Sleepless Nights

I know I’m not alone in having a child that doesn’t sleep. Right now there are millions of weary mamas making their way through the day with minimal sleep under their belts. Sleep deprivation is rife in the land of mamahood.

Let me share a little on my journey. And a journey it was.

Before Lacey was born I read chapters about the baby after birth. She’d come out. We’d have some skin on skin time. She might have a breastfeed and then she’d be exhausted for the next 24 hours and sleep for most of it.

Wrong. She barely slept at all for those first 24 hours. She just cried. I remember sitting in ICU in bed, exhausted, and listening to the midwife trying to settle her, and she couldn’t. So I scrambled out of my bed, cords attached to everything, and retrieved her. She still didn’t sleep. And so it began…

We brought her home and for a few nights we got a block of sleep, and we got cocky. We thought we had a sleeper on our hands. Wrong. She rarely slept in the day, and after 4 weeks of age she rarely slept at night. For the first year of her life it pretty much went like this:

Put her to bed.
Two hours later she wakes.
Feed her.
Stand in front of the running clothes dryer.
Rock her to sleep.
Put her in bed.
Forty minutes later she wakes.
Feed her.
Stand in front of the running clothes dryer.
Rock her to sleep.
Put her in bed.
Repeat every 40 minutes or so.

This happened most nights. Some nights we slept less, around 40 minutes, some nights we slept slightly more. But we never had a night when she slept through. Sometimes it would take a team of three to get through the whole night.

We relied on that dryer to get her back to sleep so heavily that not longer after she turned 2 it had to be retired, and as you can imagine during those first two years our electricity bills were through the roof. On one particular bad night, surviving on only a sniff of sleep, I gave up. I handed her to Hubby and said that I couldn’t function any longer.

Despite being beyond exhausted I lay in the dark of our room, listening to her cry, watching my Hubby take over. I couldn’t let go. He placed her in her cot, and walked to bathroom/laundry. I could hear him fumbling about making a noise, and out he came with the dryer in his arms. He plugged it into the wall in her room, and wished her to sleep. She still cried.

Each and every morning from 6 weeks on, I’d wake at 5am and get dressed for work. I’d wake Lacey at 6:30am and feed her, and pile us both into the car. And because being exhausted wasn’t enough, Lacey hated the car. So for that 15 minutes drive to work she screamed non-stop. I carried my heart in my throat, and was ridden with anxiety. I held her little hand as we drove along, singing songs, knowing that it was making no difference at all.

There wasn’t a morning that I was late for work. I always arrived with a smile. Looking back I don’t know how I did it. But I did. Because I had to.

For some reason pride got in the way. I was a nanny, I should know better. The doctor handed me a referral to Tresillian, and it still sits in her little blue book in it’s white envelope. I never did anything with it, because I was embarrassed. I should do it on my own.

Eventually after trying different methods, reading handfuls of books, we brought her in to our bed {something she’d hated when we’d tried before} and she slept. She woke throughout the night, but not nearly as much as she did in her own cot. And in our bed she stayed until she turned 3.

It’s only early days, but she is sleeping in her own bed. In her own room. I had to camp out on her floor for a week {and Hubby has done some more recent nights}, but we’ve done harder yards before. I was willing to do whatever it took.

Cross your fingers for us that this is it. I hope we’ve finally won the sleep battle, and I can tear that white envelope up and say, ‘I’ve finally done it’.

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{image: love mae at style milk}

38 thoughts on “Sleepless Nights”

  1. Wow. It is so hard to function on constant broken sleep. You are remarkable. I only had this scenario for about 10 months. It was so hard, but it finally passed. As a mum of teenagers I can tell you that you do get your sleep back and what you've been through and are going through doesn't last forever – it just feels like it does right now. xxxx

  2. Shidder. This is terrifying. That you have achieved so much on so little sleep is amazing.

    Chantelle, Olivia was (and still is) a fairly crappy sleeper. And I still feel the need to “fix” this for her and for us.

    It is just them and their little personalities.

    You have given Lacey security. That is what is vital to her.

    xx

  3. Thankfully out of 3 children, I only had one that chose to cry instead of sleep – my youngest! The only place he would settle and go to sleep was in his car seat – solution – put the car seat in the cot, with H in the car seat for the first 3 months! Result – heavenly nights sleep from that moment on – Oh what joy!
    Everyone said I woud curve his spine and cause all sorts of problems – well to be honest he hasn't got any problems and he will turn 12 in 3 weeks time – and now quite honestly it takes him a while to get off to sleep at night, but then it takes a lot to wake him in the morning, so its a fair playoff!

    It does get better – I promise

    Lou

  4. You're a hero to have coped. My youngest was a TERRIBLE sleeper and the early months were not helped by his awful silent reflux. It nearly broke me in half that first year. Hats off to you for coping so amazingly well for so long x

  5. Wow!!! You and Hubby have sure been through alot. Well done for coping through all of that. My fingers and toes are crossed for you 🙂 x

  6. Thanks for sharing your experiences. So many people are reluctant to tell others when they're sleep deprived. Whenever we go through a bad spell with our daughter, my husband thinks we;re the only ones. I tell him just because his mates don't tell him about lack of sleep, doesn't mean their babies are angel sleepers. Hope Lacey settles into her bed soon for you. We are about to buy our first 'big girl bed' soon too.

  7. I can totally relate to some of what you are saying!! As the mother of teenagers, and guess what, a newish 8 week old baby I am going through it all again. Our beautiful bub loves to sleep lying on our chest and prob sleeps more on the lounge then her own bed! I too understand the 'I should be able to do it' considering the age of my other children. Loving your honest…

  8. Oh, I feel your pain – my first wouldn't sleep – we had a good first night then after that if he wasn't moving he wouldn't sleep. I would sit at his cot and rock it on its wheels (there are huge dents in our wood floors from this), nauseous with sleep deprivation. We only suffered for 9 months, but it was those first few weeks that I don't know how I functioned. And I didn't have to work. You're a trooper. Luckily, my second has been a breeze, as they often seem to be. Enjoy your new freedom!

  9. Sleep deprivation is the worst. I can remember my doctor scolding me, after a particularly bad night with my baby girl, because I drove to his surgery for the appointment. He equated driving while sleep deprived as dangerous as driving drunk. Scary thing is, I can see his point…

    I have my fingers crossed for you. xx

  10. I can so relate to this story. That 40 min sleep cycle was ours for 15 months. It is so amazing how one can continue to keep going and be normal in some way. We still have those full on nights though, and not much sleep during the day either.

    Hugs to you
    jill

  11. I take my hat off to you! My 1st didn't sleep through till 18 months but at least she eventually passed the 30-40 minute sleep cycle through the night even if she was a day cat-napper.

    I write this as I have my 2nd in the sling. She's 8 weeks old and also a cat-napper through the day. At least we get about two blocks of several hours during the night so far. Hard to have catch-up naps with her in the sling though.

    It's great you shared this since too many mums stress about trying to get their little ones to sleep through as if it's always do-able and the norm.

  12. I actually cried when I read this post, so much did it resonate. And I'm left thinking, wow – I don't often tell people exactly how sleep-deprived I still am.

    It's horrible. Rocco has challenged me on so many levels that I've just ran out of levels. Now I'm hanging on til he turns five … only two more years to go.

    I ADORE the dryer in the bedroom .. and the carseat in the cot from a commenter above. Us mothers, man. We deserve daily trophies, medals, and chocolate.

  13. As so many mummas have said above, its so nice to read something that resonates with your life … my little guy just turned 1 and we rock/fight him to sleep most nights and then a few hours later he ends up in bed with us … I just find peace in other mum's advice that it gets better!
    Love!

  14. Oh wow – you are amazing! Our little one had colic and the four months we spent on the sleep deprivation bandwagon was a nightmare!
    She's still not the best sleeper and always wants to be in our bed but we keep encourging her to sleep in her 'big girl bed' and we'll get there in the end.
    And so will you – every family is different and in your own time things will settle as they should.

  15. Oh Chantelle. I just love your stories… and I don't mean I love the hardships you've endured… simply the pure honesty and the fact that you are SUCH a trooper.
    I don't function well on broken sleep, in fact, it changes my whole outlook on life. It's terrible. To hear you have gone through these years of disrupted sleep makes my heart ache for you.
    It's ironic, because my first born was the best sleeper, from about 6 weeks on. THEN we had number 2! Ever since he has been the difficult one! He will sleep… just not in his bed! Our bed, the lounge, THE FLOOR! Hubby and I are so beaten down with it, we just let him sleep where he settles. I know it's wrong and we're setting ourselves up for bigger problems down the track, but it is just so. hard. Particularly when you're dealing with 2 little ones.
    Good luck and I'm crossing my fingers and toes for you… maybe Lacey is going to repay you for all that lost sleep, from here on in. You certainly deserve some relief xo

  16. I know that feeling so well except we used the hair dryer not the clothes dryer. I remember some night falling asleep with it on, hideously dangerous but sleep was far more important

  17. Hon, you know my experience with those dreaded sleepless nights. I'm not even able to tell you that it gets better. But you, like I eventually did, took the very sensible option of doing whatever you needed to do to get some blessed sleep (in this case, co-sleeping). I know from your latest post (which I read the first line of and then zipped down to this one to get filled in), that the return to bed is maybe not going so well… sigh. x

  18. Wow Telle you were such a Trojan the way you kept going, I would have whisked Raya off to Tresilian – I just don't know how you coped but it will be something you laugh over – when she is older and has the same problems most likely

  19. Reading this brought back some pretty awful memories. My first born was a terrible sleeper. I remember sitting in the hospital holding her that first night, her little eyes wide open, fighting sleep. That was the first of many, many, many, many nights.

    She's four and a half now, she stills struggles with sleep but is a lot better. She sleeps in her own bed, just cause I can't sleep with a child in there. Also, because we had another child so there was no way I was having two in my bed.

    We have done the tough love stuff, which has worked to an extent, but she still has her bad times.

    It's incredible the sleep deprivation we put up with.

    I'm so scared number 3 will be a bad sleeper, I'm almost betting she is.

    You will get there. One day. We both will. Lots of love xxxx

  20. Most of us parents experienced that. I had a hard time getting my kids to sleep too when they were babies. With determination and experimenting on a lot of methods really helped me get through it. Don't lose heart, everything's going to turn out much better.:-)

  21. You're amazing!

    I too have a terrible sleeper. At 17 months she's still coming into our bed. We're going to try to put her in her own bed soon, but going to wait til we move house. I think camping on the floor of her room will be involved.

    I can count the number of times she's slept though on two hands (and for that I know we are lucky). It's so tough. I feel like sleep deprivation is part of life now. And often wonder how on earth I could cope with ever having another one. Then I think we're sleep deprived already why not do it all at once?!

    The joys of mummyhood hey! 🙂 I really hope your run of good luck continues and you're sleeping soundly from now on. 🙂 xxx

  22. I just had to write and say that I was nodding in agreeance with your sleepless night story. We had 20min cycle during the day and about 45 min in the evenings. Gosh what a nightmare. And the constant crying just sounds like screeching at 9pm in an open plan living area. And you don't know why, what to do, or when its going to stop. Master A is 2 now and I think I can count on 1 hand how many 'sleeping all the way through' nights we've had! Now he falls asleep in our bed then I transfer to his cot then he wakes 2 hrs later and goes back in our bed for the night! I KNOW it won't last forever…I didn't realise that lots of other people had sleepless and/or broken up bits of sleep during the night also! So I guess it is comforting? Its just a phase, right?

    Love your blog
    Helenxx

  23. My first was a terrible sleeper too! I think you either have a sleeper or you don't. Before I had babies I used to work in a lactation day stay teaching Mums how to settle their babies! My own was different though. After 10 months I was pregnant with number 2 and exhausted. We went to sleep school, but it was more to give me just one night sleep!! When she was 12 months old I started sleeping with her and we finally got some sleep! Until the next one came. He still woke but settled easily. I would wake up in the morning trapped between the 2 of them. I still wake up with a 6 year old in my bed some nights. I don't mind cos I know it won't last much longer. I tell Mums now, do what ever you have to do. And if all else fails, sleep with them! Good luck with Lacey. I'm sure it will be fine!

  24. Like so many others have said- you gotta do what you gotta do. If it's cosleeping- do it. Hope she settles back into her own bed, though, and gives you a little more space.

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