Is it survivable?

[BlackRibboner]

Hi all

Please tell me how you got through this, if anyone did. 2yo has never slept through, can count on my fingers the number of nights we've had more than about 4/5 straight hours. I've tried controlled crying, staying with him, gradual movement away, early naps, late naps, no naps - nothing makes a difference. We've now given up and co sleep from whenever he first gets up, usually between 10 and 12. Some nights this means a bit more sleep for everyone, some nights he thrashes and kicks so no one sleeps and we're black and blue on the morning. I have an ebf 5 month old in the side cot too, so nights are not peaceful. No chance to catch up in the day as they don't sleep at the same time, plus baby still prefers to sleep on me and will only cat nap in the cot.

I am exhausted. I mean to the point where I'm walking round like a zombie, I don't feel safe to drive, I struggle to focus enough to listen to anyone and on more than one occasion I've been unable to talk - I've opened my mouth and actual gibberish has come out. I was signed off from work with exhaustion between pregnancies and if I weren't on mat leave I think I would be now too. DH and I are at each other's throats and our relationship isn't great atm, even though our feelings for each other haven't changed. I'm still just about managing to parent the kids with love and attention, but the TV plays a much bigger part than I would like.

Please, anyone who's been through this, tell me there's light at the end of the tunnel? I don't know anyone who has a child so old still not sleeping and no one seems to be as exhausted as I am, which makes me feel like I'm being weak or exaggerating and I should just buck up. Tell me I'm not abnormal, tell me I'll get through this without divorcing and/or admitting defeat and just walking away from it all. Please?

Well my son is 23 and has autism and I can count on the fingers of one hand the numbers of times he has slept through the night in 23 years so I can vouch that you will survive if nothing else. Not sure it's healthy though. No real advice though because in my experience they either grow out of the bad sleeping or as in my son's case they don't. I can tell you once I stopped expecting a decent night's sleep it was much easier to cope with though.

flesh how do you cope? I have to say that period of my life almost broke me. I was so shattered - not so much physically but mentally. The inability to function, to react normally to people and situations, to make good judgements, to recall essential information, and the constant feeling of dread which I now guess was the cortisol and adrenalin trying to keep me awake - I had those for eight years and I really did feel insane with tiredness at times.

Mina I've just got used to the lack of sleep and slowly I have adjusted and now I can manage on two hours sleep a night and I'm perfectly fine on four hours a night. I separated from my exh last year and he goes to his Dad's twice a week and so now I do have two nights a week that I can sleep for as long as I choose but I rarely sleep more than five hours even if I do get the opportunity.
I don't think it's healthy at all though but don't really get a choice. Medication doesn't work on ds and even if it did I'm not sure that it would be a good thing for him to be on longterm anyway.I try and focus on the positives,I've read hundreds of books overnight that I might never have been able to, I sometimes get up and iron or do some other job to get it out of the way so feel like my time awake has been worthwhile.If I only thought about the sleep I miss out on and worry each night that I might be up most of it then I think it would drive me mad.

My son would still be up every night only for the melatonin. I would be dead only for it and I think he would be very ill also. I will give it to him for the rest of his life if he needs it.
There is no way I could go through with that again. Bed time was dread time.

3lucky Melatonin doesn't have any effect on ds and so the only alternatives are sleeping tablets and the like. Bizarrely they have the opposite effect on him and make him hyper. If melatonin worked I'd be happier about giving him that than I would be about the sleeping tablets though simply because they would need to be prescribed in larger doses to keep working.
I'm happy enough to manage as we are though so it's not a big issue here anyway and ds is thriving on little sleep.

Oh you poor thing honestly in your situation I think I would stop breastfeeding, have a night in a hotel then alternate nights with DP on the sofa with earplugs until things improved a bit.

Nothing like what you are going through but we have had spells if sleep deprivation with our 2 that have made me question if I'm safe to be looking after them out and about. You need to prioritise your self care now, they are both old enough to cope without you for spells - you will be a better parent for it.

Thank you all for the help and advice, I really appreciate it and have been thinking about things.

I'm as sure as I can be at such an early age that it's not ASD - DS's communication skills are fairly advanced, both verbal and non verbal, and there are no early warning signs as far as I can tell. Adenoids is something I hadn't considered, as is silent reflux - he was a very sicky baby and that carried on until he was about 1, so could well have been just the external symptoms that stopped.

He wakes up crying, then will (generally) settle fairly quickly in our bed, sometimes with a drink of water. Very occasionally I can put him back in his bed, but most often that will be met with a massive tantrum and screaming which can carry on for hours. We have done controlled crying, after holding out for 20 months - within about 3 nights he slept through and we seriously thought we'd cracked it, but it lasted for less than a week before he was up again. We tried to go back to controlled crying but after a fortnight of screaming for 2+ hours every night we ran out of strength and just let him come in with us. We'd previously been pretty strict on not doing that but it's the only way we've been able to get even half decent sleep a couple of nights a week.

Introducing mix or formula feeding isn't the right thing for us atm, though I can see why people are suggesting it. My supply this time round is low enough that I think mix feeding would lead to a complete drying up and I'm lucky enough to find breastfeeding a breeze, with a baby who latches well. Switching to formula, with all the faff of having to sterilize and rinse bottles and make it up at exactly the right temperature etc would make my days a lot harder and (as the baby is fortunately an excellent sleeper) only save one or two brief wake ups a night, at least one of which usually coincides with the toddler anyway.

I think I need to go back to the GP - I have spoken to both them and the health visitor before, but the doctor told me to wait and see and the HV said it was generally a parenting issue and I wasn't dealing with it properly. At the time I hadn't tried controlled crying etc so just accepted that I probably wasn't doing things right :( But seeing the baby sleep so well and reading all of your responses on here, I think actually that's not true and maybe there is an underlying issue. Time to get back to the surgery with a more assertive attitude . . .

Oh yes, DS was just 2 and DD was 3.5 meaning I never had not even one full nights sleep for 5.5 years! But now at 4 & 6, I don't think I've been up in the night even once in the last 6 months, it's horrific, but it will end and it's all the more amazing when it does! Hang in there!

OP you poor thing. Following as I’m exhausted with a 1 year old who wakes up more often than not. On a weekend could your dh be on duty over night to give you a rest? Do you have a spare room?

Even if you stay with the baby and your dh sees to your toddler. You need a rest.

I think you need to let your dh feed baby a bottle of expressed milk or formula for one night and see to toddler and you sleep a full night. One night shouldn’t affect your supply too much. Is there a grandparent your toddler could stay overnight with?

What PasstheStarmix said

at HV who says it's a parenting issue. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. Some children sleep, some don't. I think one of the greatest anxieties with a poor sleeper is the feeling that it's all your fault and if you just followed all the suggestions like pps are trying to be helpful making here, controlled crying, formula etc, then it would improve. I am biased as I have a two yr old who has been a horrific sleeper, she's getting there now but regularly still up once a night. I feel a lot more confident now that it's just the luck of the draw and people who haven't spent months up every hour or two will never understand what it is like. Having your second be a great sleeper shows you that it's child-led. You are doing wonderfully to continue to be kind and loving - that's the main thing and what will have the lasting impact, not doing things to force them to sleep because it doesn't suit you. Big hug to you. I also feel shit about tv - I'm writing this as mine watches Thomas after having been up at midnight for an hr, then I woke for a pee at 4 and couldn't get back to sleep, then she of course woke at 6 as I was just sleepy again. Pregnant and feel ill with fatigue. I just pray that the second sleeps! And if reading is remotely an option for you, I really recommend a book called 'how not to hate your husband after kids'!! It's great and very relevant...