Sobbing at 5am (me, not DC)

[NotHungry]

DS4 has had an awful week of sleep, waking 3 or 4 times in the night, sometimes staying up for up to 2 hours.

Very unlike him but he has a virus of some sort. While he was sleeping so badly the baby had actually finally started sleeping through which felt like a cruel joke!

DS has now been back to sleeping properly but the baby is awful again. Seriously don't get it, he slept for 11 hours for a week but now keeps waking and not settling.

I've been up with the baby since 3am, they're finally settled again but my eldest got woken by the last bout of screaming and is now wide awake.

I'm so overwhelmed and silently crying. How do single parents seriously do it? I feel at the end of my rope. Am I just a crap weak parent? Physically I'm OK but the sleep deprivation is so emotionally crushing it impacts my mental health so much.

No question really but needed to let it out.

sending bucket loads of sympathy and my best advice would be tv/iPad is your friend. Ds watches it whilst you doze and hopefully he might have a nap later to give you some time with just baby or you might even have them both asleep at same time although don’t focus on that too much just incase doesn’t happen. Low standards for little sleep days, take it easy and plenty of coffee!

Thank you so much for the sympathy. DS got mad after an hour and had a tantrum which woke the baby up again. I honestly wanted to scream! It's going to be a looooong day with two overtired children.

The problem with the ipad is that even if DS was quiet I really struggle to sleep when I know one of the DC is awake. I also really struggle to get back to sleep when woken up in the night.

I wish I had an on/off switch and could sleep on demand it wouldn't be so bad then!