What am I meant to do?

[Fedupfam]

What is someone meant to do in the situation?

Longingly waited after years of trying for our firstborn, 2 years ago. They had CMPA and soy allergy we didn’t pick up until 8m old so there was A LOT of crying and 8-10 wake ups every night for 4 months with us frantically trying to establish what to do.

As we started weaning of ebf to bf and food we immediately caught pregnant again, knowing we both saw two in our future we decided not to terminate and to continue with the pregnancy which was in fact an accident after not having an easy ride the first time.

By the time we sorted the food and sleep issues from the first, at around their first birthday, my body began to show the pain of what I’d put it though so I could barely walk for the last 3 months of pregnancy, anaemic, weak pelvic floor etc..

Second arrived and didn’t stop screaming, for 2months solid (there was nothing we/HV/GP/family could do to stop it, after 2 months it just stopped but he’s been very intense and sensitive ever since. E’g’ if you brush his skin as you walk past, gently but obviously making contact he screams and cries and goes blue, it’s like as if it’s a really dramatic event. Anytime he coughs it’ll turn into a spew, any time he cries it’ll turn into a spew.

He still wakes up every night.
Last night as an example:
Down at 7
Up at 8 settled with dummy
Up at 9 settled with dummy
Up at 12 would only settle after 9o
Up at 4 had 8pm and still Ho screaming.

So I slept 10:30-12 1-4 and this isn’t unusual.
I work ft so does dad.
2days with gps 2 days in nursery rest with me.

He is 9 months old, this isn’t a tiny baby we’re talking about.

Anyway, point of my post: I just cannot face dealing with it anymore. I just leave him crying h til dad wakes up and deals with it because ive literally lost all energy for them but mostly the baby. I can see them asking for dad more and more as I’m obviously pulling away. I hate our life, there doesn’t seem to be a way out though other than just powering through. We had a night off the other week and both loved it, didn’t want to pick them up, both said how much we loved having some autonomy. How we regret the life we have created.

We give them a good life, lots of activities, painted on smile, good food, lots of family involvement.

I’ve reached the limit of how many times I can be shouted at at 5:30am by a toddler ‘stairs’ ‘food’ ‘drink’ whilst screaming until I/one of us do it.

I’ve reached the limit of how many times I can be screamed at by our second. I just lock up.

There have been three nights in the last 2 years that we have slept for 8 solid hours. I wake up and my whole body aches.

Don’t bother replying something totally useless if it’s going to be ‘why did you have them’ or ‘what did you expect’

Hey sorry to hear you are having such a hard time. 💐.

Planned or not, wanted or not, children can be utterly relentless.

Broken sleep is honestly one of the hardest parts of it.

First things first, get your bloods run by the GP. I turned out to be so anaemic I needed a transfusion. That, taking iron and vit d supplements gave me a reset. I dont even know how I was getting out of bed before.

Next - can you build in breaks? More nursery days? An au pair? A babysitter once every 2 weeks? It might be easier to slog on if you know “in 6 days time I get to skip bed time”. Or maybe that is just me 🤣.

It does get easier 💐

Thanks @DoItAfraid I hear that a lot, whikst
nothing will be as intense as the first 2 months I thought we d be having some autonomy over our bodies/day by now. I can’t be scratched or have my hair pulled again. Its savage

I take a vitamin D, C and an iron supplement everyday.

Recently bought one of those water bottles with a spout that I can carry around and sauté I have enough fluids. We’re both obese though, our only pleasure demolishing bad food post bedtime - it’s toxic.

Hi again

Make sure you are on high dose Vit D and iron because it takes some time for the levels to build up if you have been deficient.

No judgement on the weight from me (my DH is overweight) but what that means is we go on LOADS of family walks / bike rides / swimming etc. What that does is get him off the couch and also tires the kids the f*ck out. Win win.

If you have a leisure centre they sometimes
have a creche.

Things like being woken up for water etc - just put an apple and a cup of water in their room every night?

Reward chart for who stays in bed until mummy comes in?

Marble jar for good behaviour.

Short house rules lost - no scratching, no hair pulling, be kind, we listen to each other. We have something like this on the fridge door - when they act out we revisit the list.

For the sensitive one, might be some sensory issues there. My 2nd is VERY particular about certain textures and honestly I just stopped arguing about it - let her wear the same few items of clothing she wanted even though she had a lovely wardrobe of beautiful, carefully chosen clothes 😳🥲😭. She is now older and that is not really an issue any more.

These things do pass.

Listen to “how to talk so kids will listen” - I assume
you dont have time to sit and read the book.

💐

Has your youngest seen a GP to check out the pain on light touch etc?

It sounds very tough for you OP.

@Fedupfam

I have to start the roller coaster now -
packed lunches, check work calendar etc (also work full time) but wanted to send you good wishes for the day ahead.

We had an almost identical experience with DD and then DS, just a slightly larger age gap. Uncannily similar.

I found the lack of sleep (2 hours total a night in small chunks with DS) made me hallucinate and I ended up with a form of ptsd from DD screaming/headbutting/clawing my face. All the trauma from DD came back when DS was little and I ended up having therapy for months.

Unless you have been through this then you can have NO idea how utterly horrific it is.

OP you have my complete sympathy, it's hell. You will get past it though, eventually, and you absolutely will enjoy your life and your children one day. I think you need professional help for you and your DH though to come to terms with the emotional side of all this.

A 2 year old and a 9 month old is really hard OP. It will get easier.

What a sad situation. I have the same age gap after what seems like an identical experience to you. I know it's hard but I'd never just leave my baby to cry cos I can't be bothered to deal with it so there's more going on here.

I think you should go and see your GP to get bloods done. I know you say you take a daily vitamin but it might not be enough so just do that. You also sound a bit depressed. Sounds like you both eat crap which won't help your mood as you will be on shitty food come downs so eat better.

Tie your hair up so it doesn't get pulled.

You're settling baby with a dummy at night but are you feeding baby? Could be hungry.

I do tie my hair up.. after pp hair loss there are parts that stick out all around the face which is exasperated by being ripped out by the baby. I’ve tried hair wraps/bands and they are a target in themselves.

I’ll look into what dose is a welly full of vitamins/iron and take that, I know this feeling won’t end though until I can have a full nights sleep and wake up peacefully.

therapy would probably be a good shout too, I’ll see if there’s anyone suitable in my area.

Your absolute #1 problem right now is that you're exhausted. Do you have any spare cash? Because if you have (and I know the chances are you haven't at the moment with the way things are for everyone) I think it would be worth blowing it on a couple of nights of a night nanny so that you can get a few nights in a row of proper sleep. Or if not then book a day off work when you have childcare and use the day just to sleep. Everything else will be so much easier to cope with if you're not as sleep-deprived.

It's hard to tell whether you're depressed or 'just' chronically sleep deprived, but talk to your GP about your own mental health. There could be an underlying physical issue too (for example, if you're actually anaemic or have a very low iron count then an OTC iron supplement won't have been touching it and they'd need to put you on a prescription version - although that may be what you're already on, I wasn't clear from your post).

Thirdly, start making a bigger fuss to GP about your DC2. Being that sensitive to touch is not normal and it sounds like he could do with a referral to paediatrics to get to the bottom of it.

Your health visitor might be able to point you in the direction of some help. I got so wound up by the hair pulling I went for a very drastic hair cut so I understand your feelings there.

Or if not then book a day off work when you have childcare and use the day just to sleep I think this is a great idea if you can do this OP? I would regularly book an "off" day when I first went back to work. Its nice to have time when you haven't got someone needing you and you can truly rest.

Can you afford to have them in childcare for more days/ longer.
Even if you have to find a cheaper childcare e.g. childminder.

Oh op I completely empathise with you. We walked this path with DD. It was so bad, I won't have anymore children now.

If you explained to the grandparents just how much the both of you are struggling, would they be able to take the children for the weekend? Friday night to Sunday early afternoon? You'd be surprised just how much you can tackle after a couple of good nights sleep and a bit of alone time.

Take a week off work immediately sick leave if needed. Your whole family is at risk and you are so caught up in surviving day to day.
keep the kids at grandparents and nursery.
sleep.
make gp appointments.
have some time on your own.

then sit down with DH to make a plan. He is probably knackered and emotionally exhausted too so he might need a bit of the above before he is able to listen and come up with ideas too.

id be looking at your hours at work and how you could rejig things to have a little bit of regular down time each. Are you compressing 5 days into 4 then doing childcare on day 5? What happens at weekends?

but you sound at end of your tether now so listen to that, stop, take some time, your kids need you to be less cornered than this. Good luck.

Do you have the home start charity near you? Some support from them may help even if you just sleep whilst they take the children out.

What you're describing is not unusual - the lack of sleep and bodily autonomy, the lack of enjoyment in parenthood. I'm not going to lie, there's no easy answer and it took us years to get through it. My second is three and has only just started sleeping through the night so nine months is nothing. My eldest was even worse, she took years. It was hell and just as you passed that stage and started sleeping we had the next one who started the whole cycle again 😫. I don't say this to make you feel even worse by the way, although I'm aware it's probably the last thing you want to hear!

So all you're feeling is quite normal but you do need a reset. First of all, is there any way around working full time? For me taking that pressure off helped enormously. Not so I could spend more time with the kids, that was the last thing I wanted! I still sent them to nursery and the grandparents and having some time by myself, whether just to sleep and watch crap telly or whether to blitz the house or go for a swim or a run, was invaluable. It also made things better between my husband and me because we didn't argue over who was most tired or having the harder time, we accepted that he got up for work so he got to sleep at night and I just had to sleep or rest and recharge during my downtime in whatever way I could. Of course that didn't help me actually sleep but it helped us to appreciate we need to take care of each other as well as the children. You need to take some kind of drastic, practical action, such as the night nanny suggestion or whatever else you can think of to get some time to just be you again.

Sleep is key. Actually the hours you are sleeping sound like a luxury compared to some of the nights we had but everyone handles sleep differently and one of my problems was being unable to catch up in the daytime, no matter how hard I tried. Yes, the kids are annoying in other ways but when someday, somehow you do reach the point of getting enough sleep, be it uninterrupted nights or napping in the day, everything will look different. There's a reason sleep deprivation is used as a method of torture.

I also took a very long time to come to the conclusion I had post-natal depression. I was convinced it was 'just' tiredness and stress - and indeed it was but I was very lucky to have a locum doctor instead of my usual rather crap GP who explained the knock on effect of the fatigue and stress, and how it genuinely causes clinical depression. The first anti-depressants I took didn't work for me but when I tried different ones it was a serious miracle and changed my life.

Thirdly, do make sure you are covering all bases medically with both the kids and yourselves. Anaemia, thyroid issues, get everything tested and treated as necessary. Same for the kids, make sure there are no hidden issues making life harder than it needs to be.

Lastly give yourself a break. I think the fetishisation of motherhood has put us all under pressure when the reality is it can be horribly hard work and fucking miserable! There will always be those moments but hopefully if you can get some things in place to give you some breathing room you'll be able to have some of those moments where you feel it's all worthwhile. In time those moments occur more and more frequently until you finally realise you're over the worst and are even able to enjoy it. Mine are now eight and five and I regularly screech at them to leave me alone, to leave each other alone, to leave the dogs alone 🙄! I used to cry in my husband's arms about how we should never have had kids and even now I have lovely little fantasies about the exciting, carefree, glamorous life I'd leading without them but honestly by now there are very few occasions where I actually do regret having them. It just takes time and the commitment to to trying and changing things until you find what works for you. It doesn't happen automatically.

Now the youngest has started sleeping there are a whole new set of problems of course, such as the two of them bickering but we look back and are amazed that we survived all that horror (it really did feel like living in a horror film for a while) and have come through it stronger, tighter and as a happy family. At one point I couldn't imagine it.

Im a little reluctant to ask for a whole weekend off because the gps do so much every week consistently, very lucky, like the day they slept over allowing us a whole night off we picked them up half 9 so they could recoup in the day.

Saying that we reached out and they’ve taken the 2yo for most of the day so I can concentrate on our 9m old and sorting things out. He’s asleep so I’m currently reading your advice and having a lie down in a dark room! 🥲🥹

Yes sorry, the posted who said compressed days I do ft over 4 days (one day just me with both) and dp does 5 short days so they only really go to nursery 9-4 2 days and then gps is dependent on what they have planned ie a daytrip means an early start. At weekends we are both home and usually one takes one and the other has the other, it feels less stressful this way.

I think the reason I’m driven to post here is we’ve had time away and rather than feeling refreshed and ready to tackle family life again we’ve actually said out loud how lovely it was and we regret our choices.

we’ve taken our baby to the gp so many times over his life so far and the sensitive thing isn’t always, just when he’s surprised - he enjoys a cuddle for example but if you put your hand over his and he doesn’t expect it he’ll cry for a bit.

Sometimes he’s hungry at night, just realised my op had a typo- 9oz at midnight and 5oz at 4 am. That is unusual though it’s not usually that much.

thank you for all your advice,

Have you explained to him that his need for feeling safe and loved are getting in your way? He sounds very rude.

Sorry queen, not yet, maybe it because I haven’t worked out where ripping my hair out and scratching my skin comes into him ‘feeling safe and loved’ HTH

This is completely normal for many 9 month olds it’s exhausting. My 3 year old is still up several times a night and recently my 6 years has suddenly starting to wake up. We also have to fight for allergy diagnosis for DD1. It’s exhausting but pretty normal parenting life for many.

Are you sure your youngest doesn’t have allergies too?