How do you cope with the poor sleep? I thought I was gonna be such a happy mummy but mostly just tired all the time!

[Chocoholism]

4 month old DD who is teething and doesn't like sleep anymore or napping without me.
Everyone says enjoy your baby, enjoy the time and I do but mostly I'm just tired and consequent to this I feel snappy and over emotional.
When does it ever get easier?
How do you cope with tiredness?
I know I probably have it a lot easier than some but it's still hard going

i feel the same as you :( EXHAUSTED!!!! My son is five months, still wakes two times a night....arghhhhhhhhhhhhh. i feel so drained and tired. plus have a two year old. during the day, naps are not long enough!! every time i see progress, he gets sick or something happens to throw everything off. im so frustrated and tired.....wish i could enjoy my kids more...but honestly, i all i feel like doing all day long is sleeping! or having a big glass of red wine lol.

I feel the same , I am only 2 months in but nothing prepared me for the sleep deprivation. I did get some very good advice from here but ultimately sleep will never be the same as pre-baby!

I would sell my soul to the devil for 8 hours uninterrupted sleep haha

And if one more person tells me their baby slept through the night at some ridiculously early age I will kick them in the face. Just saying.

I know! So unfair that some people have babies that sleep through the night early on. I feel I would enjoy my kids more if I had rest. I feel like im just coping on getting by...functioning...but not enjoying my two angels. Plus I get cranky! My guy is old enough to at least sleep from 11-7am! It is so frustrating he keeps waking up! If he doesnt start sleeping through 11pm-7am I will have to start letting him do cry it out...from 6 months.

My baby is six months and am six weeks pg.

Sleeps through, now formula fed and I am exhausted. I can't tell anyone yet either so bright and breezy will be the aim of the game as I to go back to work Monday

Only started sleeping through two weeks ago after starting solids

My DD is 2.8months and still doesn't sleep through... Granted she wakes up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet but it's till broken sleep for me and sometimes she just wakes to call me to tuck her in and the foes back to sleep.

So for the last 3 years and just live win being tired! It's goes from just tired to exhausted, you get use to it and this is coming from someone that had to have 10 hours sleep a night pre DD.

Payback is going to be lots of fun come the teenage years.

Good luck ladies

That should be 2.8years - clearly not months!

Hang in there! It was my toughest time with my son at 4 months. But it does get better and you will sleep again! For us, we started a stricter routine using the 3 day nanny book and this worked immediately for us and made a huge difference. He didn't "sleep through" until later on (he's now 2) but it made everything much easier for me to manage. Good luck

Four months is awful. You are tired anyway then the four month sleep regression kicks in and you feel even worse. Hang in there.

What helped me survive is that dh would sometimes take ds from whatever time he woke up after 5:30 and keep him downstairs where I could not hear him until 8 or 9. Those hours were the ones I slept the most peacefully. Sometimes i would come down and find ds grizzling and dh dozing beside him but I didn't hear the grizzling and ds wasny truly unhappy. Those 3-4 hour windows a few times a week saved me.

Lack of sleep is just so hard- especially when it's night after night :( I used to cry at bedtime knowing what was ahead of me with dd1. It does get better .... Hang on in there and try to rest as much as you can xxx

I hear your pain, OP. DD is seven months and still an atrocious sleeper. While I am coping, and love being with DD, I feel drained, grumpy, stressed and inadequate most of the time. I had a decent night the other night (thanks to early night, plus lie in) and I had a sudden glimpse of how much fun this would all be if I was getting enough sleep. I guess the only thing to do is keep ploughing on and look forward to when it does at last get better.

I feel your pain too. DS is nearly 9 months and is still waking at least once a night as well as deciding to start his day at 5-5.30 everyday.
He is also an awful day time napper, just 30 minutes for each nap. He is slowly killing me.....
I'm just trying to hold on to the hope that one day it will get better and I will get some decent restorative sleep.

It's hell isn't it

My advice would be to stop expecting them to sleep through the night. Sorry if that sounds patronising, but taking that pressure off yourself and your baby removes a layer of the stress, ime.

Also go to bed early, drink lots of water and always have plenty of biscuits in

My advise - Change your expectations (Kelly mom website has good info on normal night wakings) and also co-sleeping (following safety guidelines) and feeding lying down.

Saved my sanity and I loved the snuggles. Best moments ever.

A few of you sound like you have good sleepers for the age. I think 2-3 wake ups a night before 1years is quite normal and expected. Part of being a parent. I know it sucks.

Mamabear - why do you think 5months is old enough to go from 11pm-7am?

My daughter was waking every 2-3hours until she was 14months.

kellymom.com/parenting/nighttime/sleep/

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8680184?dopt=Abstract

How do I cope? Gin and Mumsnet.

(Two DCs, eldest is 5yo, youngest 2yo - light at the end of the tunnel)

Bulldozers - bc my daughter did. And usually he wakes for just a couple of ounces. I Know every baby is different. For now I just let him do what he wants. If he wakes. I feed him...second feed of the night I bring him into bed and breastfeed on and off sometimes. But by six months if I don't see improvement, I need to do something about it. I need my sleep or I feel cranky during day. Plus I've got an energetic two year old who wants my attention during the day as well as five month baby

Hi I'm new and wanted to share that wen my ds was born my friends told me about contented baby book by Gina ford it was only 99p of ebay and is fab I followed it from ds bein 3 wk old and he slept threw from 7 wk old, the routine was always down for7pm woke him at 10.30pm 4 feed and then he we'd wake once for a feed and then go til 7am the routine got so u was only waking once in middle of nite, she is old school but it really works I passed my book on to my niece and she's passed it on and it's got loads of advice on other stuff. For 99p it's worth a try.

Good luck. Xx

totally agree with bulldozers, my DS11wo wakes every 2-3hours every night. I'm EBF so I've heard that that makes it harder for a complete night, but I've never expected an 8hour night to be fair. Furthermore I am very sceptical of parents who -smugly- claim that theirs sleeps through, they often use every trick in every book to achieve this: swaddle, use a cot mobile, put the cot in another room, etc etc etc.

I've decided to stop comparing my DS with others as it can be depressing when you consider how little sleep that you are getting (yet I seem to be accomplishing more than my well rested compatriots). Shortly there'll be other challenges on the horizon (walking, reading, speaking etc) which will spur a renewed sense of failure.

just love your LO op and love yourself. rest when and if you can and ignore the rest (give a double kick from me too )

I felt like a zombie when mine were little!

I got through it by formula feeding, earplugs and alternate lie ins at the weekend.

Sympathies, it does get much better xx

Don't expect them to sleep through, takes pressure off.

Dd is early 14 months, she's slept through once, a good night is two wake ups, bad periods (which we are in at the moment) is anything from 5-15. I work full time too.

At almost a year, with a baby who has never slept more than 4/5 hrs (and more commonly 2hrs at a time) I second about removing expectations.

Also baby sleep isn't linear - it doesn't get better and then necessarily stay that way. We've had better spells and worse spells. LO has 8 teeth already and has had a cold pretty much for 4 months solid. This can knacker their sleep. And why wouldn't it - they are in pain or feeling poorly so of course they need you in the night.

I'm a big believer too in remembering that babies have emotional needs 24/7 so just because they are only feeding for comfort through the night doesn't mean that it's a need that doesn't need to be met IYSWIM.

I have also met lots of parents who did exactly the same thing with their babies and would have one who slept and one who didn't, this to me makes me think a lot if it is inherently down to a babies make up whether they are sleepers are not.

As for coping - coffee, snacks, fresh air and a 'good enough' approach to cleaning, cooking, personal appearance etc. Co-sleeping if it works for your family.

It's really tough, I woke about every two hours when pregnant too so I'm at about 20 months of never sleeping more than 4 hrs at a time. I just keep telling myself it will get better.

It does get better honestly

Dc1&2 slept through from 10-12 weeks old

Then dc3 came along and didn't sleep through til ten months, she still occasionally wakes now at nearly 13 months! I didn't know what had hit me!

It gets better if you go back to work!

My twins woke twice a night each until 2.5 years. I found that once I was back at work an not responsible for anyone's life during the day, my brain could switch off a bit at work and I was overall more rested (despite responsible job and looong commute).

I think it's normal for children to wake in the night. To be honest, I rarely sleep all the way through as an adult (kids aside) as I wake for the loo/a drink/to move the covers and pillows about. Kids struggle to do those things for themselves, so wake us when they wake to do them.

It does get easier, I promise :)

I feel everyone's exhaustion - my daughter woke every 1-2 hours until she was 15 months old - by which time I'd gone slightly mad. She was a terrible teether and loved cuddles and bf-ing more than anything else. CC did not work as she vomited if left alone for even a few mins.

It all improved once we night weaned and got on top of the teething - if you want to read our story and all the natural remedies and tips we used - here's the link to my blog - mydaughterwontsleep.com/melissa/

I napped in the day with my daughter to catch up on sleep, and gave up the coffee (switched to green tea) so that when I did sleep it was better/deeper sleep. Also I made sure that I was eating really well - starting with a greens smoothie every morning. Then eating every 3-4 hours with including protein at each meal.

Here's the recipe for the smoothie: Blend the following:

1 cup almond milk
1tsp coconut oil (for energy)
1tsp cashew or peanut butter
1/2 banana
handful of frozen blueberries
1 tsp spirulina or chlorella

Good luck with it all!!