Give it to me straight: sleep deprivation

[Anonymous]

I think a lot of people in here are saying the sleep deprivation is real and that you adjust to it in the end and it's all worth it.

It was worth it to me also, but I did have the experience of only having had one full night of sleep for 11 months after my daughter was born and myself being the frog on boiling water who didn't realize how sick/depressed/sad I was until I pulled myself out of it. (I insisted on doing sleep training and cried it out with my daughter for 4 days at which point things got better). I was losing myself a little, bit by bit. As a person, I was disappearing.

So it can be a serious thing, and I would be careful not to minimize it, especially if you know going in that your body requires a certain amount of sleep. You might be okay. But you might not be, and you won't know really until you're in it.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those saying night nanny, how much does that help if you are BFing? If you are still being woken up 3x a night and have a hard time falling back asleep, that doesn’t seem like it would help.

No, a baby nurse doesn’t help the sleep aspect much if you are breastfeeding. To establish a supply you need to be feeding or pumping every few hours in the beginning. My daughter started sleeping through the night pretty early- by 6-8 weeks- and through trial and error I think I pumped late at night before bed while she slept and then didn’t feed until she woke up. But this doesn’t work for everyone and I never made as much as au did for my firstborn; where I pumped around the clock (and he didn’t sleep through the night until sleep training at close to a year.)

Long story short- good sleep habits, formula feeding, and baby nurse all help odds that you’ll sleep.

I disagree. My first was a terrible sleeper and so for our second we got a night nanny. I still breastfed but not having to deal with getting up, changing diapers, reswaddling and getting the baby to go back to sleep was amazing. I also would try to nurse right before the night nanny got there and then only have to wake once to nurse in the middle of the night and then nurse again right when the nanny left. Night nannies usually do 8 hour shifts so like 10 pm - 6 am so its not like you're going 12 hours without nursing. Also nursing was way easier the second time. I just had way more supply so I was able to pump enough extra milk for a weekend within a week. With my first a whole day would only result in one serving of milk. I didn't do anything differently . .it was just.what happened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

This is not universally accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

This is not universally accurate.

I think it's true in the sense that you cannot count on getting an uninterrupted night of sleep as a parent the way you can as a non-parent. Even once your kids are sleeping through the night, to PP's point, there's illness, nightmares, pooping a diaper, having to go potty, etc. I have a 2 and a 4 year old and while we can go weeks with nobody getting us up at night, and there can suddenly be 3 nights in a row where our sleep is interrupted by one or both kids. I find I don't sleep as soundly as a did pre-kids because I'm always half expecting to hear a cry, or footsteps coming down the stairs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

This is not universally accurate.

I think it's true in the sense that you cannot count on getting an uninterrupted night of sleep as a parent the way you can as a non-parent. Even once your kids are sleeping through the night, to PP's point, there's illness, nightmares, pooping a diaper, having to go potty, etc. I have a 2 and a 4 year old and while we can go weeks with nobody getting us up at night, and there can suddenly be 3 nights in a row where our sleep is interrupted by one or both kids. I find I don't sleep as soundly as a did pre-kids because I'm always half expecting to hear a cry, or footsteps coming down the stairs.

I am the PP who started sleep training at 2 weeks.


After 6 weeks, I was getting weeks and weeks of uninterrupted sleep. I also had a child who loved bedtime routine and would run happily back to his room as a toddler.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

This is not universally accurate.

I think it's true in the sense that you cannot count on getting an uninterrupted night of sleep as a parent the way you can as a non-parent. Even once your kids are sleeping through the night, to PP's point, there's illness, nightmares, pooping a diaper, having to go potty, etc. I have a 2 and a 4 year old and while we can go weeks with nobody getting us up at night, and there can suddenly be 3 nights in a row where our sleep is interrupted by one or both kids. I find I don't sleep as soundly as a did pre-kids because I'm always half expecting to hear a cry, or footsteps coming down the stairs.

I am the PP who started sleep training at 2 weeks.


After 6 weeks, I was getting weeks and weeks of uninterrupted sleep. I also had a child who loved bedtime routine and would run happily back to his room as a toddler.

Which is great and wonderful! But OP is in no way guaranteed to get such a child, so she might very well be signing up for 6+ years of interrupted sleep. It's the uncertainty that is hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hi. I have a 6.5 and 1.5 year old that both sleep all night in their own rooms. I still have not slept past 630am in almost 7 years. You don’t ever get uninterrupted sleep again. There is always something (someone loses a plushie in the night, someone has a cough, nightmare etc). Mom is always “on”. I have learned to sleep deeply when I can and we are never up after 11 anymore unless it’s a special night out.
It’s the reality of being a parent of young kids.

This is not universally accurate.

I think it's true in the sense that you cannot count on getting an uninterrupted night of sleep as a parent the way you can as a non-parent. Even once your kids are sleeping through the night, to PP's point, there's illness, nightmares, pooping a diaper, having to go potty, etc. I have a 2 and a 4 year old and while we can go weeks with nobody getting us up at night, and there can suddenly be 3 nights in a row where our sleep is interrupted by one or both kids. I find I don't sleep as soundly as a did pre-kids because I'm always half expecting to hear a cry, or footsteps coming down the stairs.

I am the PP who started sleep training at 2 weeks.


After 6 weeks, I was getting weeks and weeks of uninterrupted sleep. I also had a child who loved bedtime routine and would run happily back to his room as a toddler.

Which is great and wonderful! But OP is in no way guaranteed to get such a child, so she might very well be signing up for 6+ years of interrupted sleep. It's the uncertainty that is hard.

Right. If you only have one kid and they happen to be a great sleeper, then that's the best you can hope for. Having two kids doubles the chances of someone needing something, and so on. But I'm an only child was a great sleeper and even my mom agrees she never slept quite the same---even in later years there's needing to pick your kid up from a sleepover gone awry, and a teenager staying out after curfew...Just comes with the territory.

[Anonymous]

It was manageable with our first. Our second nearly rose our souls wirh extreme colic and literally never once took a bottle.

[Anonymous]

I almost checked myself into the hospital and ended up having my estranged mother whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years move in to help me because I was incapacitated with sleep deprivation and literally had a psychotic break. My situation is rare, but it is real and can happen. My child is the worst sleeper on earth and no amount of training or medical intervention has solved it. Our lives have fallen apart from lack of sleep. At 16 months we now have enough help and are coping better, but she STILL doesn’t sleep through the night or ever fall asleep independently for naps or night. If we’d known this could happen we wouldn’t have had children. Beware.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I almost checked myself into the hospital and ended up having my estranged mother whom I hadn’t seen in 15 years move in to help me because I was incapacitated with sleep deprivation and literally had a psychotic break. My situation is rare, but it is real and can happen. My child is the worst sleeper on earth and no amount of training or medical intervention has solved it. Our lives have fallen apart from lack of sleep. At 16 months we now have enough help and are coping better, but she STILL doesn’t sleep through the night or ever fall asleep independently for naps or night. If we’d known this could happen we wouldn’t have had children. Beware.

I’m really sorry to hear this, PP. That sounds really horrible and is definitely atypical. Please try to remember that you are in the very earliest stages of parenthood. In a few years, especially once your kid is talking, your relationship with them will be much richer. The first few years are a drop in the bucket of your/their whole life.

[Anonymous]

If you breastfeed, a lot of those hormones really help. I’m the same way as you OP, but I managed. Those hormones are powerful!

[Anonymous]

Sleep deprivation is mainly from women making bad choices like breastfeeding.

Husband is in charge of baby from 8 - midnight. Formula feed.

You go to bed at 8 and wake up at 3. Should get you a five hour stretch.

Sleep train at 5 months.

[Anonymous]

Before you have children you need to get on the same page with your husband about wake-up’s. You cannot do it all for 4mo.

A night nurse is great even if you’re nursing— the putting back to bed segment isn’t your work, and you don’t have to get out of bed except to use the bathroom yourself. Nurse brings baby and water and a snack, nurse comes back and takes the pumped milk if you’re doing a pump after feedings, nurse brings you breakfast in the morning before she leaves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sleep deprivation is mainly from women making bad choices like breastfeeding.

Husband is in charge of baby from 8 - midnight. Formula feed.

You go to bed at 8 and wake up at 3. Should get you a five hour stretch.

Sleep train at 5 months.

If by "bad choices" you mean following medical advice then yes. I'm not saying that medical advice is right but in my experience the problem is not that women make "bad choices" it is that the medical establishment harangues them into being the sole source of nourishment for their child and gaslights them into thinking it is "their choice".