How to deal with sleep deprivation??

[Mamaaaai]

Coming from a mama to 9mo! Yep he slept better as a newborn lol

His sleep went haywire after 4 month regression and it’s been up down but basically never slept through and now has a viral infection (week 3 we’re on!!!) so is up a lot and sometimes wide awake for 1-3 hours in the night and it’s so draining being in work the next day

I don’t think he’s over sleeping. At best he has 3 hours daytime sleep but usually has 2x 1 hour naps and that’s enough? So I don’t know maybe the wide awake thing is because he’s not feeling well

Any tips please? I’ve got night time fear again and I’m finding it so hard to function

Sleep training and coffee.

@MolliciousIntent is there any sleep training which doesn’t involve crying ?? Or very minimal

No advice I'm afraid but solidarity and 👊

There are some, but they take months, and ruthless consistency, and generally if you're severely sleep deprived you just won't have the energy for it.

I did Ferber at 10m, when she had been waking every hour to feed her whole life. She cried for an hour at bedtime, and then slept til 1am. Longest stretch ever. She then cried for an hour at 1am, and then went back to sleep. The next night she slept 7-7.

The important thing to consider mainly is how is your baby getting to sleep? If he needs you to fall asleep (feeding, rocking, shhhhing, patting, singing etc etc) then you're never going to get good sleep until you break that habit and put him in his cot, completely awake, and teach him to fall asleep by himself.

As I said above, you can do it slowly and "gently" and it will take months, during which time he will continue to have shit sleep which is developmentally detrimental, and makes you a miserable mess of a human, which is also developmentally detrimental, or you can do it quickly, with crying, and it will be over in a week tops.

No advice really, but my DD didn't sleep through the night til she was 5 (years, not months) so I feel you and if it's any kind of comfort you do just get through it.

Cut naps.

I had two babies who slept through the night from 3 months. Both were cat nappers and would never have slept for 2 hours in the day at 9 months old.

Sending you hugs. It does get better my LO is nearly 3 and sleeps better now. Still have some wake ups but not nearly as bad. The sleep deprivation traumatised me. The 8 month sleep regression had LO up every 30mins at one point. Wish I had some magic advice for you xx

I lose my sanity after about 3 days when my toddler goes on sleep strike so I feel your pain. My solutions are do whatever you need to in the short term to get some shut eye- go to bed at the same time as them / Co sleep/ nap when they nap and get your partner to take them for a bit when so you can get some rest. Then longer term when you have some hours of sleep under your belt try some sleep training that suits your life style and temperament.

Sometimes babies / toddlers just go through bad sleep cycles: often when they are going through a developmental surge but I always find they sleep better if they have had lots of fresh air / exercise, milk and banana before bed and minimal screentime after 4pm and a lavender bath.

Hope tonight goes better than you fear.

DD is 3 and still doesn't sleep all night, I had to turn to co-sleeping when she was a baby. I'm a single mum and I just couldn't function, if I don't sleep I get migraines then I can't care for DD. So for me I just had to cosleep. I also found when I started reducing her naps that helped too

Sleep training .... You both deserve better sleep....

Look up the Lucy Wolfe books.

It needs some work from you but results in minimal crying (though not none) and it works.