How sleep-deprived were you after your kids were born?

[Anonymous]

It never ended really, because our DD slept horribly and then became a toddler who could get out of bed and cry and run into our room, and continues to do this about once per night at 5, and we had a second child who also wakes up (and sometimes the two kids wake each other up). So I’m up at least 1-2 times a night. And yes, we tried sleep training but we drew the line when both kids cried til they puked.

[Anonymous]

Not bad because my mom stayed with us for the first 6 months after each baby, so even if I had a rough night, I could hand the baby over to her at 5am with a pumped bottle, and get a solid 3 hours before having to get ready for work.

[Anonymous]

My daughter woke every two hours until 9 months when she started waking every 45 minutes. My PPD started getting out of control from sleep deprivation and we had to sleep train. Before that, though, it was hard but manageable because I just napped when she napped during the day.

[Anonymous]

I was actually not THAT sleep deprived, had a lot of help (mom/MIL, then nanny, spouse always did at least one night waking). Had a great sleeper too -- 5h stretches regularly, even with breastfed newborn, and 8h stretches starting at 6wks. But I am someone who is just shaken by disrupted sleep. Cannot deal with <6 hours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was actually not THAT sleep deprived, had a lot of help (mom/MIL, then nanny, spouse always did at least one night waking). Had a great sleeper too -- 5h stretches regularly, even with breastfed newborn, and 8h stretches starting at 6wks. But I am someone who is just shaken by disrupted sleep. Cannot deal with <6 hours.

+1 minus the help. We just had good sleepers (8-10 hours from 4-6 weeks on) and we sleep trained at 4 months (when things all fell apart again). So it was pretty short lived sleep deprivation.

[Anonymous]

Yes.

[Anonymous]

Very sleep deprived with my first who wanted to be held all the time (but we would also change her diaper before each night feed, thus waking her up, and I was militant about putting her to sleep in her crib in our room). Lasted for about 8 weeks and then she started to sleep longer stretches in her crib. With my second, I got lots of sleep - I slept with her in the same bed from the beginning. I would breastfeed her half asleep, she and I would both fall back to sleep immediately after she finished eating. We also only changed her diaper when she pooped in the middle of the night so she was "fully" woken up less often, which made it easier for her to fall asleep, again, I think.

[Anonymous]

1 year.
Even though I was a SAHM and DH helped and my mom was there to help me. I was EBF and no, there is no way that you can get your rest and sleep when the baby is sleeping. I was not able to get into REM sleep because I had interrupted sleep and that was hard, in spite of all the help and resources I had.

[Anonymous]

I think important to the possibly terrified pregnant person who posted this: in general, if you are a person who NEEDS sleep or is starting to have (mental) health issues, you can sleep train at 3-4 months. I have found it’s mostly friends who are simultaneously able to survive on little sleep and philosophically unwilling to sleep train or put baby in their own room that don’t sleep after the first 5 months or so. Of course there are exceptions, particularly with kids with medical issues etc, but sleep training generally works and does not take especially long if you commit.

My niece was crying until she threw up at age 1 and after 2 nights of going in, cleaning up, and putting her back to bed without also including a bunch of rocking and sleepig on the floor next to her, she was back to sleeping normally for 12 hour stretches, which seems like a healthier situation for both parents and child.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:By the grace of God I never fell asleep at the wheel.

I thought my first was a crappy sleeper until I had my second. There will be no third.

Never fell asleep at the wheel. Def had a crunchy bumper from terrible parking jobs and left the keys on top of car when going to grocery store (must have put them on roof when getting baby out). My husband was out of town for work A LOT and I was working/pumping on 2-3 hours of sleep many many months. I was often so tired I became wired and couldn’t sleep. Terrible cycle.

I had a little parting of post partum fog, decided it would be a good idea to tidy up, hid my medical records in the ottoman for some reason, forgot they were there, when the midwife came I said the other midwife took them, then I later found them in the ottoman. DH was working. Not a good situation.

[Anonymous]

I don’t remember but it was absolute torture. My second slept better, so i think I was able to get 4 hour stretches almost right away.

[Anonymous]

I drooled on myself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I think important to the possibly terrified pregnant person who posted this: in general, if you are a person who NEEDS sleep or is starting to have (mental) health issues, you can sleep train at 3-4 months. I have found it’s mostly friends who are simultaneously able to survive on little sleep and philosophically unwilling to sleep train or put baby in their own room that don’t sleep after the first 5 months or so. Of course there are exceptions, particularly with kids with medical issues etc, but sleep training generally works and does not take especially long if you commit.

My niece was crying until she threw up at age 1 and after 2 nights of going in, cleaning up, and putting her back to bed without also including a bunch of rocking and sleepig on the floor next to her, she was back to sleeping normally for 12 hour stretches, which seems like a healthier situation for both parents and child.

It’s also ok to acknowledge to someone that sleep training doesn’t work. Even if you do all the right things, some kids just still wake up and it never works for them. It’s a behavior management technique, and kids are humans and individual and they all respond differently and for some kids and families it just doesn’t work. It’s nice to pretend that if you’re a person with mentall health challenges and who needs sleep that you can count on this working, but sometimes it just doesn’t because your kid didn’t get the memo. And even if you want to sleep train, not everyone wants to allow their infant or toddler to cry endlessly to the point of hysteria and vomiting, and then go in, change them out of puke clothes, and then allow them to continue to cry to the point of puking, over and over again. It feels awful and it is awful and it’s ok if you’re not ok with doing that.

Also, a lot of parents lie about how well their kids sleep because they think it makes them sound like bad parents or that they did the wrong things. My kids have always been crappy sleepers and it’s been hard on me, my body, and my marriage. But I don’t lie about it with other parents, because I don’t care. And I can’t tell you how often people then confess how bad their kids sleep (who previously bragged how well sleep training went or how Larla goes down at 7 or whatever). It’s just a dirty little secret of parenthood and I for one won’t lie to others. I figured out how to live in less sleep because my kiddos don’t sleep well, and it sucks but we deal. Sometimes, being a parenting just sucks. That’s just a reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Man these stories are brutal. I had low expectations (partly because of threads like this) and I really was never sleep deprived. Night wasn’t the easiest but I have an insanely helpful spouse. And so many people knock the “sleep when the baby sleeps” advice but…duh. Sleep when the baby sleeps. I got lots of naps during the day.

Would have loved to, but it took a while to sync up my twins’ sleep cycles. For a while, there was always at least one awake.

[Anonymous]

I was up every two hours breastfeeding my small baby for two months. I actually ran into a wall once because I was so tired. Once she was up to weight, her sleeping intervals lengthened on their own. An arms-reach cradle did help in those early months as did help during the day (nanny) and I got better at sleeping during the day.

Because of nanny and DH, all I had to do was nurse and cuddle the baby. Once I stopped even trying to do anything else beyond showering, I slept better and felt better.