Tips on coping with long-term sleep deprivation

[AngelDog]

Care to share yours?

2 y.o. DS is currently waking 2-5 times a night, which he has done for the last 6 months. He's been a rubbish sleeper most of his life before that.

I'm finding the tiredness increasingly difficult to deal with and I end up shouting / crying most days. I used to find it much easier to cope with lack of sleep, even when he slept much worse than he does now. I don't know if that's cumulative sleep deprivation, or just that it's harder work looking after a toddler than it is a baby (although DS is not as demanding as many).

We co-sleep so I don't have to get out of bed when he wakes and he usually goes off again quite quickly. I try to go to bed early, but he needs less sleep than the average, so he goes to bed at about 9pm which makes it difficult for me to go to bed early enough. I could shorten his lunchtime nap, but I'm reluctant to do so for a number of reasons.

I always have a lie-down at lunchtime, although unless I've gone to bed really late, I find it difficult to go to sleep.

I don't drink caffeine, and get out of the house for a walk at least once every day. I eat fruit & veg and try not to binge on sugar too much.

I don't think I have depression (I've had mild depression in the past). I do feel depressed on days following particularly bad nights but if I get a better amount of sleep I feel much better.

The GP has checked my iron levels, thyroid and a few other things which all seem to be normal. My energy levels did improve when I discovered I had an intolerance to dairy last year but AFAIK I don't have any other food intolerances / allergies.

DS is currently working on a developmental leap so trying to get him to go to sleep better / stay asleep isn't working right now.

DH is insanely busy until Easter and until then has no capacity to help me out around the house, or with DS, either at night or in the day. (That's not something I feel resentful about - it's a decision about work that we made together and I still think we made the right choice). We don't have family close by and when they do visit, they're not much practical use.

We'd like to TTC but there's no way I could cope with pregnancy exhaustion too.

Any good coping tips?

Another one here with bad separation anxiety. DS often gets upset when we leave rooms or close doors or stairgates (when we're in the room with him - we don't shut him in rooms on his own!). He flips out if you put him in his cot awake, even if it's just to put his sleeping bag on. And he goes mental if you leave the room before he's fully asleep.

It's not restricted to DH and me; he's actually really sociable and loves new people (the other day we had a plasterer round giving us a quote and DS toddled up to him with his arms up, gesturing to be picked up). He's not fussy or shy about other people cuddling him. He just hates being on his own. When he wakes in the night he's often screaming his head off within seconds :(

Hi sleep forum people,

Spoken to most of you before (Normally my name is Zimm, need to change back) . No tips I'm afraid just empathy. DD is nearly 18 months and wakes up most nights for a two hour stretch between 2-4ish - nothing will get hr back to sleep.

Spending every day feeling like a zombie is immensely depressing, hate it, hate it ,hate it. I agree with others - the days I work are easier than the days I have DD on my own as at least I don't have to deal with toddler tantrums and can sit still!

I am very sad and jealous that all my NCT group sleep through - 11 hours every night at least have done for months :-( :-(. One sleeps around 13 hours plus 2 hours of naps!!!

Sounds like the 18 month sleep regression to me, grobags. It somehow managed to pass us by, despite every other developmental leap making DS's sleep go crazy.

I met someone recently whose daughter was awake for 2-3 hours in the night every night of her life until she started school. Makes me very grateful.

We had a good night last night - DS only woke twice, and the second time was at 6.15am. He went straight back to sleep after a quick bf both times.

I'm getting better at going to bed early, but not quite good enough!

I would like to believe this is a sleep regression Angeland not hardwired into her personality but it's been going on since she was sixteen months.....:-(

I've mainly eaten chocolate today. Survival tip No. 103.

Glad you had a better night. I never ever expected to be complaining about DDs sleep when she was 18 months old. No one told me this could happen! :-(

Hi

Unfortunately I need 2 join you all. DS is 1, he has never slept through and wakes up 3-4 times a night.

Currently he goes to bed at 6.30, bedtime routine in place, feeds till drowsy then in cot next to my bed. I stay in bedroom with him and he will take a while to sleep deeply and if I leave will wake. So DP is left in living room while my evening is in bedroom making sure he doesn't wake (doesn't really work). He then wakes at11, 2 and 4 and up for day at 7. He is bf back to sleep.

I'm back to work in few weeks and don't know how I will cope. And everyone around me has great sleepers and make me feel in doing something wrong.

A weary sleep deprived wave to you all

Well DS woke at 5.15am but gas slept through so a good night.

I'm beginning to think this is the norm for most toddlers - I was talking to a couple of parents at a group with DCs the same age as DS. They both have the night wakings and early mornings etc so I didn't fe too bad about DS. One SAHD said he was not having another as sleep was so bad. In fact I remember having refreshing chats with him when DS was around 14-18 months about crappy nap transition and nights thinking thank god it wasn't just me

That's reassuring iggy. I often feel it is just me!

, grobags.

Elizabeth Pantley quotes statistics from a huge survey which found that 47% of toddlers (up to age 3) wake at least once per night and need an adult's help to return to sleep. 36% of preschoolers (age 3-5, I think) did the same.

5% of toddlers wake twice or more per night, and 3% wake 3 or more times a night.

So waking is normal, although waking this much is only a minority of children. Hooray for those of us considering other DC.

choccy, that sounds tough.

Right, after another night with ds refusing to go to bed before 10pm I woke him up this morning at 6.30am. He then had an early but long nap (10.30-1.15!) and fell asleep really quickly at 6.30pm when I arrived home from work to find him tucked up in his pyjamas reading a story with daddy, and breastfed him.

Obviously he is now a perfect sleeper and will sleep through till tomorrow morning, at which point we will repeat the whole perfect cycle once more.

[bgrin]

Good luck Gincognito

Hello everyone, I sympathise totally as DD is 2.9 and waking a couple of times a night, sometimes for ages, and wakes up at 5.30a.m. for the day at the moment. I'm having my 2nd cold of the last 6 weeks at the moment, which I put down to two long hard days at work on the back of particularly sleepless nights.

I don't know how people can cope without caffeine, though I know this is not a long term solution. And having DP give you a lie in, even if it's just an hour, I get that pretty much every day, definitely helps.

No advice, I'm afraid, just wanted to join in, the majority of RL friends do not understand at all.

Well we had two excellent nights here followed by a horror last night, she was up between two and four thirty am.... hate it hate hate it. DP would like a second and I can't even consider it.

Those Pantely stats are v interesting .i have 3 dcs (14, 11, 4) and only the 14 year old sleeps through the night, and he didn't til he was about 8. Only ways to help: teach them things to do whilst they are awake that don't bother other people e.g looking at a book, leave drink and snack within reach before they go to bed. I still do this for all of mine so they don't need me if they are hungry or thirsty . If you can , keep rooms warm so eh don't wake because chilly etc. also (v unpopular advice I know) give up co sleeping and bf if you can (not simultaneously but as and when you can) this is so you can get a break . They have to learn to manège their own sleep and we need to learn not to wake up at every little stimulus from them. Is really hard though. I am always tired still, but it is better than it wash they still wake but it bothers me less. I work ft too. It helps to be out of the house and doing something in the day that is busy as it makes me forget I am tired. Sympathy to you al though.

Don't let one poor sleeper put you off having another baby though, that would be sad. Once you are really really knackered like we all are on this thread, you can't get anymore tired so you might as well crack on and have another one :)

Christine it didn't put me off but boy am I looking forward to a full nights sleep in ten years time

It's put me right off.

:(

We have progress here. :) No time to explain now though as I need to get DS up from his nap or he'll be in bed far too late. Back later (or tomorrow).

hurrah Angel

Hello,

radio 4 had a interesting programme on sleep deprivation recently which said that the worst part of the night not to sleep is between 2 and 4 in the morning as this is when the brain does the most recharging. If you are awake then, or just need some effective napping, they suggested that a sleep of as little as 24 minutes (longer if possible) between 2 and 4 in the afternoon is the best way to recharge and get maximum benefit from a nap. I often use this when my dd2 keeps us up in the wee small hours and it does keep the zombies from the door!

Hope this helps x

Sorry for the looong delay in coming back to this.

That's interesting, WellBooty.

I've found a solution (well, partly) to my exhaustion. It appears that I'm sensitive to sugar, which is (I think) a big factor in me being exhausted and having real slumps in my energy levels at frequent points through the day.

There's an eating plan to deal with it here which basically involves eating lots of protein with meals. I'm not even doing it properly yet but it's made a huge difference to my mood and energ levels.

One part of it is to eat a small potato before bed. Apparently people with sugar sensitivity have low serotonin levels, and this helps to raise them. Serotonin is linked with REM sleep, and having wild dreams after eating a big potato is supposed to be a sign that your serotonin levels are low. I've been dreaming lots more since having a nightly spud, and I'm sure that's helped with the tiredness even on its own.

DS has been sleeping a bit better too - mostly only a couple of wakingsp a night and mostly back to sleep quickly without me needing to rock him. I think you had a good point about tightening up bedtimes , Iggly. He is going to sleep 15-30 mins earlier than he was, which I'm sure has helped.

Now I just need to deal with my sporadic insomnia / overtiredness where I get tired early in the evening but by the time I make it to bed I've got my second wind and I lie in bed awake.

I know this is an old thread so apologies for that, I have been going through sleep deprivation for 11 years...and I know that is a long time, although my situation was different as my eldest fell ill with a urine infection and septacaemia, as a result of his hospital stay and other things he stopped sleeping during the night, the main reason was the side effect of the antibiotics as they caused painful colic, even tho he was breast fed until almost 2. Prior to this he was born sleeping 8hrs solid. At 3 months again combo of antibiotics and vaccinations given too early, he developed eczema so bad that he would wake up 8 times a night. No treatments helped and the Drs were more interested in prescribing more and more creams and criticized me because I said he reacted to aqueaous cream, anyways I co-slept with him until he was about 6, he was a sharp developer extremely bright and was always cheerful unless the ezcema was particularly bad. I was at my wits end, I put on a lot of weight and naturally craved sugary crap, but more than that I wasnt eating enough, yet was putting on more and more weight. I also started having short term memory loss, which worsened as the sleep loss got worse. I ended up buying a treadmill when he was 1, dh was as supportive as he could be but he provided the only income so he needed his sleep, plus ds was very clinggy to me. The treadmill helped keep me going, kept me fit, and provided enough energy to carry. My days involved me keeping ds super busy, activity places, parent and toddler places, gymnastics, friends homes, parks etc etc. At 5 ds developed asthma, hayfever and nut allergy, waking up at night was now 15 times, I know it sounds ridiculous but he was only sleeping for such short periods or he was asleep and scratching/wheezing/coughing/sneezing. The Drs answers were to give strong doses of histamine so he knocked out???? I didnt do that something I felt was very wrong. But through all this I read a lot and worked out as much as I could and made him nap with drives in the car or just lots of running around, and I would sleep at the same time. Reading and running kept me sane. I also had no family support. But this didnt put me off having another child. I looked for alternative treatments as the conventional ones gave no help and were just covering the problems. My eldest starting properly sleeping through the night when he was 8/9 I know that is a long time but I know most of you mums will not have to wait this long. What made things worse was when my youngest was born he slept brilliantly 6/7 hrs then feed then sleep a further 2/3 hrs..perfect!!! The weight fell off I felt like a new person, 6 months later he stopped but it seemed to coincide with us putting a new wardrobe with mirror doors in our room and it was opposite his cot. He started giving me the same problems, but the original sleep deprivation I had got used to and had a pattern, but after having some sleep and then having it taken away hit me physically and mentally so much harder. My hair started falling out and didnt or hasnt really stopped, I gained weight even faster, I became intolerant to wheat and had symptoms of IBS, my memory was sooo bad, that at times I struggled to make sentences and found myself stuttering. My youngest is 4 now and inbetween has times when he sleeps well and others when he doesnt but since at nursery he has been going through anxiety separation, but I also know which I forgot to mention earlier is I get super angry really quickly, and frankly I am a horrible bitch, something I wasnt before the sleep loss. Something in your head stops you from being able to start having a go. There have been times when I felt like I could just see myself shouting away and trying so hard to stop my ranting!!! so as well as the shouting my youngest has not had the best of me, I havent been able to give him all the time the eldest got, which leaves me feeling really bad, but I keep trying. The body goes through so much physically and mentally through sleep deprivation and I havent really been able to find much help at all. Again I went to alternative therapists which have helped, and keeping on top of my vitamins and minerals is also a must. I guess I was wondering if anyone else had been through as much sleep loss as me and what they had found but the serotonin is definately true Angeldog, but the main thing is finding a the reason to why your ds is still waking up, is he hungry, is he cold or hot, does he need to go toilet or is a wet nappy bothering him, is it too bright or too dark, sometimes just moving the position of the bed helps too. But hopefully a year on, I hope you have much better sleep and the other mums too, and that your kids are all sleeping better.
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