Sleep. How do I deal with this?

[WittgensteinsBunny]

My toddler (2.5) has a cold and sore throat, nothing serious just a lingering snotty nose and cold and a scratchy throat. Baby (7 mo) is teething and has a cold also. We're doing what we can with olbas oil, nurofen, extra drinks, bf'img baby round the clock as she's off solids. Neither are great sleepers. They never have been. I haven't had a solid night's sleep for over 3 years now. We put in place a much stricter routine for both of them when we moved the baby into her own room and this worked a treat. Ok, so still some night waking but we got our evenings back and I was only tending to babies 3x / night rather than every 1.5/2 hours. I'm literally broken. On the floor, shattered, miserable, snappy... We've now resorted to co-sleeping en famille (that's 4 in our bed!), DH driving the baby around to get her to sleep as and when needed, us placating the toddler with whatever means so that she doesn't wake the baby up with her screaming If she doesn't get what she wants. I've been going to a CBT group to deal with my own anxiety / PND symptoms (which are largely attributed to exhaustion and previous anxiety things coming back); I've been to the health visitor (who suggested the routine); DH took Tues off so I could catch up; Mum & Dad are here this afternoon to help. PILs on Monday to help and I'm back at the GPs on Mon as I had a real low over the weekend. I'm so tired and low at the moment and feel trapped and like an all out failure. I try with the routine but things like colds, teething, tantrums, doing ANYTHING out of the norm seems to throw them. Last night was appalling and I'm just at a loss of what to do.

Lord, I really feel for you. My two year old has been sick for the last seven weeks and I'm exhausted, two would kill me.

I really do think that everything is worse when you are sleep deprived. I thought I might have PND when Dd was tiny, but actually, after handing her over to DH for two consecutive nights and sleeping for 13 hours solid ( DH thought I was dead when he checked on me) I felt so much more human.

If your mum and dad are coming over to help, can you get your head down for a few hours? At least do shifts with DH so one of you does the full night, the other gets to rest?

I'm sorry your toddler has been so ill that must be really hard work. We've tried doing shifts but they just scream and scream and scream until I settle or bf them or bring them into bed with us. We've tried giving a bottle in the night and it resulted in so much screaming that the toddler woke up and started crying "what's happening to my baby sister". So then I had 2 to sort out! Unless DH takes them out in the car he can literally do nothing. I'm going to try and sleep this afternoon. I'm so low.

Hi there,

We're moving this thread over to our Sleep topic now, at the OP's request.

For you, WittgensteinsBunny We know what you're going through.

OP any chance your husband could take the toddler off to his parents' house for the weekend or just one night? At least then it would 'just' be you and the baby....your PIL could help entertain the toddler and your DH could get a bit of rest himself so that he can help again.

I get it, we recently had a similar hellish patch with 2 sick dc. DH took the 1 year old to his mum's and I had the 3 yr old. It was a really good move, I was a bit worried as she is still BF and needy but it was just the ticket. Yours is probably a bit young to do that yet but the toddler could certainly go! Good luck.