Baby waking all night and I no longer see the point

[LetTheBirdsSing]

Baby is just shy of five months old and had slept well from birth, up to about a month ago he would do 5 or 6 hour stretches at the beginning of the night and settled well after a feed.

But now he’s waking every 1-2 hours most nights. Last night he did a 6 hour stretch and I thought we might be coming out of this hell but no, I’ve been up all night again.

This is my second baby. My first baby slept terribly and was not a very settled baby (he is now 2). I ‘lost’ the first year of my eldest’s life to postnatal depression; I cried pretty much every day for the first year of his life.

I am slipping down that path again and I feel a lot of it is due to sleep deprivation, as well as the social isolation of lockdown. I am so tired and I can’t think straight. I feel like I’m losing my mind. I find myself not really wanting to be alive anymore as I feel alone and joyless. I am feeling really cross with my baby waking up all night. I don’t know why he slept for six hours straight last night and then not even two hours in a row tonight. I am so, so sad that I am falling down the postnatal depression rabbit hole again. I had all of these plans in place for coping well second time round and the Covid situation has just wrecked them all- childcare for my eldest a couple of days a week, which would allow me to do some exercises each week and attend some baby groups with the baby. That would be good bonding time with the baby but also get me out and about with other mums.
My husband works from 6am Monday to Friday so there is no rest. I’m just alone and exhausted. I don’t know how to find joy in life when I am so exhausted. I don’t know how to cope with this.

[LetTheBirdsSing]

@goosious I’m so, so sorry to hear that. I think long wake ups are just the worst. Is there any sign of something causing her discomfort do you think? I guess the obvious ones are teeth or maybe her digestive system is struggling a bit with solids? I’m so sorry, I wish I could get you some sleep. It’s absolutely awful.

@Anonposter12345 that sounds very difficult too. Do you think it could be separation anxiety? Does she fall asleep ok without you in the room at night or are you there with her?

@OhToBeASeahorse thank you SO much. It honestly really helps to hear from people who have been in this situation and come out of the other side. It’s so hard when you’re “in it” to feel like things are ever going to end...or maybe you know they will but you just can’t see past the here and now.

@PersicariaBistortaSuperba well we had a night where he was all dosed up with calpol and still had a terrible night with a long wake up and then he was unsettled after that. DH apologised for blaming me for not giving calpol previously and acknowledged that it hadn’t helped. So no more calpol for DS until I feel that he needs it.

[Anonposter12345]

@LetTheBirdsSing she falls asleep no bother with me in the room as long as she can see me , although when she falls asleep I usually wait a while before leaving the room and she still wakes up when I’m leaving I’m not making any noise she just somehow knows , flips on her tummy stands up and cries at me for me to come back so I’m back to square one each time until about an hour later , Then when I finally sneak out without her waking , I go down to have a nice cup of tea And before I know it she’s wakes up again around an hour after I left the room so I wait to see if she will settle back down , if she doesn’t within a few minutes I go back in and that’s me in bed for the night. I’m just missing some me time my partner walked out on me when I was pregnant so I don’t really have much time to my self, I have my parents but they work most of the time and my Dd prefers to stay with me.

[LetTheBirdsSing]

My goodness, what a hard time you’ve had of it @Anonposter12345. How do you feel about trying some ‘gradual retreat’ sleep training with your daughter? It wouldn’t be a quick fix but might be worth a try?

[Kate3150]

@LetTheBirdsSing- how are things? X

[Kate3150]

@LetTheBirdsSing- How are you? X

[LetTheBirdsSing]

@Kate3150 hi, thanks so much for checking in. Sorry I didn’t reply to your previous message, just been tied up with pre Christmas prep!

Things are going ok, thanks. I’ve had a few better nights with only wake up and then back off to sleep again which has been such an improvement. I’d tried a few nights of doing a controlled crying approach after his milk feed so I don’t know if that’s helped at all or if he was uncomfortable from a tooth that was coming through (I was previously giving calpol when he woke up in case that was the issue but we were still getting 2hr + wake ups.

Still finding life hard going. Feel lonely and isolated as a SAHM at the moment, well I have done all year. I’ve got DH off work over Christmas which is wonderful but I think it’s going to be very very hard when he goes back. I’ve been having Christmas in sight to keep me going and come January I’ve got nothing to work towards if that makes sense. I don’t know how to make friends with young DC (so can’t have an uninterrupted conversation), under tier 4. The few activities that are taking place, we are all masked up and spaced apart. I am trying to nurture the few friends that I have but it’s hard. I feel like they are very important to me but I’m just on the periphery for them...if that makes sense.