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.

[ArgyllFTM]

So glad you’ve decided to call your gp. You can tell the receptionist that it’s personal and you don’t want to say - or, frankly, you can make something up. They only need to know to check the GP is the best person to help and to decide how urgently you get an appointment. I’m a go and if someone was on my list as, say, rash, or contraception, or earache, and then they actually told me they were struggling with their mental health I wouldn’t mind, I’d just be pleased they were talking to me about it

Also, I had PND and yes, it was partly triggered by lack of sleep. But that wasn’t going to change quickly, and the total despair and uncontrollable crying was not a normal reaction to it. Therapy and medication helped me cope with the challenge of having a newborn without feeling so utterly dreadful.

[RedCatBlueCat]

I know you've discounted the AD's, but please reconsider them. They wont, and cant, stop the exhaustion, but in my case they made dealing with everything much simpler. They lifted some of the depression for, and "just" left exhaustion.

[converseandjeans]

He’s quite keen for me to go down the formula route but I feel like that might not necessarily make things better and I have all sorts of complicated love/hate feelings around breastfeeding, don’t think I’m ready to stop yet.

I think your baby might be getting hungry. Why don't you try a bottle at bedtime and see if it works? Then either DH or someone rose could take over while you rest? I don't understand why you won't try it if it would mean you get some rest at night? Mine were having 'hungry baby milk' at bedtime by this age as they needed more to fill them up.

[converseandjeans]

Mine were also having small amounts of baby rice mixed with milk by that age.

Sleep training is the right thing to do for both of you. But it won't work if the baby is still hungry. It won't sleep deeply if it needs more food.

[LetTheBirdsSing]

@converseandjeans because every so often the baby throws me a five or six hour stretch at the beginning of the night just to confuse me. After last night’s shit show the baby then slept for five hours straight (not that I got to sleep all of that time, I was so upset from the argument with DH). I’m as sure as I can be that not all of these wake ups are hunger.

If I switch to formula I guarantee DH won’t be sharing the night feeds with me so it just feels like adding another sodding job to my to do list- washing and sterilising bottles. My DH clearly doesn’t care about taking over so I can rest- last night I tried to hand the baby over for him to settle whilst he was cosy on the sofa watching TV. I got told I was selfish and had the baby handed back to me in less than ten minutes.

[converseandjeans]

letthebirds that's a shame. I bottle fed from about a month but to be fair DH took his turn.
You need to prioritise yourself though. Nobody ever asks how you fed your baby once they're older. Why do you have to carry on with breastfeeding?
Is there someone else who could help out? Maybe DH feels he can't settle baby anyway as he can't feed them?

[converseandjeans]

I had big tub on the side with sterilised water in and used to wash botties after they had been used then just leave them to soak. I just changed water every day. It wasn't a big job tbh.

Someone else can probably advise but pretty sure you can mix feed - so BF and also bottle feed.

I don't think BF is important enough to suffer broken sleep. Most important thing at the moment is getting baby enough food so it sleeps for longer stretches. Not just for you - it's better for the baby too.

[Reader1984]

Express and have Saturday night in a hotel?

Your hubby might be working but he is the father and needs to step up. Can he look after baby until 11pm so you could sleep earlier in the night?

Is day care an option for your 2 yr old? Give you some time with the baby.

Can you get help for everything else? Cleaner? A friend to do the ironing? Someone to make dinner?

Things WILL get better but you need to try and improve the current situation

[Sassanacs]

OP, I remember feeling this like this not so long ago. I became wild, almost feral because I just couldn't cope through lack of sleep and I too could see PND creeping back which terrified me because I had it with my first child.

I know this doesn't help but your 'D'H really is being a selfish cunt. I am absolutely of the opinion that there is no job harder than being a sahp - work is a break in comparison. I've done both (currently sah) and going back to work after mat leave was a breeze.

Please contact your GP as they may be able to sign post you to post-natal support. My area had a support/counselling service that I was able to access because I was struggling so much. It really helped me so hopefully there
Will be something like that for you too.

Whilst waiting for help just keep talking on here if it's the only place you can.

Also I would recommend going for a walk to clear your head and leave the kids with your DH. He is their father and perfectly capable of looking after them. It might help send a clear message that he needs to step up and help you.

Don't be too proud to ask for help wherever you can. Things will get better, you're just in the middle of a very hard time atm. Nothing is your fault and you are doing the best you can.

[ArgyllFTM]

Please also look into HomeStart - they support all kinds of families and they made such a difference to me.

[June628]

OP I really don’t understand the advice to switch to formula. That might help you rest if your DH will do overnight feeds but if he won’t it’ll definitely be more work for you.
I don’t believe that BF in any way affects sleep and you’re probably right that not all the wake ups are due to hunger. If your DH uses the fact you’re BF as a reason he can’t settle the baby that’s a real shame! I BF and my baby has one overnight feed. She might wake up at other times but it isn’t due to hunger and my DH settles her then.
I really hope your DH comes round and decides to start helping because that’s what you really need. Sounds like last night you didn’t ask him to help during the night but in the evening and he refused that which is unacceptable really.
I hope things get better for you soon. You sound like an amazing mum to both your boys and deserve a break!

[LetTheBirdsSing]

@ArgyllFTM just checked and they don’t operate where I live but so pleased to hear that you got helpful support from them.

I got as far as ringing the GP surgery this morning and listening to the Covid information message before I panicked and hung up. Absolutely pathetic.

Spoke to DH this morning. He has apologised. I think he probably felt very unsure of how to settle the baby (neither of us can work our why he got so very worked up last night) but I certainly don’t feel great about it. As a PP said, it wasn’t even the middle of the night, it was the evening. I definitely feel like I’m on my own with this. I said to DH that although feeding the baby is a good way to settle him, it’s not the only way and I can’t be in a situation where I can’t get help from him when I feel I need it.

Also, feeling really, really down because I’ve read on here a lot that mumsnetters have managed to do sleep training with babies without waking older siblings but last night’s episode shows that my toddler isn’t going to blissfully sleep through middle of the night crying. So now I feel like I no longer have sleep training as an option in my back pocket right now.

Suggestions about cleaners, night nannies and other help...all very useful ideas. I guess I am trying to balance the benefit of bringing people into my home to help against the risk of Covid. It’s difficult.

I’ve started another thread in the mental health section to ask for recommendations for counsellors who specialise in postnatal depression. So hopefully there will be some responses to that.

Why breastfeed...there’s a lot of angst tied up with it all. I feel like I’ve had it shoved down my throat a lot that I need to breastfeed and if you’re someone like me who already has a negative running commentary going through your head (as in negative towards myself) then it feels like it’s going to be another stick to beat myself with if I give up. I’m so confused, I change my mind every day about what I should be doing.

I’m not even a good mum right now, never mind amazing, to the kind person who said I sound like an amazing mum. I’m totally bored with my life and feel resentful. When I am having my down days I feel really disconnected from both children and just want to lock myself in the bathroom away from them. Just don’t want to be on mum duty 24/7. I want to read a fucking magazine or watch the news for 20 minutes or any other simple task without feeling like I have to choose between that and much needed sleep. So bored of going to bed with the baby every night and not being able to sit in the garden in the evening to just enjoy the peace without thinking...shit the baby has been asleep 47 minutes. I could have been sleeping for the last 47 minutes! I’m going to regret this tomorrow!

Aaaaand the toddler has just woken up screaming

[converseandjeans]

OP I really don’t understand the advice to switch to formula. That might help you rest if your DH will do overnight feeds but if he won’t it’ll definitely be more work for you.

The baby might be hungrier than your baby. It's great that yours can manage longer stretches. Some babies have a growth spurt and just need more food.

Just because DH may or may not get up to feed isn't necessarily relevant. If OP is the one getting up anyway then surely it's worth a try to see if a bottle of formula helps?

DP doesn't sound completely inept - he does settle the toddler. If all the baby wants is feeding then he really can't do much to help at the moment.

It's not more work if the baby sleeps longer as OP might only be up once a night rather than several times. Washing and sterilising a bottle is really no big deal & preferable to getting no sleep?

[unclemontyscrumpets]

OP I don’t usually comments on these things but I will on yours!

1. I had a night nanny for a bit from 5 weeks and she suggested at bedtime giving baby a ‘top-up’ bottle of formula after BFing, as babies can always take more food than you think and then bottle is easier (and quicker) for them to take it. I don’t know for sure if this is what is doing it, but I’ve done it ever since and baby sleeps well. It also makes a difference knowing she’s had ‘enough’
   
2. Your DP needs to be treating this as a crisis situation, and needs to know exactly what you’re telling us here. Even if he can’t be up through the night in the medium term, he can damn well do it for a week or even a few nights to get you back to somewhere closer to health. If you had a physical ailment instead of depression, would he be leaving you to do it so easily? This issue is for both of you to deal with- and you feeling so alone in this is completely unacceptable.
   
   Having a baby is brutal- I had no idea and I will certainly never be doing it again. Give yourself a break, you’re doing the best you can

[unclemontyscrumpets]

PS I stand with the chorus saying speak to your GP- I did this last week as I’m experiencing PN anxiety. The GP called me the next day for a consultation- she was really good. Just hearing her say that what I was feeling was both very understandable and very common (especially in these Covid times) was reassuring in itself, but I’m also going to do a CBT course. If I thought what Im feeling was bad enough to warrant it, I would take ADs in a second- we have babies and other children to look after, but even if we didn’t we need to be healthy and happy to! Please don’t forget yourself- you deserve to feel ok, and to be helped back towards feeling happy.

[TooMinty]

Your DH really needs to step up. I'd understand slightly more if it was his first baby but you have a toddler too so he's definitely had time to learn, he just hasn't bothered 😕 He better start helping you to get chunks of sleep whenever he can - or what is the point of him?!

I wouldn't pin your hope on formula - my DS1 was like this and my FIL was positive a bottle of formula at bedtime would solve it. It made no difference at all, often I had to bf after the bottle to settle DS and after a while he started to refuse the bottle anyway.

What worked for us was sleep training, although we didn't have an older child to worry about waking. Can your toddler go and stay with a relative or close friend for a few days? I started by doing what you are - feeding to nearly asleep then waking up a bit before putting down in cot. At the same time I introduced a comfort blanket for him to cuddle (he still takes it to bed now at nearly 8 years old). Then I changed the order at bedtime so it was bath, pjs, quick feed, story, bed (in his own room, moved him slightly early as he was not quite 6 months). Pick up put down made him furious, as did going in frequently so we did end up leaving him - however that resulted in less crying overall as he cried for a bit then slept for hours as opposed to waking up screaming every 40 minutes. It did feel awful at the time but I still believe it was the right thing to do for everyone. I was a mental and physical mess (weighed 7 stone) due to sleep deprivation and he was grumpy with big dark circles under his eyes and wouldn't let anyone else hold him (although my family and in-laws did try). It only took a couple of days and the crying stopped and he sang himself to sleep happily. I felt much better and he was like a different baby, happy and sociable.

I really hope you can get this sorted soon, I can still remember how awful I felt and it was 7.5 years ago - tearful all the time, unable to eat, constantly on edge waiting for him to start screaming. And I didn't have a toddler to manage too. Hugs for you x

[Indecisivelurcher]

Ah op just catching up, what a shitter.

So, formula, breastfeeding. Even if you were on formula you may still be night feeding. My ds was formula fed and I found him hard to night wean, he still had one bottle up at night at over 12m. BUT and IF you're baby would take a bottle, then I think you should make your ds responsible for one feed - either a dream feed type thing about 11pm, or say at about 5/6am. You would then get a chunk of sleep.

The second thing that might help is putting a white nose machine in with you toddler, if you don't already do this. They are under £20 on amazon. My 3yo and 5yo still have them on. It'll block out noise.

Thirdly, sleep training is still in your pocket. Your worst night the other day was not what sleep training will be like! You and your h will have a plan, and you'll get it done. Even if your toddler DOES get woken up for a couple of nights, your toddler will cope.

[SacreBleeurgh]

Great that you managed to at least pick up the phone @LetTheBirdsSing - next time you only have to get one step further! I know I’m repeating myself but can see myself again in your sense of hopelessness and there just never being a solution - there’s always a reason not to even try something out, as you feel it’s destined for failure anyway, or alternatively you plan to try something, but not right now - there’s always a reason why it can’t be now and has to be some time in the future. Gosh, this is all so familiar. Again, I promise you that so much of this is the illness talking, and that this perhaps needs to be the first thing you address by making that call!

Like others have now said, medication can really make a difference - I think @RedCatBlueCat puts it really well - they lift some of the sense of hopelessness and despair and leave ‘just’ the exhaustion! And as someone whose breastfed second baby is also waking every hour at the moment, I can tell you that it’s SO much easier to deal with that way! I’m tired, but I’m not lost and sad and distraught and alone. So I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and then the night wakings are just a transient thing to deal with in the moment, and they will end soon. Can you see the difference?

I’d also, if you can, reconsider co-sleeping if you can make it really safe and comfortable for you both - my recommendations are investing in a tempur cloud pillow and a bbHugMe or similar - to use to prop up your back as you lie side-feeding, then you can also roll away and use it to sleep with when you’ve finished. Co-sleeping has been the real saviour for me this time - night feeds take so much less time and you can go straight to sleep again after - neither of you really wake fully in the same way as you have to by getting up and sitting feeding/lifting the baby etc.

[PersonaNonGranta]

OP I'm so sorry you're struggling on. Just wanted to offer another handhold and tell you that your feelings of boredom and not wanting to 'mum' 24/7 are so, so relateable and normal (at least to me!)

It helped me at some points to make a list of all the different things I could try to change one at a time to see what helped which made me feel a bit more in control.

The difference, I'm sorry to say, is that (although we definitely had our spats and our despair) my DH had my back and actively took up his fair share of things at night and/or during days at weekends so that I could go and nap. And he was working full time in a 'big' job. Your DH is calling you all the things that actually he is being. Particularly 'selfish'.

Does he have any female (or male for that matter) friends or relatives that will talk to him, blithely 'assuming' that he is playing a 50/50 role and feign shocked outrage when he or you correct them? Honestly, this sort of public shaming by people they respect is often a pretty good kick up the arse for the lazy in my experience.

[PersonaNonGranta]

Not that it's on you to change his behaviour, I hasten to add. Obviously you have enough on and speaking to the GP is obviously far more important. Just thinking of some potential quick fixes to get you some immediate support.

[LetTheBirdsSing]

Typing in the dark under the duvet again. I know it sounds pathetic but I just want to sit in the garden in the evening for twenty minutes after the kids are in bed, just sit out there in peace for a bit instead of lying alone in silence and darkness on a mattress on the floor of the baby’s room.

Baby was really restless during bedtime feed. Put him down in cot and he kept crying. Tried to get DH to help but baby just got more and more worked up so I ended up going back in to take over.

I really don’t want to go on medication right now. For me personally that is what I will try if nothing else is working. Perhaps it’s relevant that there’s a fair amount of mental illness in my family so I think I find it very hard to outwardly acknowledge my struggles. Someone i think mentioned being offered an online CBT course which would be helpful I think. Talking therapy would be great but I can’t see when I would do it. Evenings, possibly, but I’d have to be able to get baby falling asleep better in the evenings before I could do that.feels impossible right now though I know I’m being unhelpful to defeatist.

Sorry rambling as usual. So tired. Baby is waking up crying 40 mins to 1 hour after falling asleep at bedtime most nights. Any thoughts? Under tired? Overtired? And any suggestions for how to overcome it?

In keeping with my procrastination I have typed out an email to the sleep consultant but not yet sent. @SacreBleeurgh you read my mind perfectly about not wanting to try to change things because of the worry that nothing will work. I have ended up with DS in my bed every night for the last I don’t know how many nights because I get fed up of trying to get him back in the cot. But I hate it. I’m so resentful of not having my bed to myself, it feels like can’t I just have something for myself. Isn’t it enough that I have no evening and don’t get to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. Am truly happy that it’s helping you though. I think I’m too much of a cranky witch to happily share my bed.

Want to reply to more messages as they are all so helpful to think about but I’m struggling to think coherent thoughts so will pop back tomorrow. Thank you again for the lovely, helpful , wise words All.

How the hell am I going to cope with teething? Hasn’t even started yet and I’m already not managing the sleep issues well don’t think I can cope with it getting worse with teething as well

[unclemontyscrumpets]

It’s not pathetic at all, OP. You’re going through something incredibly hard. It will get better- but in the meantime you need some help! Is there anyone else you can talk to about what you’re going through?

[PersonaNonGranta]

If you can bear to make changes, definitely see if you can play with the day asleep. Hope much and when does your DS nap during the day at the moment (just roughly of there is no discernable pattern)?

And oh my goodness, if you can afford some sort from a good sleep consultant, DO IT. A decent one will be a good moral support as much as anything else which you absolutely need, particularly if your husband can't or won't help. Get a recommendation from someone you know and like, ideally, and just press send. You've done the hard bit. X

[converseandjeans]

Is the baby getting too much sleep in the day? Pretty sure by that age mine were awake after lunchtime nap until bedtime.

They're probably either not tired enough for full night sleep or hungry. Are you still not prepared to try a top up bottle of formula at night time?

[QueenBarb]

I used to send DH in after midnight for our non-sleeper. He’d sleep on a mattress with him in our spare room (DH had a single duvet and no pillow, DS was a safe distance away from him in a grobag). We’d get him to sleep for 3 hours perhaps at a time, rather than the 40-60 mins between wakings when he was in with me or in the cot wanting my milk. It seems so cruel that some babies sleep beautifully and some sleep so badly it affects your entire life.

I feel you - it is so so hard. You’re doing brilliantly.