To think this was the worst mistake of my life

[Overthecamelhump]

Having a baby.

I fucking hate it. I have no life at all. Life is:

Wake at 6. Go to work.

Finish work. Collect baby from nursery.

Try to entertain baby for two hours.

Bath baby.

Get baby to bed after being head butted, having hair yanked, the skin on my neck yanked, kicked and punched.

45 mins to myself during which time I have to do some work.

Baby wakes. Settle baby.

2 hours sleep. Baby wakes. Spend two and a half to three hours getting baby back to bed.

Four hours sleep.

Baby wakes.

Try to get baby back to sleep.

Wake up for day at 6. Feel like a zombie. Repeat.

Poor baby. But yeah. Stupid thing to do.

Just sending support @Overthecamelhump. My first was an absolute nightmare, never sleeping for more than about 2 hours at a time. In desperation I did take him to the doctors and her helpful comment was 'it's often the sign of an intelligent child'!

Hang in there. My boy is in his 20s now, still doesn't sleep much and actually does an nocturnal job. Just do what you need to do (afternoon naps at the weekend, etc) and keep the faith it will get better.

Nothing worked with my non-sleeping child either. I went back to work when she was 10 months too, and I felt like shit all the time, I was still breast feeding too so my DH couldn't do the night feeds. I only lasted 6 months before I left work, but I appreciate that's not possible for everyone. So, you have my sympathies OP. She's six now and sleeps quite well most of the time, still a battle to get her to go to sleep sometimes but she does stay asleep now. I still wake up multiple times! But at least now I'm not up for hours in the night as I can go back to sleep.

Do you co-sleep op?

I know it’s not an ideal solution but at the very worst of the sleeping and working dh slept in babies room and I co-slept (dh long driving commute so I was concerned about lack of
Sleep and motorway). It made it a little easier so might be worth a try.

Haven't RTFT but have read your posts OP. Just came on to say yes, I totally understand where you are coming from! And you've probably gotten a lot of advice from pp so I won't repeat that (apart from to say counselling really helped me, I found someone who could do an hour over WhatsApp video of an evening every other week and I'm still going now because it's literally my lifeline)

I was you, I remember when DS was 10 months and he slept in a crib in our room because we only had 1 bedroom at that point. He would wake and scream for no reason, he also had a dummy but sometimes I'd shove it in his open screaming mouth and it would just fall out again...we tried sleep training one night and after a solid 45 minutes of screaming we gave up and never tried again.

My DH and DS are the best in the world in general, but not at 3am when one is snoring away and the other one is crying while I try to rock him back to sleep while trying not to jig him too hard out of sheer frustration. I envisioned throwing him out of the window many many times that first year...and stabbing my DH to get some peace from the never ending snoring. Such is life when you're sleep deprived and touched out. I think it's totally normal to feel that way sometimes. And that was without having to get up at 6am too!!

So just wanted to commiserate with you and say that though it does get better, that doesn't help when you're in the thick of it (tried mumbling "this too shall pass" many times and it did nothing for me at least)...

The one thing that did help a little and still does now is vowing to do the same to him when he's a moody teenager that sleeps in until midday. Come screaming into his room every 2 hours during the night, then bounce on his bed at 5am telling him it's time to get up. Promise I'll only do it once...or maybe a few times...maybe also when he's been out drinking

Sending lots of strong coffee/tea and support your way

Lots of sympathy OP. My first didn’t really sleep for the first 18 months (the only thing that helped was my DH taking her swimming every evening at 6pm to tire her out!) and I got so sick of all the advice I was offered. My next two children were much better sleepers, every baby is different - and it’s them not you! It will pass, but I remember how wretched you feel with no sleep and then having to go to work. You’ll get there, best wishes.

Sorry OP this sounds really rough. Both my dds woke a lot, dd2 was particularly wakeful, but both co-slept and would mostly breastfeed back to sleep, so although they woke often it was most of the time easier than your situation, unless they were teething or unwell. Even so being woken multiple times every night turned me into a grumpy zombie, I couldn’t remember things, names, telephone numbers, at one point I thought I might be getting a neurological disorder as my memory was so bad. I got ectopic heartbeats from a combination of sleeplessness and coffee to counter the tiredness, one particularly tough week.
So I do understand the frustration of being awake with a baby, when you are desperate for sleep. DH and I would play the “Hush little baby” song by Tim Minchin and laugh hollow laughs when the dc were small.
As everyone says, it gets easier, and like all intense emotions that sleepless fury goes and you can hardly remember it. Not much direct help to you now, I know.
Small things that did help me slightly.

1. A baby sleep pillow spray helped my older sleepless child who was still waking every night. The This Works one for babies and children.
2. Making a decision that I was awake and would enjoy being awake, so watching a film etc.
3. Handing baby to DH and going back to sleep. I found if I got one block that was three or four hours long then I could cope even if the rest of the night was terrible. Every two hours or less being woken and I struggled a lot more.

4. Accepting that co sleeping with a wriggly baby means restless nights but more sleep overall than having to get up. I found the anger was the thing that kept me awake longer, so I tried really hard to let go of that and just accept the waking, that wasn’t always possible obviously.

Some babies are just crappy sleepers OP. I had 2 and a sympathise hugely.

No advice OP but you write very wryly, I like your wit.

Op sending you

I haven't read every post, just yours so apologies if this has already been covered and you've said it's not possible, but...Can you email or write to your gp? Tell them the problem, explain when you are able to take calls to arrange an apt (maybe during lunchtime?) and request an apt you can make for help.

Once they know you're struggling, they will do their best to prioritise you and reach out to you in a way you can manage.

It's brutal. It's going to improve with time but that doesn't really help at that 4/5am time of day.
It's a full time job, and you have a job on top of it. Unavoidable but exhausting.

So all I can do is acknowledge how shit it is at times and hope you have a better night tonight.

I feel for you OP, I remember the early days as being like a battleground. I'm not one that is good without regular sleep at the best times and these early months were certainly not the best of times.

Can you have a sit down talk with your partner and agree a strategy so that you both get some nights where you can sleep? Maybe 2 nights on, 2 nights off each? Please don't fall into the habit of taking on all the night work - that so quickly becomes a trap where no one but you will do.

I know you say you have tried sleep training but again, can you agree an approach with you partner that you both consistently follow. Sounds like the baby needs to learn how to self soothe back to sleep which I know is easy to say and hard to achieve. Decide on what you are comfortable with, but you have to break the pattern you are in.

Personally we did controlled crying and whilst it's not popular, it bloody worked within a few days and hasn't done my now 18 and 14 year old any harm.

First and foremost though, make a plan with your partner to get you some hours of sleep banked so you are strong enough to develop that battle plan and see it through. If that means him staying with the baby and you decamping to friends/family/a hotel for a night or two so be it.

My daughter and her partner take turns so every other night they get a decent sleep.

P.s I would expect them to make sure you get an apt once they know!

Ludicrous comments about gp and health visitors. What la la land do people live in.

Our NHS is under insane pressure. People can't get GP Appointments for cancer symptoms.

What health visitor would help a mum with the big standard problem of tiredness especially with a baby this age ? They also stopped most visits during covid.

Op. If you can afford it for for sleep training help it works.

'I havent read all comments, but as a mother of 2 with only 15 months between them I understand how dificult it can be, however if im honest it gets harder (differnt probems - mine are now teenagers).'

Lol, no. No stage of parenting is worse than trying to care for a helpless baby/toddler who keep trying to maim or seriously injure themselves when you've been surviving on hours of snatched sleep for months and still on the comedown from pregnancy hormones.

Parenting older children and teenagers may be difficult but you can escape them, you can sleep at night, you can do things to relax, you can live your life. You can take your eyes off them for 5 minutes and you definitely don't have to lie on their bed for 2 hours begging them to sleep. You've just forgotten what it's like.

Your problem is your job not your baby. Resign live on less income until your child starts school and enjoy your baby.

for you OP and a huge amount of sympathy. I don’t think a lot of people realise just how relentless a non sleeping baby is for months on end, it’s like torture.

My DD was exactly like your baby (it went on for years) and she’s an only child for that reason. There was no way in hell I was going to repeat the baby years again, and I wasn’t trying to do it in the middle of a pandemic!

My only suggestion and something that saved my sanity and probably long term my marriage, was I begged my Mum to take her for a week. And I do mean begged because my Mum doesn’t do children. A week’s unbroken sleep, meant I actually got myself back to where I needed to be, before that some serious dark thoughts were creeping in.

So if you don’t have any support from family. Tell your DP quite how bad you are feeling and if you can check yourself into a hotel for a couple of nights? I found if I was in the house and it was his turn, I would still be fully awake while he was dealing with her and on edge that I’d be needed. You need to be away and get some proper rest.

To those telling OP repeatedly to 'tell the health visitor' or 'tell the GP', what exactly are they going to do about it anyway?

Unless the health visitor is going to send someone round to deal with OPs baby through the night there's no point telling her, all it will do is raise a flag that the OP is struggling to cope.

Solidarity to you. The first year is hard. I felt like you with my first son, he was a fractious sleeper. I think we spent the first six months at least, crying at each other! Obviously there were good times as well! But yes, it is the toughest job going. After all, no other job pretty much pitches you, without any former training or experience into a demanding 24/7 role, made harder by sleep deprivation, loss of your identity, all whilst your body is in the throes of recovering from what can only be described as a triathlon, but without the respite at the end.

It's really ok to feel this and to write it down. Many, many women struggle as new parents. It's a bit like SAS training IMHO. You don't get a medal at the end, and you never get to pass the course BUT this bit is the toughest and, it does level quite quickly. The first year is just a case of really lowering your expectations of yourself, not beating yourself up. You are doing just fine.

I hear what you are saying OP I really do - all the do this and do that’s that people are suggesting are meant well but not overly helpful when you are just expressing how you feel about the never ending demands of being a working mum to a baby. I understand where everyone is coming from with their advice, but a lot of people must live in a different world to me - trying to see a health visitor or a doctor face to face is virtually impossible unless you are in absolute crisis - even trying to get through on the phone is an endless wait whilst you listen to minutes of messages about COVID, 111 and A & E, and when you do finally manage to speak to a human the conversation doesn’t always result in what you were hoping for. It pains me to say it but I’m afraid I’ve learned that not all NHS staff are heroes.
Having my first baby was a real shock to the system -it wasn’t so much the broken nights for me because although the baby woke lots he was quick to feed and/or settle - it was the relentless demands in the day and especially the early evening. I resented the fact that it was virtually impossible to have a shower and wash and properly dry my hair and actually sit and have a coffee in peace and read a book.
Thinking about it I should perhaps have realised sooner that it wasn’t going to be a bed of roses when the Health Visitor (and older lady not long from retirement) said to me when she came out after the birth that she had two practical tips to give me - 1. That I should lay the table for tea as soon as breakfast was over, because if I did nothing else, it looked as though I’d achieved something. 2. That I should make a clear distinction between night and day for the baby - bath, change of outfit, feed and bed and when they woke to keep it as dark as possible, feed, check nappy and straight back to bed. Reflecting on what she said now it was almost that she was speaking to me in code warning me that I needed to prepare for life being very different to what I had known. At the time I thought she’d lost the plot about laying the table, but she was definitely right. Whatever time there is, is not your own
Although you obviously don’t see it that way, you are doing great. You are looking after your baby, holding down a job and running a home at the same time. Lots of people do it, I know but it’s no mean feat.
I may have missed what your job is but get that you don’t want to take time off sick (when I finally went back to work it was a welcome release from the demands of the children and I felt more like me) but do you not think that some time alone would give you the space to consider whether there is anything at all you can do to make things a little easier?. If not fair enough I can only say that I hear what you are saying and like most of us in here understand where you are coming from

Depends on the baby and teens, I suppose. I don’t necessarily think mine is a ‘difficult’ baby exactly but I am finding the nights so difficult. Goes in the cot without a problem but then wakes and refuses to go back in.

So it’s

Wah,
Pick up. Hush little baby. Go to sleepies. Etc. Baby fast asleep.
Return to cot
Wah.

Repeat x 50 for two hours until eventually gives in (exhaustion?) while I am murderous

I know the consensus is to co sleep but it makes no difference here, it is being put down that is the issue and as such just as reluctant to be put down in the bed next to me as in a cot or crib. And it isn’t even as if I am holding a cuddly, docile little cherub - it’s thrash and headbutt and grab and yank. Even in sleep. Part of that is the heat, I know and of course that is a problem that will very much solve itself in the next 72 hours but it doesn’t make the moment any less awful!

this will get better but it is the toughest challenge and you deserve all sympathy and understanding. Sound off all you like!

Isn't there a wind that blows in France- 'The Mistral'?- and after so many days of it, you can be excused of any crime? I can't see that weather can ever be as tough as lack of sleep torture! What crimes do you fancy OP?

We had one who hardly slept and treated a bed as prison. It was beyond exhausting - DH and I both behaved like drugged people as we staggered through our days. We made amazingly stupid errors in our daily lives. How is it that childbirth is made such a thing... when this is so much harder?

We did end up making the cot a place of play at night. (Yes - against all the rules it was full of whirring - spinning - tooting- clicking toys that fastened on the bars. This was probably very dangerous though they were sold as cot toys.)

Eventually, we would be in bed listening to those sounds instead of crying. We would wake - and they would still be going. She would fall asleep - usually from a sitting position and in the middle of something.

She is grown up now and still uses the night for her own projects rather than boring sleep.

I remember eating peanut butter with my bare hands out of jar once, whilst holding a screaming baby and crying at the same time. I look back at that mental image now and I laugh, but at the time I felt desperate. I don't even like peanut butter TBH

@MyDcAreMarvel

Your problem is your job not your baby. Resign live on less income until your child starts school and enjoy your baby.

Oh God, there's always one isn't there?

Newsflash - some women actually want to work and have a career as well as a family. It is possible.

Giving up a good job isn't going to magically make the baby sleep at night.