Sleep deprivation- your experiences please

[fibeee]

Like most new mums I have been chronically sleep deprived for months with a baby waking several times a night. I’ve now fallen into a bad habit of staying up late for a couple of hours after my DH and baby are in bed just to get some me time. This obviously hasn’t helped matters and last night I had a scary experience where I was either starting to drift off and dream while wake or I was experiencing some auditory hallucinations.

This feels like a bit of a wake up call and I know I need to nip the late nights in the butt. Sleeping during the day is not an option.

Can you please share your experiences with me. When did you start to feel normal again? I don’t know a lot of mums due to having a baby during Covid and I feel very alone.

Sleep deprivation can build up & cause a lot of health/mental problems. In the early days I would put my DC to bed (final sleep) around 10pm when I would go to bed myself. Then I'd get a stretch of 4-5 hours with no waking. I would only wake up when DC did (sleeping & waking to feed them) which would be between 8-10am sometimes later. It was the only way to keep sane. My time alone was during daytime naps. Not at the cost of my sleep.

The lesser you sleep the lesser you will want ya sleep. It's a vicious cycle, so break it soon as you can.

I only felt normal after I stopped breastfeeding. After that it was still disturbed nights for few years. School going age is when my DC stopped disturbing me completely.

Sending OP. Would your DH be willing to do ‘shifts’ and do you have any family or friends close by? I had a few episodes similar to you with DC1 and it was terrifying, I also suffer from hemiplegic migraines and one of my triggers is being very tired. Me and DP with DC2 do shifts (he is self employed which has been crap during covid but worked well for our routine!) I feed and put baby to bed at 10ish then go to sleep and he gets up and does the next feed (breastfed but takes a bottle off DP for this feed) then he gets DC back down and I pick up the next feed and then take DC downstairs when they are up for the day. It generally means I get a decent chunk of sleep each night. My auntie comes over a couple of times per week on the afternoon when DP is working and will take baby for a walk in the pram or cuddle/play so I can have some me time then. If you are in the position to we also outsource Things where possible (cleaning, grass cutting, get online shops) so I don’t feel like nap times get used do stuff you need to get done I can just have a cuppa, shower etc. I had quite bad PND with my first and I feel that sleep and the pressure of getting everything done was a factor in that so I have tried to put things in place to help and so far so good!

Thank you both for your replies.

Unfortunately the night shift falls on me as DD is EBF. She starting refusing bottles a month or so ago. I’ve tried settling her without a feed during the night but she just cries until she gets the boob.

I’m going to knock the late nights in the head and go to bed with DD for the next few days at least. I’ll see if my DPs can take her for a couple of hours tomorrow so I can get a nap in.