Too exhausted for TTC weeknight sex

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Girlfriend, if you don't have the energy now as a childless couple, I doubt you will ever have more than one. If you are this tired now you might also want to consider how you are going to handle the real exhaustion that comes from taking care of a small child. We are TTC #2 now and the reality is if this is a priority, you make the time for it and suck it up. You're currently childless - why can't you just have sex first thing when you get home?

I know I can only handle one child. I am not a very high energy person. Next cycle we need to plan better, get way more sleep so I have more energy when I come home. Right when I come home is when I have the least energy--drained from the workday. I need an hour to recharge, and then eat dinner, and then I have a bit more energy. Sex is also quite painful for me, so this is a factor also. Gyn has not been of any help with that problem.

Lube? Try pre-seed. What kind of jobs do you guys do? Why are you so low-energy? Could their be dietary/fitness issues at play? Not trying to be snarky at all, but you may want to think these things through a bit. We changed a lot of our health habits after having a child. They are a huge demand on your time and energy and saying "mommy is too tired" just doesn't work.

OP here. I got tons of bloodwork done in the last few months to prepare for TTC. They found nothing. I am just a low energy person. Always have been. I need 9 solid hours of sleep to feel good, otherwise I feel tired and dragging. DH has a very high stress, 80 hour per week job, my job is a normal job but it tires me out--very busy.

9 hours? Hahahaha! Ha! Seriously? Hahahaha.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You lost me at "10 hours of sleep." You aren't cut out for this life, if you think you're tired now.

This.

In fact, the more I think about it, this post is unintentionally hilarious. Everything the OP says is ridiculous in the face of what it takes to raise a newborn, infant, toddler and preschooler. (I will allow that it gets much easier once they hit about age 5).

Agreed. I have a 3 year old and neither my husband or I have slept 9 hours YET. I have never shown him a DCUM thread, but we are cracking up at this. OP can not be for real.

[Anonymous]

To be fair, I don't think many of us would have said, "yes, I can do that!" if told pre-baby about how little sleep we would get. The body and the mind does adjust, somewhat. But - if op really can't function on less than 9 straight hours of sleep then she needs to consider herself disabled and hire 24 help for a few years.

[Anonymous]

OP: you will count your blessings if you get 5 hours of sleep a night for the first year. Or how about the way that everyone needs more sleep in the first trimester. Will your requirements go up to 12 hours a day?

WHY ARE YOUR DOING THIS? Seriously, this sounds like the worst idea imaginable. If you are too tired for 10 minutes of sex what the hell are you going to do when you have a child? Even with a nanny when you get home at night YOU will be feeding your child, bathing, putting him/her to sleep. You expect your husband to do all of this so you can languish in 9 or 10 hours of sleep? How selfish can you be? The evening routine takes a couple of hours. This doesn't include quality time playing with or holding the child, or do you expect to farm all of that off to the nanny and DH so you can sleep?
And back to the original problem, YOU DON'T HAVE THE ENERGY FOR 10 MINUTES OF SEX? And only a couple nights out of the month, at that. You have no business having a child unless, as PP said, you consider yourself disabled and hire full-time help. Which takes me back to the question of why you would do this in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You lost me at "10 hours of sleep." You aren't cut out for this life, if you think you're tired now.

This.

In fact, the more I think about it, this post is unintentionally hilarious. Everything the OP says is ridiculous in the face of what it takes to raise a newborn, infant, toddler and preschooler. (I will allow that it gets much easier once they hit about age 5).

Agree it's easier at 5 but even then you do more than just come home, eat dinner and watch TV. I'm with the crowd that doesn't see how OP will do it. There is nothing like that baby fatigue.

[Anonymous]

Sounds to me like there already is a baby in this relationship.

[Anonymous]

And when they turn 5 and have after school activities and lessons will mom just say, "Sorry, I'm too tired for you to have a life."
I hope the OP is just a troll. I don't think she is but I'm crossing my fingers that she doesn't go through with a baby.

[Anonymous]

Do you really think you can never get up with a baby and your husband will do it all? You know a newborn eats every 2 hours right? It's not like we're talking about losing an hour of sleep. Have you thought about if your body can handle pregnancy if you're this low energy? I don't want to come down too hard because I can't tell if this is a medical issue or a laziness one.

[Anonymous]

OP. I don't like the tone of a couple of the above posts and I am sorry you have to read through that. The content of the posts is good though. I think you probably already know that there is a problem. Have you had your vitamin D checked? Have you been checked for auto immune issues?

I have raised many kids including fostering babies. So I have done a lot of bottle feeding.

Formula feeding is definitely a good decision for you. Sounds like a good part of your plan if/when you have a baby. However, formula feeding is also exhausting in the night. The bottle has to be prepared and then fed to the baby. Baby then gets changed, burped. Then baby decides not to go to sleep for a while but to play with your nose and earrings and look around. you rock the baby. Then more bottle. More burping. Ooops... Baby just filled the diaper completely so you change the diaper. Start over with trying to get baby back to sleep. No luck. You go outside and baby quiets down as you look at the stars. You tiptoe back in and lay baby down. You lay down and sleep. You have been up for an hour.

1 hour and 42 minutes go by. baby is awake again. You start over. If it is your DH doing all the nighttime baby stuff, then DH looks at the clock and realizes it is time to get up for work because it is now 5:00 am. So now you are on duty and baby is awake and you have not slept even if DH has gotten up for baby.

Meanwhile DH goes to work and simply can't hold it together for 80 hours/week because of exhaustion.

A nanny is necessary I think. And maybe a night nanny too for the first year. Can you stay home and focus on baby (with nanny there?) and work on reclaiming your health? If you rest during the day while nanny is there to help, could you then have energy to get up at night?

I am just trying to brainstorm solution that might work under the circumstances you are in.

You will figure it out. Glad you posted because it can be helpful to get some realistic feedback from people who have been there!!

P.S. when you are bottle feeding in the night, we have always found it helpful to have all the bottles ready at bedtime with just the dry powder in it, already measured exactly into each bottle. Then we filled a thermos with the (very) warm water at the right temperature for the baby. The thermos kept the water just right and quite warm all night long. When baby awoke, we poured the warm water from the thermos into the bottle, shook it and it was immediately ready. So baby did not cry long. I believe in a warm bottle because it helps them digest and they don't wake up as fully as they do with a cold bottle (which some people do just fine, and that works for them and their babies ... It is very individual). We also took the thermos with warm water in the car for on the go feedings. This way you have warm bottles but don't have to heat them up, either at night or on the go. We like to camp in the summer and the babies go along and so does the thermos for middle of the night feedings in the tent!!!

[Anonymous]

Thank you PP for your helpful post above. You have all definitely given me some more things to think about, I know it will be hard. Interesting that PP above brought up the Vitamin D issue. I had extensive blood testing before TTC, and everything was normal except that I was found to have extremely low vitamin D--like so low my Dr. could not believe how low. I have no idea how long this has been going on, and everything else was normal--iron, thyroid, etc. However, my doctor said that there is no connection between low vitamin D and feeling tired. I am now on Vitamin D supplements, and have been on them for 3 months. I don't notice any difference in my energy levels, though I know it can take many months to bring them back up to a normal range. So maybe my low energy is because of low Vitamin D, maybe not, but at least I am working on correcting the problem. I have always been like this, though it was much worse in my 20's.

It's not that I'm non-functional if I don't get 9 hours of sleep. I am still able to work full-time and get my job done well. But I just don't feel good during the day--dragging towards the end of the day, and when I come home I can't really get any chores or errands done. DH is the same way--he will often take a nap when he comes home from work to be able to get through the evening. So it's not just me who is low energy and drained by the end of the workday. When I get 9 hours of sleep I feel fantastic--full of energy. Different people have different levels of energy.

DH and I have already agreed that we need a full-time nanny. We may need a nanny at night, too, we'll see. We have no family in the area, so we are aware we will need to hire a lot of help. I would really prefer that neither of us have to give up our jobs, but I don't know how either of us will be able to function well on such broken sleep. I may need to go part-time. Will have to think more about this.

[Anonymous]

I am the pp who asked about vitamin D. Absolutely this can be the reason for your fatigue. Low D and fatigue go hand in hand. (your MD should know that!)

You should be starting to feel better. The typical protocol is 50,000 for six weeks, followed by daily supplementing of at least 2000.

Get your numbers checked again and make sure it is on the rise.

Have you had a complete blood count down?

[Anonymous]

I remember the first time my first child slept almost 6 hours as an infant. She was about 5 or 6 months. I felt like a new person, like I could run a marathon. Then it didn't happen again until she was a year old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp who asked about vitamin D. Absolutely this can be the reason for your fatigue. Low D and fatigue go hand in hand. (your MD should know that!)

You should be starting to feel better. The typical protocol is 50,000 for six weeks, followed by daily supplementing of at least 2000.

Get your numbers checked again and make sure it is on the rise.

Have you had a complete blood count down?

OP here. Yes, I had a complete blood count done. All was normal. I was tested for everything to prepare for TTC. The only thing that was not normal was the low Vitamin D. Who knows, I could have been having low Vitamin D for years and maybe this is why I feel tired. However, not only did my doctor say there is no correlation between low Vitamin D and fatigue, but a second doctor who I went to said the same thing. So I don't know what to think.

Anyhow, I am not noticing any change in energy level since starting the supplements. In fact, if anything, I have been feeling way more tired lately, but I think that may just be the winter blahs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the pp who asked about vitamin D. Absolutely this can be the reason for your fatigue. Low D and fatigue go hand in hand. (your MD should know that!)

You should be starting to feel better. The typical protocol is 50,000 for six weeks, followed by daily supplementing of at least 2000.

Get your numbers checked again and make sure it is on the rise.

Have you had a complete blood count down?

OP here. Yes, I had a complete blood count done. All was normal. I was tested for everything to prepare for TTC. The only thing that was not normal was the low Vitamin D. Who knows, I could have been having low Vitamin D for years and maybe this is why I feel tired. However, not only did my doctor say there is no correlation between low Vitamin D and fatigue, but a second doctor who I went to said the same thing. So I don't know what to think.

Anyhow, I am not noticing any change in energy level since starting the supplements. In fact, if anything, I have been feeling way more tired lately, but I think that may just be the winter blahs.

OP, here is a link to an NIH publication supporting the notion of a link between fatigue and Vitamin D.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068797/

I'm the original PP here. Are both you and DH vegetarian? If so, it would seem that deficiencies in your diet are likely the culprit. You need to make sure you are both getting enough D, iron, calcium and magnesium.

[Anonymous]

Honestly if you are that low energy, the both of you, why have kids? It is not a requirement to have kids.