[Phoenix~Mama]

HELP!!!

Everyone keeps telling me this is par for the course as a working Mom and that people do it all the time.

Can someone please tell me how???

I'm running on 3 hours of non-consecutive sleep right now. My body won't stop twitching and I feel utterly sick to my stomach. My eyes are completely red and killing me.

DD was up til 1am, then woke again at 3am, got her back to bed at 3:30, I had to be up at 5am.

Seriously... how do working Moms do it? I can't seem to figure it out! Please help!

 

[slvsquared]

It gets better. I promise <hugs>

When my first was born, I went back to work after 6 weeks off (unpaid). I was on call two nights a week and two weekends per month, which meant I answered the pager and the phone all night and all day, nursed the baby while I took calls, and generally felt like I was going to die.

I remember googling and trolling forums trying to figure out how the h##l other moms were doing it, because I certainly wasn't capable...eventually, though, we settled into our days.

Someday, she will sleep

Until then, some of the nights and days just SUCK! If I had a really rough night/day at work, I tried to lay down with her and nap in the evening while I nursed - is this a possibility?

Also, try to figure out things you can do to make life easier on the bad days. Can you purchase a few frozen meals and keep them on hand, or use the crockpot? Can you clean just on the weekends, or have someone in to help you? We switched to paper plates for awhile - not the most environmentally friendly, but it was that or my sanity.

For at least the first year, in my opinion, working is just hard. I own my own business now, and work from home some days and the office the others, and it's STILL hard. Go easy on yourself - those other moms you see either have older kids, easy babies, or just aren't letting on how crazy difficult it is to juggle sometimes.

 

[tootaloo78]

Popping in from the sahm's if it's ok...I used to woh when my oldest was a baby and I remember feeling exactly like that. i also had to be up at 5:00.

utside of drinking way too many energy drinks I found that when it really got to be too much I took the baby to my mom and went to bed. Even if it was just for an hour after work it helped so much. I also took a couple of sick days when I had been up all night. I fell asleep at the wheel one night with ds in the car and that it was it for me, I knew that it was too much to do by myself (DH is impossible to wake and that was more trouble than it was worth). It's important to the whole family that you take care of yourself so ask for help when you need it, what you are doing is hard and there's no shame in asking for some help when it gets to be too much.

 

[caenach]

It's hard--I really feel for you! It does get better. I know everyone says that, but it still feels like every week is just eons and eons long.

Co-sleeping and side-lying nursing save us. Seriously, I would just give up without that. I don't know if you are doing this or if it works for you, but it helps so much. I still wake up multiple times per night, but only enough to stick the boob in the baby's mouth.

The other thing was just me letting go of having an evening or time at night to myself or to do chores or anything like that. We go to bed whenever DD gets tired. 7. 8. Whatever. Sleep when you can. DH does the dishes. Dust accumulates. We do laundry on the weekends.

I cook as many meals and meal-components as I can on Sundays so that during the week I only have about 20-30 minutes of active cooking.

Also. I know it's hard to take of yourself--I mean, even to get a shower or to blow-dry your hair. But keep well hydrated. Breastfeeding and running like a crazy person all day and getting no sleep = very, very bad. If you're not taking a multi-vitamin and omega-3 oils, you might consider that. They helped me. A little Rescue Remedy helps me on really bad no-sleep days, right before meetings and so on.

 

[_betsy_]

How long have you been back to work?

It gets easier. Are you pumping at work, too? I swear, closing my eyes and pumping is the best break from work. I've never actually fallen asleep this way, but just shutting out the stimuli has been key.

Sleep as much as you can. Go to sleep before the baby, even, if you can.

I work nights, so I'm home around 1 a.m. and my kids are up for the day sometime between 8 and 9:30. And I'm nursing a 3 mo, so it's not like I can just sleep straight through uninterrupted (she's sidecarred, and I can't really sleep through nursing, that's just me). 3 days a week day I have DH home in the mornings, so that helps, but I still don't get nearly enough sleep.

It's hard. But they're only little for a short time.

 

[JudiAU]

It is hard but it gets better. I was very, very tired the first year. I usually shut my eyes while pumping. DS did some reverse cycling and loved to night nurse.

We didn't cosleep all that often and that was my biggest regret. We should have just found a better place for DH to sleep. The thing that helped me the most was to go to bed very early every night and then DH would get up with the babe and I would sleep for another hour or more.

Personally, I don't think most people tell expectant mothers the truth. Either because they forget, or they don't want to worry the hormonal-crazed, or they had a miracle sleep-through-the-night baby, or they did some sort of horrible CIO.

Working full time and having an infant is just hard.

Best of luck momma. You'll get more sleep soon.

 

[Ellien C]

Three hours of non-consecutive sleep is not enough. You must put on your own oxygen mask. Is there someone who can take the baby and some of the precious pumped milk and let you get a good 6 hours of rest?

Long term - what can you change? Are you bringing the baby to bed with you? Do you have a partner? Have you delegated everything you can to them? I was so toast, that DH poured the daily BM out of the pump bottles, prepped the next day's bottles and washed the pump parts! We used paper plates for dinner and I threw them away. You cannot go on like this. Something needs to change.

You get to make your own rules now, and only mop your floor once a month and sweep it weekly. Cut down on laundry by reusing as much as you can. Cleaning standards need to be much, much lower! There are a few threads in mindful home management that as "How often do you...." (wash sheets, vaccuum, change towels etc) and you can tell I'm the WOHM!

 

[chi_mama]

It does get better, I remember being at work on a Thursday and realizing I hadn't even hit the double digits for sleeping that week. What worked best for me.
co-sleeping (could not have survived w/o), going to bed around 8:00, taking a short nap after work while ds marathon nursed. I could get about an hour in. It meant we either ate cereal, take-out, or dh cooked (none of which was a big change b/c I was nursing for that hour anyways).

as pp said 3 hours in unconsecutive sleep is not enough to survive.

 

[guestmama9915]

Why isn't the hubby helping? It does get better. Take naps when you can. A child being up until 1am is not doable for a working mother. What are you doing when she wakes? When my kids ever did that (tho I know I was lucky), sorry, lights out and you can sit there in the dark.

 

[Phoenix~Mama]

I do co-sleep with DD, and side nurse. This helps, but if she does not want to lay down, she thrashes around and it keeps me awake. She is a little night owl, for sure.

I am taking vitamins and omega-3's too. and a good B complex.

I do take a nap while side-nursing when I get home from work... no matter what I have tried I feel like utter crap.

My biggest issue is I do not sleep well. Any little thing keeps me up or wakes me up and it takes me forever to get back to sleep. So if DD wakes up at 1am, feeds til 1:15 or so... I may not even fall back asleep til 2am or later.

I do have a DH, but he works nights so he can watch DD in the mornings. So from the time I get home til I go to work in the morning I'm on my own.

DH does come home at about 12:30 am, but he does his own thing til about 2:30am then goes to bed to get up with DD at 8:30 or so. He helps on some chores.

Basically my routine is:

~ Get up at 4:15am to get a shower
~ 5:00 am, wake baby, change her and feed her
~ 5:30 am, pump the other side throw lunch and breakfast in a bag
~ 6:00 am, leave for work
~ 6:30am - 3:00pm work, pumping 4 times at work
~ 3:30pm, get home, put all pumped milk in fridge, snuggle baby and hope she feels like napping
~ 4:00pm - 5:30pm nap hopefully (try to put in at least a load of laundry some days before laying down)
~ 5:30pm, nursing/playing with baby, she likes to nurse forever when I'm home at night, so generally it's just plopping somewhere and letting her do so. (if she decides to detach for a few minutes I try to get laundry into dryer, and get dishes put away from dishwasher)
~ 7:30pm My Mom comes over to see/play with baby while I eat dinner, clean up dinner, wash bottles, and set up bottles for next day.
~ 8:30pm baby still usually wide awake and either wants to play or nurse some more, if playing we play on her playmat on the floor and do tummy time and such, if nursing, typically in front of TV
~ around 9:30/10:00pm is when baby finally starts to get sleepy enough to bring upstairs. sometimes it's really great and she will nurse quietly and I can sleep... other times she will thrash while nursing keeping me up til midnight or so.
~ 1:00am I always wake up wether baby is sleeping or not, I think this is about the time DH gets home and is making himself somethign to eat.
~ If I fall back asleep before 2:30 am, I wake up when DH comes to bed. No matter how quiet he is, the second he is in the doorway, I wake up. I'm an awful light sleeper.
~ DH snores... that usually prevents me from falling back asleep, or it wakes me a lot.

So there is my day....

 

[lanamommyphd07]

vacation days are no longer for vacation. and the house is not nearly as beautiful as it once was. I've also noticed that I have a strange ability now to recover from one lost night with just a small nap or one good night of sleep. It used to take much longer....

 

[guestmama9915]

Sleep in a different room.

 

[PaigeC]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSMa My biggest issue is I do not sleep well. Any little thing keeps me up or wakes me up and it takes me forever to get back to sleep. So if DD wakes up at 1am, feeds til 1:15 or so... I may not even fall back asleep til 2am or later.

I have this problem too and white noise really helped me. I have a fan on (faced into the corner so we have the noise without the cold air) and it blocks out all of the little noises that would wake me up.

Also, I listen to meditation by belleruth naperstak and after time you get better at getting back to sleep!

 

[slsurface]

Quote:

Originally Posted by caenach It's hard--I really feel for you! It does get better. I know everyone says that, but it still feels like every week is just eons and eons long.

This is SOOO true! I remember sitting on the toilet one morning and skimming a magazine so I wouldn't fall asleep. I saw an article that said newborns were supposed to sleep 14-16 hours a day. I just SOBBED!

My DS never slept for more then a 1/2 hour at a time. I was so terribly sleep deprived for the first year that there were many times I thought I would literally die! But the good news is I didn't. I'm sure the lack of sleep may have shaved a few years off my lifespan, but I did make it through it...

I guess my only other words of comfort are that you are not alone in this misery.

Quote:

Originally Posted by caenach Co-sleeping and side-lying nursing save us.

Yeah, I second this! I vowed that I would do this for #2. My DS had terrible GERD and couldn't sleep horizontally, so co-sleeping was not an option for us

.

 

[Ceinwen]

My life hasn't gotten ANY easier. I'm a single WOHM to a six year old and a sixteen month old - who still gets up every two to three hours at night.

She's never slept longer than two to three hours - EVER. It's awful... You know, they say sleep deprivation is a torture technique, and I believe it.

I try and catch naps when I can, but that's few and far between. My therapist actually told me she thinks I'm close to the edge of a minor nervous breakdown if I don't get some rest... but what am I supposed to do?

 

[readytobedone]

can your mom (or SOMEONE!) stay late/overnight sometimes and let you get to bed early/get better rest? from your schedule it looks like if someone stayed till 10, you could go to bed right after dinner and get a headstart on some sleep. then maybe that person could feed baby a bottle of milk and put her to bed with you at 10. also, on the sleeping thing, try earplugs. they shouldn't impact your co-sleeping safety, but should help block out that noise that's keeping you up.

has the trouble getting back to sleep started recently, or were you like that pre-baby?

 

[crazydiamond]

I agree, you definitely should be getting more sleep. Even at my worst, I got more sleep than that.

A couple of things. . .First off, experiment with sleeping arrangments. Try sleeping with baby in a different room from your DH, or try putting your LO in a crib in your room instead of having her in bed with you. With my DD, co-sleeping made us all miserable and we all slept much better apart.

Secondly, is there any way to change your work schedule so you don't have to get up so early? When I went back to work after having DD, I started going in at 9:30 instead of 7:30. Yeah, I got home later, but I got more sleep which made all the difference (my DD was a night owl too).

Thirdly, skip the morning pumping. Trust me, I've BTDT with pumping a zillion times and it just wears you out more than you can believe. Your supply is established well enough now that it's no problem for your other side to not be emptied for a while. Along these lines, do all your lunch prep the night before. I fixed my lunch while I was cooking dinner or cleaning up after. Consider taking a shower at night while your mom is there instead of the morning. The idea is to make your morning routine as simple as possible so you get more time to sleep.

And that 5am feeding. . .can you try to do it before your shower while you're still in bed? I always did a morning "dream feed" before I got up so that 1) they didn't wake up screaming from hunger when I'm trying to get showered and dressed and 2) I got to sleep in for another 20 minutes or so.

 

[Igraine]

I can empathize, truly.

The first 6 months back to work were so hard. I remember very little of it. My ds had problems with my milk, went through reversed nursing schedule where he nursed ALL NIGHT(!!), ear infection after ear infection, did not enjoy co-sleeping, and I had some chronic pain related to some damage from the birth.

I hardly remember that time. I stumbled threw the days the best I could. I took naps when I could find the time. Eventually my ds adjusted to my milk let down, got super chubby and we transferred him to his crib (much to my dismay) and he slept beautifully from 8 months on.....

We just had to figure out what he needed which took a lot of time for two brain dead new parents and balance it with what we needed.

here's hoping you get your schedule balanced and start getting some sleep. That is one of the added bonuses of nursing.... super hero mama power...I honestly have those hormones to thank for getting me through those awful months. I am one who does not do well without at least 8 hours of sleep.

Best wishes!

 

[Phoenix~Mama]

If I don't do the morning pumping I may not have enough... I have tried this and pumping later I don't get what I would have gotten in the morning plus what I would get at work first pumping.

I was trying to get a shower while Mom was here too... but with DD wanting to nurse all night til Grammy shows up, I generally really need to eat then and get her bottles ready.

I'm wondering if this week has been so bad because maybe my period is coming back? I've been crampy the past couple days and my nipples have been sore, and they were never sore!

 

[rivkah]

I would second the suggestion of sleeping in 2nd room from DH. I did when my little ones were babies and nursed all night. It gives you more room and you won't hear him snoring.

It sounds to me like you have some anxiety issues that cause you lack of sleep. I tend to have these too, so I sympathize. I get to the point where I am so tired, and I have so much work to do, and I am so overwhelmed, that I wake up at night worrying. Then, I lose more sleep, and it is a vicious cycle

Can you take day off to get caught up on sleep and get some peace of mind back to deal with your long-term issues?

Also, you need to go to bed earlier! Maybe baby needs to be woken up from a nap earlier. Maybe you need to go to bed and wait for your mom to drop her off in bed with you.

Can you skip the bottle washing and let DH do it when he gets home from work?