Please help before I have a nervous breakdown

[lucylooareyou]

I have a 5.5m old DD, I love her immensely, but she hasn’t slept longer than 2 hours since she was born. I can’t live like this any longer, I keep having thoughts of getting in my car and just driving away.
its 7am, and I have seen almost every hour throughout the night, most of them spent crying because I feel the biggest failure.

my DP does help massively throughout the night, but our house is so small even a pin drop wakes us both so even if he deals with her I’m still awake.

please, before I do anything stupid please can someone advise me on how I can get her to sleep better because I feel I’ve tried everything, and the lack of options now is making me panic. I know people say it gets better but I honestly can not cope like this any longer.

We’ve tried;

later bedtime, earlier bed time, warmed room, colder room, footed PJs, non footed PJs, white noise, no white noise, bath before bed, no bath before bad, long wake window before bed, shorter wake window, napping more in the day, napping less.

no matter what I do, she wakes up every hour. Please please please help me

For your and DHs benefit can you book a nearby Premier Inn or Travel lodge on their cheapest night and take it in turns to sleep either one go in the day and nap and the other at night and get a good night's sleep or alternate week/fortnight's as needed.

It takes about between month to three months to reinforce new habits because they have to be learnt and old habits broken although I appreciate that is a long time but perseverance is key.

Cry it out isn't magical you have to do that over weeks too, I tried it but gave up after 2 nights as it was heart breaking.

There are all sorts of things that stop young children sleeping including learning and processing new skills. So you are coming up to the age of weaning and sitting unaided plus teething which is a biggie.

I'd totally sleep in the garage! Slept in my home office once!!

I don't have suggestions beyond what's been said expect maybe weaning might help though not immediately.

I wanted to share some solidarity. Mine are much older now but I recall this he'll very well with my second child.

You are doing an amazing job don't forget / this isn't your fault at all.

The best thing right now to suggest would be to take a night at hotel - each of you to reset your own sleep. It will be tough on the other one for the night but I'd say essential.

All the best

Read the book Precious Little Sleep. Do sleep training. Both your lives will be immeasurably better.

Thank you all so much for your tips and kind words, I know I’m not alone feeling this way but stood in the dark at 3am helpless makes you feel like no one could possibly understand haha!

there is a few things I haven’t tried that’s been suggested so I will give that a whirl thank you.

I have thought of sleep training, but was demotivated at the fact that due to teething/developmental leaps I may have to do it all over again. Although if it needs to be done then it will.

DD could go to Nanas overnight and I think I might ask her to have her soon. She did offer a week or so ago but I was headstrong on not finding a quick 1 night fix but a long term solution, thank you to the poster who said about accepting she’s a terrible sleeper instead of trying every way to fix it - that has sank in and already makes me feel weirdly calmer.

MN really can be wonderful, thank you to you all 🌹

Share the sleep! It's the one thing that's kept me same

My little one sleeps better now but I feel you

She's 7.5 months but even the other day was up every 30 mins so it doesnt necessarily get easier just have better days if that's makes sense

What saved us is I go to bed at 9pm, partner goes to bed anything between 11-1am and I sometimes get 4hrs solid which is enough for me to get through the next day when he's not here and at work but I'd say she does 2 hrs then I get 6hrs if that makes sense. In that time, he has the monitor she sleeps the side of the monitor and will deal with the wakes on his 'shift' then when I take over he gets 6hrs ( or more ) solid so again it's enough to focus

Now he's back to work I do the night wakes all week and from 5am IF she is awake he takes her so I get 2 hrs as he needs to be up at 7am and the weekend we both get one full night so last night I went to bed 930 after a film night with my eldest and got up at 8am. He then can go back to bed if he needs to. Tonight we will swap.

He don't do much, but until we started this I feel so much better. Still not enough sleep for me ! But it's better knowing I have that rest coming.

Also ear plugs and switch off when it's not your shift! I have a great link on Amazon where they honestly block everything out - they are amazing

X

I was going to say similar to @Purplepjs, letting go of the need to fix it really helped me. I switched my thinking to "just do what I can to get through it" and that ultimately got me more sleep!

If it helps, both of mine were shit sleepers. DS1 woke every 2 hours for at least a year. DS2 wasn't much better. I co-slept with both out of desperation and bought a super king bed!

They are now 6 and nearly 4. They now sleep much better (still not amazing but we generally get undisturbed nights now). DH and I dragged our relationship through it and are fine. It does get easier.

Shifts was great for us. I'm better at night, DH is better in the morning so I stayed up later and DH got up earlier. Use any help you're offered, don't be a hero!

It won't always be like this.

Yes you might have to redo some training, but it normally takes even less time next time. For my dd the first time took 3 nights, second time 2 nights and so on. I guarantee there will be less crying on those nights than even there is now x