Help. I'm so tired

[Snickers94]

Hi. I haven't had a full night of uninterrupted sleep in about a year. My DD is 6 months old but I struggled to sleep when I was pregnant, and now she's still waking up during the night so my sleep is often broken and I'm so sleepy throughout the day with barely any energy to do day to day tasks.

I struggle to fall asleep at night and often don't until around 3am. I toss and turn. Baby goes to bed around 8/9pm and will wake up again before midnight, then again during the night normally between 3-5am, then again about 6-7am, then sometimes she naps but most of the time she lays awake talking to herself. If she naps I manage to get about 2-3 hours of sleep until 9-10am but it doesn't feel like it does anything. Recently she has just been talking in her crib for ages before going to sleep after her feeds and it keeps me awake too. Sometimes she randomly cries out in her sleep and that wakes me up too.

Is it normal for me to feel drained with broken sleep because I'm starting to feel like there's something wrong with me as to why I feel sleepy during the day. Surely most parents just get on with it?

Also, please tell me how you got your babies to sleep during the night. She used to be a little better at sleeping.

Why can't your partner give you an uninterrupted night?

My DS finally started sleeping better around 16 months. Then the shit hit the fab again at 18 months. Then it settled down a bit again at 19 months.

Things that helped a little were:
Routine. Clear routine for you and baby. We didn't start this until 9 months but I wish I had started sooner

7am baby up if not before. Bottle nappy dressed
8am breakfast.
9.30 morning nap
11am up.
12.30pm lunch and milk if needed
2pm nap
3.30pm up
5pm tea.
6pm bath
6.30 bottle story
7pm bed.

Naps in cot in dark white noise sleeping bag dummy.

Sometimes he would nap for longer but that's the sort of schedule we tried.

A white noise that plays continuously all night.

Out DS is still cuddles to sleep.

Going to bed early yourself. No screen time. Wind down. Dark room. Audiobooks if you can't sleep. Vitamins help with energy. Planning meals. Slow cooker to cook decent meals.

It's brutal! It does pass apparently.

Oh and taking it in turns with DH. So weekends he would get up i and I could lay in.

Then when I went back to work we took it in turns to do the night and the morning. Knowing that you're only 24hours away from a decent sleep was a game changer.

So DH does help but he's a heavy sleeper, he often makes her bottles and brings them to me at night and then I do the feed, and then at weekends he takes over the night shift but I still wake up because her crib is next to my side of the bed (I struggle to sleep on DH side of the bed) so her noise and crying wakes me up. Sometimes I manage to fall asleep quickly when he feeds her which is great and on Sundays I noticed I had more energy as I had only been up for a short while on Friday and Saturday night.

But Monday-Friday I do the night feeds because my husband works (from home) but he takes her with him at 9am until 11am so I can get some sleep. I manage to get about an hour then look after her pretty much all day until DH finishes work at about 5.30/6pm. But he normally cooks so I end up looking after her in the evenings too.

Over this holiday though her sleep has gotten worse and we are both waking up (me more frequently) and I feel so tired.

Also, in the morning when she wakes at 7am recently she's up talking and I can barely keep my eyes open to entertain her from sleeping at 3am and waking up once already, so I find it sooo hard to get up and start the day with her. I don't know how other parents do it

Do you have a spare room?

@cruffin

Do you have a spare room?

Sadly we do not :( however we are moving in the new year where we will have a spare room!

@Snickers94 we've just moved our boy to the spare room, he's 6 months and is like your little one but has been even worse the past few days not wanting to be put down. Husband and I now split the night, I do as much as possible until or husband takes over at 4am so I get a stretch... Can you put your baby in the living room for his night time sleeps?

Are all the wakes for feeds? If so have you tried a dream feed before you go to bed to eliminate one of the wake ups?

Do you think you can't sleep until 3am due to the anxiety of how bad the night will be? I definitely get this and at times have had to use rescue remedy or similar.