I am stuck. I am lost. I feel angry. I am exhausted. I have so many feelings at the moment and very few of them are positive.
I am not sure if I am experiencing ppd again (had it with my dd) or if what I am feeling is pure exhaustion from such chronically broken sleep.
My son now eight months old, used to be a good sleeper but now wakes really frequently (last night every 1/2 hr for the first 2 hrs, then 2 hourly after that), sometimes is up awake for 1-2 hrs at different times, sometimes screams and nothing will help - rocking, holding, being in bed with us - its like he is so tired but doesnt know what he wants. I am at a point where i dont know what to give him and dont even have the energy to give him anything. What reserves do u draw on when you feel you have nothing left to give? I am really losing the plot now - swearing under my breath, feeling such intense feelings of rage towards him and my situation that i slam doors, feeling detached from him (i hate him for pushing me to these extremes of rage and sleeplessness). My exhaustion is pushing me to extremes of internal rage and frustration and dissatisfaction with my life.
I love my children more than anything in the world and worked long and hard to conceive my son after a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy. He is such a wanted and loved baby and the feelings of completeness i experienced after his birth were joyous and overwhelmingly beautiful which is in such stark contrast to the feelings of detachment and indifference I am experiencing towards him which in turn makes me feel so guilty for feeling this way. I wanted him so much and now i have him i feel so out of control and tired.
I feel like i have nothing to give my beautiful bright 6 yo daughter and am increasingly snappy and short tempered and untolerant. It is not fair to her. I hate feeling like this - it is totally out of character.
Last month i was experiencing anxiety with heart palpitations and crying all the time. My mum came over to help woth housework and help me to rest but my nerves were so shot i couldnt even lay down - i was so wired i couldnt rest/sleep. I experienced a completely black two weeks. I think i had a mini nervous breakdown. We enlisted the help of sleep 'trainer' to see if we could help our son. We wanted to cling to anything to make this better - some of her points were good - early bedtime, soothing consistent nighttime routine, etc etc but it still doesnt seem right to make him cry to get to sleep.....Night wouldnt be so bad if we knew how to help him. But when boob, cot, co sleeping, rocking etc doesnt help we are at a loss.
We went through 2 yrs of sleepless hell with my dd and she was more high needs than my son is. I lost it and went on meds when i weaned her. It was a beautiful bandaid.
From what I read and hear of others experiences, babies nightwaking is completely normal and the best thing to do is ride it out, it will pass, give baby what he needs, do whatever you can to get through it etc etc But that is all well and good if you can cope. I am not coping with my current situation. I hate nighttime now. The sun starts going down and i feel the familiar dread of the pain of impending broken sleep and a babies cries that cut through my bones. If this is so normal how does everyone out there cope when the sun sets? It is torture and I am a fairly calm person by nature and I cant do this anymore....
I want and need more sleep. I want to be a good patient mama to my two beautiful children. I want my baby to rest peacefully. I want to feel positive about my life and not despair that the next two years are going to be this vortex of sleepless hell that is sucking the life and light out of me. If the next two years are gonna be more of the same and I am not coping now, are meds the answer?
Ive been taking some natural remedies, homeopathics, st johns wort, magnesium supplements etc and seen some mild reprieve from dark thoughts in the day but i just keep losing the plot at night. I like to do things as naturally as possible and lost a lot of weight in getting myself healthy for conception, pregnancy and birth - the thought of going on meds and becoming a fat blob again...sigh I just feel stuck like i dont have any answers and cant see a way out of this except time.....
It doesnt help that my sister has an 11 mth old who has been sleeping 12 hr nights for the last two months. She was breast and bottle fed right through from birth and now just has a bottle at night. Is baby nightwaking worse when you breastfeed?
Im sorry this has been so long - I just needed to get my thoughts off my chest.
I am not sure if I am experiencing ppd again (had it with my dd) or if what I am feeling is pure exhaustion from such chronically broken sleep.
My son now eight months old, used to be a good sleeper but now wakes really frequently (last night every 1/2 hr for the first 2 hrs, then 2 hourly after that), sometimes is up awake for 1-2 hrs at different times, sometimes screams and nothing will help - rocking, holding, being in bed with us - its like he is so tired but doesnt know what he wants. I am at a point where i dont know what to give him and dont even have the energy to give him anything. What reserves do u draw on when you feel you have nothing left to give? I am really losing the plot now - swearing under my breath, feeling such intense feelings of rage towards him and my situation that i slam doors, feeling detached from him (i hate him for pushing me to these extremes of rage and sleeplessness). My exhaustion is pushing me to extremes of internal rage and frustration and dissatisfaction with my life.
I love my children more than anything in the world and worked long and hard to conceive my son after a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy. He is such a wanted and loved baby and the feelings of completeness i experienced after his birth were joyous and overwhelmingly beautiful which is in such stark contrast to the feelings of detachment and indifference I am experiencing towards him which in turn makes me feel so guilty for feeling this way. I wanted him so much and now i have him i feel so out of control and tired.
I feel like i have nothing to give my beautiful bright 6 yo daughter and am increasingly snappy and short tempered and untolerant. It is not fair to her. I hate feeling like this - it is totally out of character.
Last month i was experiencing anxiety with heart palpitations and crying all the time. My mum came over to help woth housework and help me to rest but my nerves were so shot i couldnt even lay down - i was so wired i couldnt rest/sleep. I experienced a completely black two weeks. I think i had a mini nervous breakdown. We enlisted the help of sleep 'trainer' to see if we could help our son. We wanted to cling to anything to make this better - some of her points were good - early bedtime, soothing consistent nighttime routine, etc etc but it still doesnt seem right to make him cry to get to sleep.....Night wouldnt be so bad if we knew how to help him. But when boob, cot, co sleeping, rocking etc doesnt help we are at a loss.
We went through 2 yrs of sleepless hell with my dd and she was more high needs than my son is. I lost it and went on meds when i weaned her. It was a beautiful bandaid.
From what I read and hear of others experiences, babies nightwaking is completely normal and the best thing to do is ride it out, it will pass, give baby what he needs, do whatever you can to get through it etc etc But that is all well and good if you can cope. I am not coping with my current situation. I hate nighttime now. The sun starts going down and i feel the familiar dread of the pain of impending broken sleep and a babies cries that cut through my bones. If this is so normal how does everyone out there cope when the sun sets? It is torture and I am a fairly calm person by nature and I cant do this anymore....
I want and need more sleep. I want to be a good patient mama to my two beautiful children. I want my baby to rest peacefully. I want to feel positive about my life and not despair that the next two years are going to be this vortex of sleepless hell that is sucking the life and light out of me. If the next two years are gonna be more of the same and I am not coping now, are meds the answer?
Ive been taking some natural remedies, homeopathics, st johns wort, magnesium supplements etc and seen some mild reprieve from dark thoughts in the day but i just keep losing the plot at night. I like to do things as naturally as possible and lost a lot of weight in getting myself healthy for conception, pregnancy and birth - the thought of going on meds and becoming a fat blob again...sigh I just feel stuck like i dont have any answers and cant see a way out of this except time.....
It doesnt help that my sister has an 11 mth old who has been sleeping 12 hr nights for the last two months. She was breast and bottle fed right through from birth and now just has a bottle at night. Is baby nightwaking worse when you breastfeed?
Im sorry this has been so long - I just needed to get my thoughts off my chest.
: It's a horrible, horrible feeling...
