Can someone please please please tell me how they expect you to work when you have a baby that doesn’t sleep!!!

[Biosblbay]

I am loosing my mind. My 11 month old (turns 1 nest week) is waking up every 2-3 hours. She already had me up at 1am, ended up bringing her in bed with me, it was just a hour of fidgeting so I put her back in her room at 2am, she is now awake again at 3:30am crying and will not stop. I’ve been down to give her a dummy and it didn’t help. This has been on going now for days. On top of that My 3 year old (4 in September) has been having later nights due to the heat, no sleep because of the baby and has also been up early because of either the baby waking him up or he has been unwell. Because of this he has been home from school, it was closed due to the extreme heat and then the last 2 days I had to pick him up early due to not being himself and being unwell.

I work a full time job, luckily I work from home so there is no commute but concentrating is pretty impossible when you are being woken up so frequently and having late nights and early starts. She has been crying for almost half an hour and I just don’t know what to do! I have no next to me for anymore, she won’t sleep if I put her in bed with me, I am worried she is going to wake my son up in a minute as their rooms are next to each other.

please I am out of ideas. How can any mum be expected to work when you have to go through this. Maternity leave should be 2 years minimum! I also have such a busy weekend ahead of me, including her cake smash photo shoot Sunday, how am I even going to manage that! I am exhausted!!!!!!

and just so you are aware, I have tried doing 1 nap in the day, it makes no difference, I’ve stuck to the two naps, still no difference, shortening both naps, still makes no difference.

what is going wrong!! I am at breaking point. I haven’t slept properly in weeks, in fact haven’t slept properly since she was born but these last few weeks have been extremely challenging, more so being back at work.

Actually a lot of European countries have a 2 year mat leave, including my country of birth. My parents say business owners mostly prefer it as it's easier to hire and train maternity cover and is less disruptive to the business.

@HoldMyWine as far as I can gather people sit their baby in front of a cake and expect the baby to smash the cake up, and they take photos of it. In reality, in the only one I’ve seen, the babies sat looking confused in front of a load of cakes. It’s a bizarre (and wasteful presumably) photo opportunity that is fashionable at the moment.

When DS was a baby - as he was bottle fed (not by choice but he had some temporary physical issues) - so dh and I used to have one night in, one night off. We were lucky in that we had a spare room so the one ‘on’ would sleep in there and the other would get a full night’s sleep. He did sleep through by 7 months though.
I would def try and do some version of this - even you do half the night each.
Theres nothing worse than no sleep but ‘some’ sleep is ok.
And id prob get her checked over for any obvious issues causing the waking - digestive, ear, teeth (I’m sure a dentist could see if teeth were appearing) etc.

We just did co-sleeping but even still I remember the exhaustion…I actually blame it on being made redundant from one job as I know I wasn’t at my best and I had to commute. Ds was at nursery and I was convinced he woke in the night to be with me 😂 the cake smash is not important or matters a jot so relax

It really shit OP, you have my sympathy!!

I take it your husband doesn’t work 7 days a week so there must be some nights where he is available to help?

When things were REALLY bad with mine I used to take myself off to a really cheap B&B one night a week jjst so I could have a full nights sleep and DH would be in charge of dealing with the baby/toddler. I mean it would be a total shit hole, £40 a night type place with paint peeling off the walls and holes in the carpet, but all I needed was the bed!!! Just having one night where I could sleep 10-11 hours interrupted was so rejuvenating.

When my son was 10 months old I paid £90 for a sleep consultant because life was unbearable…..and I mean unbearable. I can’t even put into words how sleep deprived me and DH were and how bleak life was (both of us working at this point). We went in full hard core with the sleep training and it was a very difficult week, but it absolutely changed our life!

That’s ridiculous! Why is a cake smash photoshoot so important? Cringey and a waste of cake in my opinion. Just eat the damn thing!

I do sympathise for the lack of sleep though, that must be really tough.

I prioritised being horizontal and getting back to sleep as quickly as possible. I co-slept for the first 6 mths or so with each child. Later, I made a little bed up by the cot so if our elder daughter cried in the night, I would go in to her room, stick my hand through the cot bars, lie down and we’d both drift off to sleep. Our second went through a very restless phase when she was about 18 months to 2 yo. When she woke up in the night, we would climb into the spare room bed together (quite often it would be me + both DDs). I tended to deal with over night wakings because i could do this and go straight back to sleep whereas if DH got up, he would be awake all night. Younger DD didn’t always go straight to sleep in those circumstances - she would often chatter but i could go to sleep whilst she was doing that and she would drift back off to sleep eventually.

You need to get him to do weekend mornings at least so you get 2 solid lie ins you can rely on. It’s not much but something to look forward to and might help keep you sane. Also if baby is waking multiple times then DH can deal with one of those times surely? I get he doesn’t wake up but you could wake him up and tell him it’s his turn. Tell him how much you’re drowning.

Your partner has to help - you are both working. Kick him til he gets up if he doesn’t hear the wee one
My partner and k have I do wakings before 11 and after 5am, he does any between those times
if he gets public transport he can sleep on the commute, and if he drives he can kip in his car at lunch hour

So, at 11 months a baby is able to sleep through the night. If they're not, I would strongly advise taking them to the GP.

My first born didn't sleep through the night until he was 3...I thought this was normal but it turned out that he had sleep apnea! Post adenotonsillectomy, he slept 12 hours solidly every night - it felt like a miracle.

My second born is 15 months - she also was waking very frequently so I took her directly to an ENT doctor- it turns out that she has Grade 3 tonsils which may be impacting her sleep but it was a trip to the GP which has helped improve the situation. The GP suggested that she may have silent reflux and after a few weeks of lansoprazole, she has been sleeping much better!

It's well worth seeing if a GP can provide some answers as it can be life changing!

Gently, OP, you need help. A quick AS made my head spin. You’ve been all over the place for quite some time and frankly I suspect you will burnout soon.

Your anxiety would be much improved if you got rid of your lazy, selfish arsehole of a husband. That much is obvious. It’s not the dogs or the house work or anything else on its own that is doing this to you - it’s him. Absolutely do not have a third or fourth baby as you recently suggested you might!

You mention your elder child being “on the spectrum”. Are you sure? Is that a formal diagnosis? Because if it is he almost certainly inherited it from a ND parent and that’s very often misdiagnosed as anxiety in women…….

You’re clearly spiralling (understandably) but nothing will change if you don’t change it.

Speak to a lawyer.

Empathy. I remember my youngest at this age I thought I would die. I commuted full time in the office, job with lots of responsibilities I needed to concentrate.

In the end we cried it out and he started sleeping through after my parents told me they'd had to do the same with my sister who is the most emotionally healthy person I know. He's 11 now and doesn't seem too scarred.

Appreciate you may not want to do this.

I sleep trained dd just before I went back to work as she was waking every 40mins and I could no longer function (and she was miserable too). Best thing I ever did. She's 16 next week and has been a champion sleeper for years.

Why does your sleep matter so much less than your husband’s? Unless he is a fucking surgeon, he should be sharing the wake ups. It’s outrageous that you’re dealing with them all alone.

I would also try sleep training - if you’re worried about that, think of it like this, all four of you need sleep, it’s not a luxury, it’s essential for good health. Maybe the problem is that she hasn’t learnt yet to settle herself when she wakes or almost wakes in the night, instead she cries and wakes herself up fully. So it’s your job to help her learn. Your lives could be transformed in a few days.

Before we did it with DS, we used to do shifts as described by PPs, I would go to bed at 7 and DH would be on duty until 1am or so. He would also do at least one night at the weekend. And I would try prophylactic Calpol for a few days, just in case it’s teeth.

This will pass! But a) your DH needs to help more until it does and b) sleep training might make it pass in a few days instead of months or years.

Calpol in case of teeth/ear ache/mystery pain.

Dh does most of the wakings on Friday and Saturday nights if he doesn't work the next day.

One or two nights/ week you go to bed at 8pm, and dh is in charge till midnight.

It gets better - eventually. x

I had to change my job and hours so I could walk to work safely when mine were tiny (single parent). Driving was too risky. Just as well really, as my child with autism didn't sleep until 8.
It's a really hard time.

I totally agree everyone needs 18 months to 2 years minimum!

This is the worst. Just wanted to give some solidarity, I nearly broke when I went back to work, both times, it is so hard. It’s just such an outrageous expectation of society. It depends on your job and your baby to some extent but it was so so hard.

Sending virtual hugs.

Who looks after the baby when you are working? Assuming you have a child minder/ nursery and are not working and caring for a baby, why don’t you book a days annual leave and sleep then? I remember doing that a few times when my kids were little.

All three of my children were nightmare sleepers. With the first two I just dealt with it but the third was breaking me, he was waking every 30 minutes for a comfort feed. I read the chapters of the baby whisperer book about getting them to sleep (can likely find the method online for free) and it worked within a couple of days with no distressed baby. This was when he was 11 months.

Christ, I’m glad that wasn’t a thing when mine were little. How wasteful.

What the hell is a cake smash? Jeez, ditch that.
You need to sleep train.
Your partner needs to do his fair share.
I had 4 months maternity leave. My expectations were low and just had to push through back then.

You split nights with your partner as best you can and go to work tired.

Maybe split the night 9-2 and 2-7 so everyone's getting at least 5 hours uninterrupted sleep? We used to do this.

Yes, exactly this. You and DH need to be doing shifts.

Awww @Biosblbay it’s so hard.
i worked part time when mine were little - i had two morning a week that they went to nursery and I slept!
we stretched our mortgage term to something ridiculous so the payments were very low, had a crappy old car, and no holidays abroad.
so worth it for me - sleep, time to potter round the house, lots of time with my little ones, and less stressed kids too.