Help me explain how I feel sleep deprived.

[ProcrastinatingPat]

So my DH works away mon to Fri. So away four nights home for three. We have five kids. The two youngest are 3 and four with just 14 months between them. The four Ye old is Autistic and suffers from major sleep disruption. The three year old has learned the same pattern as they share a room. I have to get up between 3-7 times a night and both waken for the day at 6 am regardless of bedtime. I could count the full nights sleep I have had on one hand.

Now don't get me wron g he's a great help when he is at home but I'm still actually at my wits end with sleep deprivation. I try to tell him about it but I just end up getting frustrated and crying because my brain won't work properly and let me articulate myself. Please help me explain how I feel.

To be clear, I am not looking for sleep advice. I need advice on how to best explain my tiredness.

Sorry for all the typos. I clearly have sausage fingers.

If you tell your dh to take care of the dcs throughout the 3 nights and 2 days he's at home, you won't need to explain the effects of sleep deprivation as he'll gain sufficient firsthand experience to be the 'great help' you claim he is.

Do you have friends/family you can stay with with so that you get the uninterrupted zzzzz's you need to redress the deficit? If not. check into a hotel and put the 'do not disturb' sign on your door.

My word!!! You have got your hands full!!

I can really emphasise with how difficult it is to articulate your feelings when you are at your wits end or over emotional.

I guess extreme tiredness is (don't know if you or he have ever experienced it - I haven't for a long time) like being really really stoned, feels like someone is squeezing your head so whilst it may only start as a dull thump by the end of the day it's a full on ache, you're walking through porridge, there are weights on your arms. Everything is a chore, even the fun things because you are sooooo stupidly tired.

That probably does not even touch on the tiredness you feel.

Hoping you can catch a bit more sleep soon

Can you get away for a couple of nights? Stay with your mum? A friend? Get a couple of nights sleep under your belt and then you'll be able to explain.

Has he ever done it on his own? He just doesn't know what it's like, does he? And let's face he'll never truly know if he's away 4 nights. I hope you manage to sort it out, it sounds pretty awful for you.

It's not really possible to explain how you physically feel to another person.

But if he loves you then you need to be able to say that you are really really broken and need a night away to get unbroken sleep. He should trust that you're not just taking the piss and wouldn't ask if it wasn't really important.

Ok for me it's:
Extreme forgetfulness: no idea what day it is even when you think hard. Everyday names, faces etc are blurred
Inability to focus or plan or string thoughts together
Sometimes I don't know if I've actually done something, just thought about it or dreamt it
I can't understand or process what people say, they can't understand me because I'm mumbling and slurring my words
You have little microsleeps as soon as you sit down... It's weird and dangerous
Clumsiness, irritability, headache, peckishness.
I look a mess too and I don't care

Argh it reads as horrible as it is... Hope things improve for you soon.

Tell him it's leaving the house every morning forgetting something important, it's leaving the car unlocked, it's only realising how bad you look when you go to the loo at work because that's the first time you've looked in the mirror, it's pouring milk in the coffee jar instead of the mug, it's getting road rage because someone forgot to indicate, it's crying inconsolably because you accidentally chucked out your child's painting, it's getting out of bed feeling like you should be getting into bed.....
But you shouldn't really be having to think of how to define it so he inderstands. The very fact that you CAN'T articulate it without getting upset and thinking of how to say it without having to ask us should be enough to show him how bad you feel.

I really feel for you. I only have one DC who wakes regularly at 3 years old and it have driven me over the edge at points.

Tell him your day never ends, ever and that sleep deprivation is used as a form of totrure.www.nhs.uk/livewell/tiredness-and-fatigue/pages/lack-of-sleep-health-risks.aspx explains the consequences well as does this one It's incredibly hard to function let only parent with chronic sleep dep. I would definitely get your DH to cover all thus nights while he is home and sleep with ear plugs on those nights just to catch up a bit.

This:

But you shouldn't really be having to think of how to define it so he inderstands. The very fact that you CAN'T articulate it without getting upset and thinking of how to say it without having to ask us should be enough to show him how bad you feel.

Does your DP do the night time wake-ups when he is there? If not then maybe he needs to?

Can you move the three year old so s/he can learn to sleep through and then you only have to deal with one child waking up?