promise.
I wish I had done less hoovering though.

Nickname that almost brought a tear to my eye! If I had time to read I would get that book

Can I join you all?

Hi OP, I was a lot little like your friend in the way of smugness. DD slept beautifully from 6 weeks (would have been earlier if we'd realised she was getting cold at night.) It was, of course, all because I was such a great mum, stuffing her full of milk in the day so she slept well at night, making sure she was awake long enough before bed - that's why she went down so easily, you know...

Then she hit 6 months, and for the past 15 months she's been waking up 3 or 4 times a night. We even tried night weaning her at about 17 months, and that didn't seem to improve things. So I'm managing to barely survive on just 2-3 hours at a time, every night. I'm amazed we're both still alive, tbh.

Ugh

Actually talking about it makes me remember how bad I feel.

Thanks for the quote Nickname needed to read that today!

I've got that 'what mothers do' book but never got round to reading it...

Mine have slept well at night overall (touch wood) but consider naps for wimps and climb everything/bolt at high speed etc. and dc2 is a bottle refuser. I'm two stone heavier than I was pre kids and my house is a disaster. Me and dp have been out once together without children since the eldest was born, we have no babysitter and can't afford to pay for one and a night out and I think I have become re virginised.

If one more person says "ooh you've got to MAKE time!" without immediately offering to babysit I gonna kill them

I hear this!

DS3 is nearly 8 months, he sleeps inbetween that man that arrives here in the evenings and leaves at the crack of dawn, I think he's my DP but I wouldn't be sure because getting time to talk to him let alone have sleep with him is laughable, my virginity has grown back. :(

DS is a tricky baby, I love him to bits but everytime I go near him he pinches and grabs bit of skin and I'm covered in bruises, he bites me every feed without fail although he doesn't actually have teeth but very hard gums.

There are these mums that swan up to the school gates with little ones looking like they care for their children whilst standing on their immaculate looking heads after a full night of sleep.

One day she'll realise that being a smug wanker is not a good thing to be. She'll be a mum for a long time. She might be a 'Pro' at ironing muslins while looking at a newborn, but there are a lot more fences to jump.

It does worry me that she might not feel able to 'confess' to it being hard later on though :(

Tits - I hear ya about the virginity .

I've got a pincher and hair puller... The darn boy is 6months old on Sunday and started crawling a couple of weeks ago probably because the only toys his siblings put away are his toys..

My husband has being away I've loved not having the 'pressure' of having to dtd. I just want the time to feel like me so that I actually can think like an adult ...

Been ... Sleep addled brain.

My baby used to be a fantastic sleeper. Just cheerfully tell your friend to make the most of it, before sleep regressions, teething and grow spurts start, it won't last!

It's our wedding anniversary soon - I can't bear to look at the photos this year ... I'm so far removed from the slim, tanned, refreshed woman in them. And it's only been 2 children four years....

Sob