Unable to sleep due to dread of children waking up

[Biosblbay]

The title might be a little bit misleading, I wouldn’t say dread as such because of course I will wake up for my children no matter what, but for example I haven’t had much sleep the past two weeks at all due to my son being very unwell with tonsillitis and now my 6 month old baby girl having just recovered from conjunctivitis and I think she is now maybe going through a regression. But last night was awful, I was up every hour with her, had to give her a bottle at 4am which I haven’t done in months as she has always slept through very well from around 2 months onwards. But this morning I was so exhausted, the broken sleep actually made me feel very unwell, I felt sick, bad anxiety which caused shortness of breath, a massive headache, It felt like hangover mixed with flu! So I thought I would have an early night tonight… it took hours to get my baby to sleep (which never happens, she normally goes down at around 8pm no problems and sleeps through) but tonight she was awake until 10:30 before I could get her to settle. Then my boy starts to cough so I sort of sit up and listen out just in case he wakes up, and I’m now just laying here sort of waiting for the next thing to happen, I sort of anxiously wait for one of them to wake up that it actually keeps me awake and then I struggle to sleep myself. So even though I am so tired and need sleep, why do I feel like I’m on high alert ready to jump out of bed even though I could be totally wrong and my children will sleep through tonight.

does this happen to anyone else? I’m interested to know if this is a common mum thing or if maybe my anxiety is an issue and maybe some therapy or something might help my overthinking with this. I need to switch off somehow!

God - I remember this. So exhausted I thought I might vomit and yet couldn’t get to sleep.

@Mumofteenandtween it’s sort of like being in constant fight or flight mode no matter how tired you are! It’s horrendous

Yes I had this hypervigilance when mine were s small. Totally wiped and wired all at once. The anxiety over their health and the sense of they're going to wake me up any second now so why bother sleeping. It's so tortuous. The only way I relaxed was if my husband declared he was doing the wake ups, then I could finally relax. You need to pass the baton to someone who has some energy. It was hard as I was exclusively breastfeeding for years but I know you will get through this. Just don't drive and try not to do anything other than exist for the next few days, lower expectations and house work whilst you cope. Sending hugs.

Sorry - no decent advice at all except to tell you that you will survive it (I promise!) and in about 12 years you will be trying to get them to get up for school whilst they groan about how they are tired. You will then show great restraint and not bury them under the patio.

When your child is ill I'd imagine every mother is like this. Tired and wired is a perfect description

Do you have a partner who can shoulder the load?

@splash123 did you always look at the time as well? This is something that haunts me. Always working out roughly how much sleep I could get, but also how much sleep I am loosing. Just a constant battle!

@Devilsmommy tired and wired. That is literally it in 2 simple words!

@sittingonabeach he did offer tonight to be fair but because I was already in bed and it was already late at this point I told him not to worry for tonight, plus he has work tomorrow. I have however asked him to not go pub tomorrow to play darts which he does every other Friday just so I can go to bed early upstairs in the spare room and he can do the night duty, he doesn’t have work Saturday so fingers crossed he says yes! 🤞

It's an instinct thing because you'll be lying there with bated breath listening for every change of breathing in baby and husband will be fast asleep not a care in the world 😒

Are you doing anything to try and switch your brain off? There are some really good guided meditations on YouTube which can help quieten your thoughts, and I use a website called Nothing Much Happens which is brilliant at helping me manage my anxiety - a woman with the most soothing voice reads a story in which nothing much happens but it's so gentle and calming. Using something like that will help you to relax - it might take a fortnight but it really does work as you start to associate the voice or the meditation with sleep.

Don't worry about falling asleep and not hearing them cry - you'll wake up - and while you're lying awake listening for it, it's good to refocus your thoughts using the above.

You have my sympathies - I remember feeling so tired I felt drunk, and having to drive to work on next to no sleep over and over again. Hang on in there, it does slowly get better.

Oh God yes totally normal. The more sleep deprived I got, the harder it was to actually get to sleep.

And I definitely had this anxiety set in from 5/6pm, knowing I was going to have ANOTHER awful night.

It will pass. You'll be fine. You don't believe me now, but you will be OK.

I feel your pain. I'm 45, perimemo, and have.a.5.5 yo child that has literally never slept through one night in her life. How i manage at work I don't know!

Oh god this is me tonight. I am tired and wired. I think it’s hormonal and it is a terrible state to be in, so do take it seriously. This is my 3rd baby and I know by now that when I get into this state, I need help to reset my nervous system and that can take weeks if I don’t nip it in the bud asap. The sooner I recognise it and start working on it, the more rapidly it improves.

Examples of what can help my nervous system calm down or shift the mental load:

1. DH does all school/nursery drop off and pick ups if his work allows (one less thing to worry about when not sleeping)
2. Hire a babysitter to help with bedtime if he’ll be late back from work. Sometimes this means I get at least an hour or two sleep if I fall asleep with baby at bedtime.
3. Just get leftovers out the freezer from previous batch cooking.
4. Get out for a walk in the morning before noon, no matter how bloody exhausting the night before was.
5. DH to do food shops, cooking, washing up etc for a few days, if work allows.
6. Look carefully at my diet - make sure I’m not going wild with comfort eating sweet things, instead focus on high protein, veg and fruit.

DH is working all weekend though so I’ll just be practising “box breathing,” turning off my phone and trying to remind myself that resting with closed eyes is still better for me than being wide awake and out of bed.

Exactly the same! I slept over an hour and a half after I could have. Bloody maddening.

Also I think I'm slowly losing my mind. Today I left a soup on the hob when I took the kids to gymnastics!! I realised after the class! So ateast 1.5h later. And last week I left the keys in the other side of the door, so we couldn't unlock from the outsider- queue 90 quid to get him to literally slide in some plastic and give it a kick!!

Surely when tiredness gets to this point it becomes a problem. And the kids aren't even ill at the moment, just he 2yo is waking up all the damn time!

And yes I check the clock and do sleep maths too. Very hard to sleep at the moment! Solidarity and sympathy, OP

Yes I remember this well.

It's horrendous and you basically can't really rest. You're on high alert all the time.

At that time I remember getting up and automatically just reaching for two super strength paracetamol to start the day off! I had a constant headache.

I'll be that person and say the infamous 'this too will pass'

@SirChenjins honestly I can usually get to sleep reasonably well, but it’s the nights when the children aren’t well or have just overcome an illness that I am constantly listening out for something, waiting for something to happen or when one of them does cough I get anxious thinking that the whole house is going to be disturbed. I sort of prepare myself to jump out of bed, and because of this I am then on full alert even though I have slept in weeks 😂😩 but maybe on these bad nights it might be worth me trying to block out the coughs etc if I can and try to focus on something else!

@canuckup I am so glad to know that I am not alone in this though. I feel awful saying that because of course I wouldn’t wish it on anybody, but to know it’s not because I am just crazy and it is in fact a Mum instinct makes me feel slightly better!
but yes, always on alert, ready to jump up at any time incase one of the kids is sick again!

@Flailingaroundatlife sleep maths 😂 love that! That is literally it. Forever counting down the hours of sleep you are not getting! Sleep deprivation makes us do crazy things, I loose things all the time too and go on a frantic searches to then find them in the most obvious places! Makes you feel like you are going crazy!

I agree that it is normal. They are your precious babies and you’d hate for them to be unwell and needing you and you didn’t wake. But remind yourself, that you will wake. Even when you do get to sleep at these times, it’s light and you do spring out of bed when they need you, again, just programmed like that. But does sound like you need strong measures to make sure you get some sleep! I think you should insist that DH stays home if he is reluctant. You really being able to rest means having someone you trust be available to the kids.

Yes this sounds very familiar OP. For me it gradually eased over a few years. Definitely get your other half to be on duty some nights. But I'd also say try to take the pressure off. When your lying in bed don't expect yourself to sleep, just try to relax and enjoy resting in bed, and calming down as much as possible.

i remember this acutely. When DH took over night shift so I could sleep, I would take a piriton to knock me out enough to actually get to sleep

also, the baby might have caught tonsillitis, its very infectious. Might be worth getting them checked out if their sleep is unusually disturbed.

Oh I really feel for you - I remember these nights well, it's hideous isn't it? Give the guided meditations or Nothing Much bedtime stories a try on the nights you're lying there wired and waiting - at least they'll help you relax and not be hyper alert. Sending you lots of good sleep thoughts 💐

My child has just turned 2 and since he was born I’ve had trouble sleeping. I used to sleep like a log for 10+ hours before having my baby and even during pregnancy. My child wasn’t even a bad sleeper really but I got
into the habit of waking up and now I often take hours to fall asleep, and I wake up
around 3/4am. My child wakes up at 5am so I often only get 4/5 hours a night, if that. Thankfully he doesn’t often wake in the night anymore but I can’t seem to make it through the night anymore. I’m always on edge. I often feel dreadful by 2pm. I’ve had blood tests and stuff but I think it’s just lack of sleep and stress.