Coping with long term sleep deprivation. What do you do to cope?

[PavlovtheCat]

Obviously apart from trying to resolve the cause of sleep deprivation. I am working on that, well, honestly not right this second as I have absolutely no idea any more how to fix it. As, well frankly I am too goddamm tired to figure it out.

How do you cope? what strategies do you put in place to enable you to function without going mad. Is it possible to have any kind of existence once you have used all the spare energy on children, eating, working?

I am struggling in particular with:
*Purple bags under my eyes. They are very ugly and I try to wear my glasses to hide my face. It seems like they will never go.
*Tired, ever so slightly yellow eyes - optician said this is due to dry eyes, common with sleep deprivation
Hurting eyes, slight almost constant headache - feels like my eyes are permently being pulled out of my eyesockets and stretched as far as they can
*horrid dry pasty skin - sallow, old looking, spotty.
*hair thinning - a symptom i think, of lack of sleep
*Loss of patience. I am ever so snappy and my poor lovely wonderful happy children are bearing the brunt of it. I told my DD off the other day for not writing properly. She did a swirly wirly 'B' in the middle of her name and I was very cross about her not doing it 'right'.
*Arguments with DH. Struggling to agree on the most simple things, esp around the causes of sleep deprivation. Lots of competition about who is most sleep deprived and who is most deserving of a lie-in. over-shadows pretty much everything right now.
*Zero energy to do anything in the evening, and sometimes in the day. And not wanting to go to bed as all i do is think about sleeping and am fed up of having no life. I struggle to be able to muster the energy to do more than veg in front of cbeebies.
*Over-sensitive.

Tips on how you cope would be good. Please.

oh and constant feeling tearful. struggling not to cry in front of the children at 4:50am.

How old are dcs?

are the children one of the reasons for sleep deprivation? Are they school aged? Younger? Do you WOH?

Go to bed at 7.30pm at least a couple of nights a week.

Take turns at being the one getting up at 5am so the other can have a lie-in til 7am.

At least one undisturbed 8+ hour night a week.

go to bed earlier. it may feel like a waste of an evening, but it isn't. really, extra sleep is never a waste. and it isn't forever.

also, try and agree with DH that you always get one day to lie in at the weekend - as does he. I get saturdays, DH gets sundays here. It doesn't happen every weekend, but god, it is amazing when it does. We make sure that breakfast is agreed on the night before, and then whoever is getting the lie in gets to sleep until they wake up. Yesterday I got 6.30-9.30 am and felt so so much better for it!!

I'm guessing that you have older kids, so an afternoon nap may not be an option, but could you also take turns to have the afternoon nap at the weekend, so you and DH feel refreshed? We do this sometimes, this weekend and last in particular as I have been very unwell for a few weeks, so we are both more knackered than usual.

also, get the millpond teach your child to sleep book - we had 2 years without sleep until I got this book out of the library! we then had about 6 weeks of sleep, and DS has suddenly reverted this week, but still, magnificent!! I think he has reverted just because I have been ill though, so routine has gone out the window.

good luck :)

Hi Pav. Sympathies. I am also chronically sleep deprived due to ds2. Things are gradually improving on their own, but there is a long way to go.

I drink a lot of coffee!

Seriously, I eat lots of fruit and veg and get out for a long walk most days.

Decent diet and a bit of excercise stop me going nuts.

Deep breathing, especially when ds1 is being challenging (mostly when doing homework).

Not sure about the hair loss - I don't know if that would be sleep deprivation, or might be better getting that checked?

Only discussing sleep deprivation with people who I KNOW will be sympathetic and who have weathered that storm and come out the other side.

I think you need to get your bloods done to check thyroid, etc for the hair thingy though.

5yo and almost 2yo. I work out of the home 3.5 days a week. DH just started full time shift work, DS newly in childminder, not sure how much that is affecting his sleep, but the situation is:

DS wakes at 4:45-5am. Not caused by the clocks changing but made worse. I suspect this has a lot do to with the next door neighbour ticking and revving his engine at that time for least half of the week, but not sure. Or rather DH is not convinced. He cries and jumps and cries some more in his cot and wakes up DD. He will then go back to sleep with me in bed, but DD is up and awake so she ends up waking him back up and we are all up with sometimes DS being calm and sometimes (like yesterday morning) grumping and winging and crying because I won't put the tv on or make breakfast at 5:30am. This now has had a knock-on effect on putting them to bed at night and what used to be a good routine for bed has now all gone to shit.

Add to this DH comes to be at midnight or so, being the night owl he is, suffers from regular snoring problems and DS often wakes at 2am for no apparant reason.

My sleep is broken, i don't ever sleep through now, even on those rare occasions the kids sleep well and DH does not snore. I naturally wake at 5am or before, regardless and can't get back to sleep. Except today. Slept til 10:30am and felt terrible afterwards. Bad headache all day.

If I can get myself back on track and feel like I have some kind of control over myself without sleep, I might be able to get back some routine.

This is not new. DS has had sleep problems since being a baby. He ideally should be co-sleeping with me, that is where he is happiest.

For me, i pretty much accepted completely and totally that i had no life, and just surrendered to that.
That meant, kid in bed, then me in bed, even at 7pm. I didnt care, i knew i would be up through out the night anyway.
I would wash my face with a cold cloth at least 5 times a day, shower always woke me up.
Didnt care in t he least about the purple bags or yeallow eyes or thinning hair, what distressed me was the getting to Asda with slippers on, after setting out to go to Tesco, not knowing how i got there, having no recollection of the car journey, looking down and seeing that i had forgotton to put shoes on. Big fat pink fluffy slippers there where my trainers should be.

I wrote lists of things that i needed to do that day and ticked them off as i did them.

My son did not sleep for an entire night until he was 5 and at school, up until that point i would be up every 2 hours all night every night, oh except for the nights when i worked a night shift at work, after being up all day and the majority of the previous night...for the previous 4 years.Having to saty up all day following a night shift as i had no one willing to take my ds for me...even for an hour.(another thread that one and the reason i no longer see my pil..ever)
I TOTALLY feel your pain, and sympathise.
I remember gripping onto the kitchen work top to stop myslef from falling such was my dizziness, nausea and desperation for just a minutes sleep. Crying as i made the bed in the morning as i knew i would not get back into it for another 48 hours when i had a night shift coming.

Good news is that ds is 8 now and sleeps like a dream from 7.30-7.30 every night. THANK GOD, or i seriously think i would have jumped off a cliff.

kveta can;'t do taking in turns. DHs new job means he is working quite random shifts and it is really very very physical work long days, would be really unfair to expect him to get up with the kids after 3 hours sleep. Even if I have done it for a week solid. Not yet.

He did give me a lie-in this morning, and brought me breakfast in bed, which was fab. But, he was so exhausted himself that after inviting a friend over for a walk with her child, he crashed and left me with two very tired and grumpy children, a trashed house and a friend and her child to entertain! This was his first day off after a week of long days and while he has tomorrow and wed off work, he has to do the school run etc on those days so not like he will get another chance until next sunday. He is not unreasonable, it is just difficult to get a new routine going and he works most weekends.

OP, I know this is a really obvious thing to say, but why don't you try co-sleeping with him for a while? Just to get some sleep and energy to tackle his sleep problem at a later date? Unless your DC share a room, your DH could sleep in your DS's room. Especially if he snores anyway (has he attempted to find a solution to his snoring? My BIL has just had an op to to fix this). From what I understand about co-sleeping, it doesn't mean that your child will never sleep in their own bed - most likely there will come a point when his sleep will fix itself, regardless of where he is sleeping, iyswim.

do you have any one at all who could take them overnight?
or who could take the little one for the day, while the older one is in school? you could go back to bed for the day that way...

oh gigglepin. You have made me cry. It is not so bad for me as it was for you, but the desperation you posted about resonates with me. And I agree with not talking about it with those who are not so sympathetic. I do not actually have anyone around me who is very supportive re sleep deprivation, they just really get it.

TBH I dread going to bed as I just know it will be so early in the morning.

I was thinking of getting one of those light clock things? have you seen them? they reproduce the sunlight i think, and trigger whatever chemical it is that you produce to tell you it is morning, or to get rid of the melatonin, something like that. I saw a programme about it once where a newsreader who got up at 4am every day used one - even when I go to bed at 8-9pm, i cannot sleep straight away and even when I do, i still feel like a zombie in the morning.

I have had a blood test relatively recently (3months ago) when things were ok sleepwise in the pavlov house and all was ok, i think i was simply recovering from a long haul of sleep deprivation previously, and I have not got my strength back yet.

My kids are a bit younger than yours, but certainly your nights sound similar.

If ds is happier co-sleeping, could you not do this? This might mean that dd isn't woken up, so you'd only have one child to be dealing with in the early hours.

My ds (2.5) wakes up about the same time as yours and I take him into bed (actually into dd's bed and she's already moved in with her dad by then), bf (I appreciate that you might not have this up your sleeve) and refuse to get up/entertain/put light on. He eventually dozes off, as do I and we go downstairs around 7am. This makes a massive difference from when I used to take him downstairs at 5.30am, watching the clock for CeeBBies to start.

camperfan prob is DSs room is tiny and only had a cot in it, no room for DH. We used to do some co-sleeping this way when DD had a sofa in her room (we swapped rooms, and the sofa is in our room, stuck, we are in the loft). It did help actually, and if I am honest, all my instincts tell me this is what he wants, and more importantly needs right now. But DH is worried, as am I, that, not so much he will become reliant on it in the future (neither of us beleive it would be a long term problem), but that DD will become used to use sleeping with her. She gets up early now too, even with DS sleeping through, and DH is VERY grumpy if (when ) woken at even 6am.

But I might discuss this with him, just as a short term measure so we can all get back on track.

academy most mornings involve either me going onto the sofa with DS or bringing him in with us as soon as he wakes and he does go back to sleep. But the problem is, as soon as he wakes at whatever wee time it is, he wakes DD, and once she is awake she will not go back to sleep.

I would consider co-sleeping and getting your husband to talk to GP about his snoring. Sometimes it can be easily fixed.
My DS's is nearly four and his cot is still next to our bed. This setup saves us many valuable hours of sleep.

jacinda his snoring is worse when it is v cold outside as we are in the loft conversion and it is very dry and stuffy when the windows are not open, we need a humidifer which is on the list of things to buy, but DH has only just started his new job, can't spend all his money in one go! He also snores when he is very tired, and obviosuly this means he is snoring more atm. He does use snoring strips sometimes, and has tried the tongue ones, they work quite well actually.

I am going to talk to him about moving the sofa into DDs bedroom like before. straight sleep until 6am is better than broken sleep until 5am.

ok, I a going to bed now, and will drink some water before I do!

DH i out tonight (exhaustion does not hit him like me it seems, or else I am getting up more than him ) but tomorrow I will talk to him about co-sleeping for a week and us sleeping separately for that week. Poor man will think I am moving him out

Tell your DH to stop coming to bed late (mine did this but it really was disturbing me so it doesn't happen now).

Tell him to sort out his snoring. It's bloody selfish.

Also is there anything you can do about DC2 and the noise at 5am? Can you play white noise on a loop at night to cut out background noise?

Also really do go to bed early. It's easier to deal with 5am wake ups if you've gone to bed early. Even 2am ones - bed by 8pm, you get 6 hours (provided your DH gets his act together).

iggly he comes to be early more than he used to, but, he would never come to bed before 10pm, so if I am in bed at 9pm, he will wake me anyway. I agree though, I should just accept no life for a while whilst I get my sleep back.

We brought DD2 into our room when she was about 18mths as we were all being disturbed. It really worked.

Regarding DD, I think at 5 she is old enough to understand she is not allowed ot wake anyone else up until say 6.30. Buy her a digital clock. If she wakes before the time you decide, she should try to go back to sleep, if she can't, tell her she is allowed to choose to do something quietly in her bedroom.

I think you should discuss it, yes. Right now you need to do whatever it takes to get some more sleep, because it's affecting every area of your life.

Is DS's room big enough for a single bed for DD? As a temporary measure, could she perhaps go into DS's room? DH in DDs room. You and DS in your room. If he becomes reliant on co-sleeping, that's not necessarily the end of the world - I think there's a period (between about 12 months and say 2.5 years) when sleep problems are hard to crack (ime of course). After 2.5 it becomes easier to bribe, reason and reward. You can deal with it then. I spent so many sleepless nights when DS1 was the same age as yours. If DS2 goes the same way at that age (really hope not!), and co-sleeping works, I'm just going to go with it, rather than battle with it like last time.

Mmmm he should make an effort a few nights a week. Or learn how to come to bed more stealthily otherwise you're lying there waiting to be woken up (speaks from bitter experience)

Plus he's doing himself no favours either if he's tired too!

Sorry, took me a while to write that as I went to investigate some noises, I think we have a mouse . Definitely accept having no life for a while. I agree with QuickLookBusy too - DS1 (4.11) has been staying in his bed until 7am, quietly (apart from a bit of singing), since he was 3 yo - sticker charts helped this.