How do working parents cope with a toddler still waking at night?

[SendCoffee55538]

I don't know what I want from this post. I'm so so tired. My 19 month old still wakes once a night. He wakes screaming around 12, just as I'm in a really deep sleep, and then for the rest of the night I'm in a very light sleep, constantly waking. He also wakes again around 3/4 am although it's just a scream and goes back to sleep by himself. I wear ear plugs and DH actually handles all night wakings but there is no way to NOT hear him, it's not a massive place we live in.

I know waking once a night is better than some but my God I'm tired. I have nothing left to give. Add all the nursery bugs to this, and at various points this winter I actually felt like I'm going to die.

I'm fat, my skin looks awful, I still have pains
from pregnancy I need to see physio about. I drink too much coffee and eat too much sugar to cope.

I just need some sleep. Some actual unbroken sleep for a few days. We've had stints of him sleeping through the night and it was amazing. Very short lived though.

I can't even check in to a stupid hotel as I sleep very badly the first night in a new place anyway!! I'm just not one of those people that sleep anytime, anywhere, through anything.

I work full time and I just don't know how all the other parents around me cope. How do you cope????

Oh it's absolutely awful, isn't it? Two of mine were like that and I simply wanted to curl up and die quietly. Some days at work i'd had less than four hours sleep (and not all in one chunk). I looked like death warned up for a couple of years (or more). It does come to an end eventually, but my warmest wishes until then. Try, if you can, not to worry about looks right now. I know it's depressing but it really all does come good later on. Right now you just need to focus on survival and do whatever you need to to get though.

Ready meals
Paper plates
Get friends and family to cook for your freezer
Let anything that can be left in the house go (without getting too depressing)
Ask for any help available to babysit so you can regularly nap

I could have written your post almost word by word! No advice, just sympathy, it’s awful!

Earplugs?

Yes, I wear ear plugs but it still wakes me up! I might not hear the initial scream, but he screams for a good 5-10 minutes, it's like he's having a terrible nightmare or something. It's not a baby whimpering cry.

Then could your dh take him somewhere for a few nights? Or could you suck up the cost of an extra night in a hotel?

sleep deprivation is a health nightmare.

I saw a dark tent type sound proof cover that fits over cots.

Investigate whether they could help.

Could you try - and just not give up on - sleep training?
I know people are against it, but this is likely ruining your health (and life, obviously).

So that DS screams and no one can hear him ? 🤣 I'm not one for letting child cry it out all night. I can't imagine anything soundproofing DS anyway.

Ermmm if I remember rightly it involved lots of coffee, walking around looking like a disaster and clinging onto hope that it would get better soon. I was back at work full time when DD was 9’months old, she slept all the way through the night for the first time when she was 4 years old (by that I mean till about 5am).

it was hard but it did eventually get better and as a superpower I can now function in an exec level environment on less than 5 hours sleep and appear relaxed, calm and competent.

We did sleep train, which is how we got down from 5+ wakings a night to 1 or 2. He is absolutely distressed/inconsolable during this one night wake, we can't just leave him.

And many times he wakes, screams and goes back to sleep by the time we get to him, so he does know how to go back to sleep himself. WE still hear it and wake up though.

He's just very sensitive. He actually sleeps through when he is well and no teeth are coming through. Even the tiniest bug and a slightly congested nose disrupts his sleep. He just hasn't been 100% ok in months. It's been molars, flus, hand foot and mouth, colds etc.

And on the odd night he was well, WE were sick due to all the plagues he brings home 😂I'm currently battling a cold that hasn't gone in 2 weeks.

Truthfully - you just survive it somehow and eventually it ends. Took 6 years for us as we had a three year age gap and then each child didn’t sleep through until over 3.

If you fall into a deep sleep when you first go to bed but then only light sleep after the first wake up then could you try not going to bed until after the scream?

On the bright side on Sunday I had to get teen dd to somewhere 70 miles away for 7:30am (which was 6:30am with the clocks going back). So that meant getting up at 5am. (Which was really 4am.) It didn’t even feel that difficult. I guess my first 6 years of parenting were basically the sleep equivalent of altitude training. Nothing ever feels hard in comparison!

Might be worth checking with the GP if you could be iron deficient (or similar) if you're feeling so rough and run down OP? Just on the basis that I wouldn't have expected 2 fairly quick wake-ups a night would leave you feeling like this, particularly if your DH is actually getting up to sort DS out.

What time are you going to bed etc? Any way to get any rest at other times of the day?

I do sympathise as my DD was a nightmare with sleep until she was 3 but she was waking up a lot more than once a night and I didn't feel as bad as you describe.

When I was having chemo and desperately needed an uninterrupted night’s sleep, my DH would grab the travel cot and go and stay in a travelodge with DD. One night of proper sleep would recharge me for a good week or so. It’s dreadful OP it really is - my DD also did the blood curdling scream when she woke up and once I’ve been jolted awake like that it takes me forever to go back off again, plus I’m not a napper either unless I’m sick so daytime sleep never happened.

Just sympathy here too! Was up three times last night in the night with 16 month old, older school-age DC crying in the morning with end of term exhaustion, and then had to start work at 8:30 and dredge up the brainpower to make decisions...

I know it eventually passes, but right now it seems endless!

I have horrendous PGP from pregnancy and also hypermobility so I'm in a lot of pain, all the time. Pre-pregnancy, I handled the hypermobility by being extremely fit and regular physio and massages and very good sleep hygiene.

I've recently had every test out there and MRIs and ultrasounds, I'm not deficient in anything. I need a long course of physio and exercise to get fit again. Which seems impossible right now. And I'll still be in various amounts of pain for the rest of my life. Which is why going back to sleep is just not easy for me, as I'm so so incredibly uncomfortable 24/7. And it probably tires me out too.

We go to bed at 9.30pm so very early. But toddler only goes to sleep himself at 8-8.30 and is up at 6.30 so we have zero downtime.

We used to divide and conquer (survive!) I’d often go to bed at 9pm while DH sat in with DC in their room, witching hour(s) were 12-2 so at that point we’d switch, DH would go to bed and I’d shush and settle until about 2am and either sneak back to bed until 6am or sleep on the floor bed next to DC.
Key thing that saved us was having a comfortable bed set up so we could sleep in DCs room rather than back and forth - I know it doesn’t suit a lot of people but meant we all got a lot more sleep overall.
I still remember feeling shit at my job and unsafe to drive a lot of the time though!

Book yourself in for a massage, let some of the tension out of your body, just do it, make the time.
I wear silicone earplugs and an earphone that wraps round my head and white noise. The waking and screaming is probably a phase, does he get any meds before bed to help with teething?
Start going for walks or a swim or something, use a PT who specialises in PGP.
The problem is you can only control certain things and the wakings probably aren't one of them.

Is he consistent with the 12am wake and scream? If so, you could try a 'wake to sleep' technique, which is where you get in and disturb them a little before their habitual wake up, so that they then settle and hit the next sleep cycle without the dramatic disturbance. I've seen it recommended for younger babies struggling to link sleep cycles. You don't disturb them enough to bring them right out of sleep, but enough that they maybe have a stretch and a yawn and resettle. You could try holding off your bedtime til 10ish, and doing it then, rather than waiting til midnight.

Disclaimer - I have not tried this with an older toddler, so can't vouch for if it works.

Solidarity though, my first slept through from 11m and I was ok going back to work, my second is 15m and still wakes 1-2x a night, and I often just give up and co-sleep on a sofabed in his room.

Edit as posted too soon
It’s bloody brutal. I don’t know how and can’t really give any useful advice but I just clung on until eventually the night wakings stopped (mainly). It’s not terribly helpful, but it will pass and one day you’ll look back on it and laugh at the horror!

I think you have to move away from expecting a full night sleep. My youngest is 6 and wakes at 1am and again at 4.30am. For about 20 minutes each time. Sleep training for these wakeups didn’t work and so we just adjust. I take the first one and DH takes the second. We just get on with it tbh. I nap in the afternoons at weekends.

At that point I slept on the sofa at least twice a week with white noise so I got a full night's sleep. Even if dh was handling nights, I couldn't sleep deeply in the room next to toddler.

I didn’t cope.

DC2 had obstructive sleep apnea and i ended up having a breakdown and 6 weeks off work due to exhaustion.

She still wakes up way more than once a night. It’s shit. DH and I take turns.

Not working Wednesday helped a lot and a sympathetic colleague going through something similar with her son!
My partner took her every Saturday and Sunday morning and I got to get a lie in until about 10 on both days. I did the majority of the night wake ups as I manage disturbed nights better than early mornings and my partner the opposite.

My daughter had severe silent reflux that goes in and out of being controlled and didn't sleep through reliably until gone 4. We have bed shared when needed. From 12 months she started the night in her cot and came in to our bed after the first wake up. She never really settled with the cot and did sleep better once we moved her to a bed at 24 months. I wish we had done it earlier to be honest. At 18 months she learnt to undo her sleeping bags and sleepsuits and we would find her in just a nappy. Keeping her clothed enough to be warm through the night has been an ongoing battle. Last winter aged 4 she would pull up her pj top and threw her covers off. We went back to poppered vests so her stomach and back stayed covered overnight. We bought an undersheet electric blanket and we put an electric radiator in her room set to 19 degrees so we could keep her room warmer than the rest of the house overnight

The worst times were when she went through a split night phase where she was awake from 2-4 am several times a week and when her reflux was utterly horrendous out of control and she like a new born in my arms sat up right all night with her waking every 20-45 minutes