Lack of sleep is ruining my life.

[numberthirtytwowindsorgardens]

My daughter has always been a rubbish sleeper. Now 10m, she's improved in that she no longer wakes every hour, but she wakes some time between three and four and doesn't go back to sleep. Bringing her into our bed doesn't work; she just screams. I've night weaned her; that didn't work either.

As a result of this, I no longer sleep. I go to bed around eight, wake some time between midnight and two, and that's me up for the day. I feel like shit all the time. My head hurts all the time, I cry at everything, I have no patience with my older child.

What do I do? I can't go on like this.

I agree with this, I often slept badly in anticipation of being up a lot and found it stressful not knowing when I’d be up next. There was so much pressure to be asleep I’d often be awake. Your babies sleep isn’t great but if you can’t sleep when she’s asleep then that’s the big problem. I used to listen to this type of thing as well as ASMR on YouTube and half the time I’d wake up having fallen asleep.

Oh bless you x
Try you tube videos for mindfulness they help switch off your brain, there's probs some exclusive for sleep
Good luck

I don’t have a whole lot of advice, but I just wanted to say that I’ve been there and it’s rubbish, I went back to work when dd was 8 months and spent the best part of the year after googling ‘can you die from sleep deprivation’ on a daily basis. The good news is you can’t and things do get better. Try to get yourself some mental health support, even if it’s an over the phone/online/app based.
I found ‘Ramblings’ on BBC sounds great for helping me drift back to sleep in the early hours- it’s basically Claire Balding going on a walk and narrating it- very calm and no sudden jolting sounds.
Things will get better, in the meantime there’s coffee and cake to help with the tired days x

@numberthirtytwowindsorgardens Total Sympathy for you; one can function or survive on 4-6 hours sleep a night. Can you access any child care so you can get some much needed sleep?

@singlemanreadymealplan Sleep deprivation is known to contribute to weight gain as it disrupts hormones; especially the hormones leptin and ghrelin. When they become out of whack it increases appetite. Hope you can improve your sleep routine soon!

You can take sleeping pills, you will still wake to the baby, they will just help you get off to sleep and stay asleep. I know this because I had them prescribed when one of my children was an infant.

Same with sleep management. I hired a sleep consultant and followed the advice to the letter. Got him marshalled into a tight daytime routine but nights stayed tricky for years. Turns out he has a disorder which affects sleep. However, I had him in bed with me and he became much more peaceful.

Woth regards to your own sleeping, your body can quickly forget healthy sleep patterns so you may need to teach it again. It’s called sleep hygiene and there’s quite a lot of literature about it. Basically you need to try to stick to a bedtime and getting up time, keep your room free of distractions such as screens, work gear, quit alcohol and other substances and foods that affect sleep (caffeine after midday etc)

I’m sorry your dr was not more supportive.

You’re right, you can’t go on like this, and not should you. If you can call on help at all please take it, get yourself a couple of days to get some rest and start a new routine. X

You poor love. I think it's time for sleep training. Look up the Ferber method. I sleep trained at 7 months as I couldn't cope any longer and it saved my sanity!

Hi op, I used to be a pro-musician and kept absolutely crazy, irregular hours. It often resulted in mot being able to get to sleep and doing several days in a row driving round the country on no sleep at all.

A friend with insomnia issues gave me the best advice. She said that I had gone two days with no sleep, done two gigs, a day of teaching and driven from London to Coventry and everything had been fine. I should just stop worrying about it and just lie there and rest, even if not sleeping. It really helped take the anxiety about it away and made it easier to sleep. And if I didn't sleep at least I would rest.

If you can go to a hotel for a couple of nights. Get the sleep you need and let her DF deal with her. If you're not there she will eventually go to sleep.

Once she's had a couple of nights without you she should be able to settle better.

I'd do sleep training in this situation. She needs the sleep and so do you. Exactly this happened to me when mine was just over one. Sleep training worked and I felt like I'd won the lottery, being able to get 8 hours a night. My daughter was much, much happier during the day too. I felt like sleep training was a gift for us both.

A few kind people have suggested sleep training (@SallyWD @bakehimawaytoys @Mangoloverr ) - can anyone advise? I'm up again after she was up crying every 10 minutes or so from midnight - she's now been asleep for over an hour but I won't get back to sleep tonight. I can't bear it. How do I sleep train? We've done Ferber and it hasn't worked; she'll cry herself to sleep, but it doesn't stop her waking all the time. What do I do?

Bloody hell @numberthirtytwowindsorgardens this sounds rough.

Where is your DP in all of this? You say she won't settle for anyone else. What would happen if DP was setting her and you just weren't there? That would be my advice. You need to break the feed to sleep cycle
So that DP can help. It will be awful. Exhausting. Hard. With lots of tears all round. BUT it will mean rang you can get some support. You cannot function on so little sleep you're heading for a breakdown.

Could you express at first a bottle for DP to give? No doubt she will refuse at first but eventually when she learns no more boob to sleep she will give in. Also stop feeding to sleep in the day.

What's her daytime sleep schedule like?

Would you consider weaning from breast completely? How long until you are back ar work as this could take time.

When she is crying out what does she want?

I don't know! Sometimes she'll go back to sleep after a cuddle, sometimes she won't. Sometimes she'll sleep in bed with me, sometimes she just screams. I just have no idea what she wants.

She's such a happy baby during the day, but st night she's just awake all the fucking time and I don't know why.

Ok so she doesn't want anything specific.

What's her daytime sleep like?

Poor you, that's rough. I recommend trying some melatonin. It's not a sedative so should be fine with breastfeeding (although I haven't checked). It's gentle but i find it much easier to fall back asleep in the night if I've taken one. It's over counter where i am but you should be able to get it in prescription in UK.

Thank you for such a kind message

She won't take a bottle. She never has, expressed or formula. She started settle sessions at nursery roday because I'm back to work at the beginning of December and I have no idea how they're going to either get her to sleep or drink milk.

I don't really know what to say about DH. I don't know whether he's useless or I'm just a controlling bitch anymore. I suspect the latter. I also think that my marriage is probably going to be casualty number one of all of this, but frankly I don't have the energy to think about that at the moment.

How do I stop feeding her to sleep? If I lay her down without, she'll just scream and won't go to sleep. At the moment, she sleeps for half an hour at nine and at two.

Thanks again x

She feeds to sleep at nine and at two, and sleeps for half an hour (maybe 40m) at each of those. She often also falls asleep on me in the afternoon when I feed her sfter her afternoon nap, but she wakes up if I stop feeding her.

Thank you

I know I need to stop feeding her to sleep, but I just don't know how to, and I haven't wanted to do it while the transition to nursery (which is going to be hideous - she hates everyone who isn't me) is going on. Maybe I'm wrong about that?

I think this is very tricky as there lots going on

• you're feeling guilty about nursery and returning to work so 'giving her what she wants' by feeding to comfort her. Also presumably a comfort for you.

• she consequently won't settle for anyone else as she associates you and and your boob with all the comfort.

• you then are on your knees and no one can help you.

What would happen if you just removed yourself completely? She wouldn't scream forever. For forbid you became poorly and were in hospital say?

Can you introduce something else to comfort? A comforter or something? What's her weaning like? How much solids is she having?

I think she needs more daytime sleep. What about moving to one nap? A longer one. I used the just chill mama sleep guides to help me have a really strong routine. Granted my first baby was born in lockdown so it helped we had no where to go. But you could be really strict for a week or so. Will he hellish and hard work. But worth in long run.

justchillbabysleep.co.uk/success-story-11-months/

You also need to get DP on board. Say enough is enough and you want to rake this but will need his help.

When we were going through this I had to literally leave the house as I couldn't cope with the screaming at first but my husband held strong and dealt with baby and it stopped. He would then settle (probably from exhaustion) but it did happen.

Something has got to give here for your own sanity.

Daily you've said you haven't wanted to stop feeding her to sleep. Unless you're totally
Committed to it (the not feeding to sleep) it won't happen

I suggest try to tackle it one feed at a time. Do what you can to settle her too sleep without milk before 2am for example. If she gets used to this then she knows where's nothing worth walking up for before 2. Then push it a little bit further again.
I found this method a lot easier with DH help as DC didn't associate him with milk but this only lasted a few days before exhaustion got the better of him, he just couldn't wake up anymore. It eventually worked for me during a growth spurt and DC was too tired to stay awake for long.

Sorry, I should have said - she doesn't feed overnight anymore. I night weaned her a while ago in the hopes it would make her sleep better - it didn't!

I feel for you OP, it’s tough. I too struggle to get back to sleep once baby wakes, granted I do get back to sleep but usually just in time for wake up. At 7 months, I decided to stop feeding in the night. He got a banana before bed with a bottle and DH got up with him in the night for a few nights so he couldn’t smell my milk. It really worked and now he wakes only if he is unsettled, mostly sleeps til morning. I hope you can get some rest. My MH was taking a turn and I knew I needed sleep x

You are so kind, thank you.

So, in no particular order:

She has a comforter (a soft toy); I'm not sure she particularly likes it, but she hasn't latched onto anything else really. She always has it in her cot.

She's an excellent eater. Eats more than my 3yo does!

I don't know how to get her to nap for longer. Sometimes she refuses to nap in the morning, and then she only has one nap, but it's still 30m and she's just hideously overtired. (Who am I kidding? She spends her entire life overtired.) She's always needed more sleep than she gets; I just don't know how to give it to her. She just screams jf you try to extend a nap.

In that case I expect nursery is just what she needs, it will tire her out more.

I know this doesn't solve the feeding in the day issue but I'm sure it should all settle down when you're both used to a new routine.