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My sweet baby girl will be 1 in a few days. She is not a good sleeper. None of my kids were. She still doesn't sleep through the night. She wakes up screaming once or twice. The problem is I am the one who has to wake up with her every night and I am really feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. I am going back to work Monday and I don't know how I am going to be able to function on no sleep.
My husband has sleep apnea. He wears a CPAP machine and he says he goes into such a deep sleep that he doesn't hear a thing when he has it on. The other day I woke up because the baby was crying and I fell down the stairs. I hurt my back really badly. My fall made a huge noise and my husband didn't even wake up. I screamed for help but he didn't hear me. I felt like that "I've fallen and I can't get up lady on TV".
Is it fair that I am the one who has to deal with this? I get no help at all with the night wakings. I guess this is more of a vent. I had to get it off my chest. Thanks if you got this far.
No it isn't fair..
But I think if your hubby has sleep apnea issues, doesn't that have the potential to effect his health if he isn't sleeping properly? I know in some cases apnea can be harmful.
I live in a household with three males. Hubby and two sons and I feel for you cause believe me nothing and I mean nothing wakes them up at night. My husband now takes a sleep med.
You won't likely change the hubby at this point so maybe try some new things with the baby. My kids slept sound and through the night early on. I made sure they were dry and not hungry when they went to bed which I'm sure you do too. I also made sure that if they woke up during the night I never made a fuss out of it and instead tried to provide as little waking stimulation as possible like lights or noise that might signal it was ok to get up for a while and I did whatever I could to get them back to sleep in the shortest time possible.
You might do more backrubs at night. One of my sons would go back to sleep if you lightly touched his cheek and soothed him. You might skip an afternoon nap or shorten it.
Really babies are sometimes easier to change than hubbies! That doesn't make it right or fair though.
I wish I had some kind of magic wand advice for you - but I don't really, so I just wanted to say I sympathize and no it's not fair. Hopefully now that your little girl is 1 her sleep patterns will start improving and it won't be long before you don't have to get up in the night.
I'm sorry Lisa. I don't like to see people miserable. Just hang in there and know it won't last forever.
Perhaps you can talk to your husband about it, he may not be aware that it's getting to you - you don't want to build up resentment on your part. There may be something he can do do help.
I am sorry that you are dealing with that. I sleep like the dead, when my kids were young, I did not go to them, because I did not hear them...if they screamed, they just did it alone, and went back to sleep. I don't have kids now, and wonder how I did all that stuff I did when they were young. It is like being a perpetual motion machine for 15 years. Work, come home, clean, work, cook, do stuff, barely sleep, do it all over again...exhausting. Been there.
My sweet baby girl will be 1 in a few days. She is not a good sleeper. None of my kids were. She still doesn't sleep through the night. She wakes up screaming once or twice. The problem is I am the one who has to wake up with her every night and I am really feeling the effects of sleep deprivation. I am going back to work Monday and I don't know how I am going to be able to function on no sleep.
My husband has sleep apnea. He wears a CPAP machine and he says he goes into such a deep sleep that he doesn't hear a thing when he has it on. The other day I woke up because the baby was crying and I fell down the stairs. I hurt my back really badly. My fall made a huge noise and my husband didn't even wake up. I screamed for help but he didn't hear me. I felt like that "I've fallen and I can't get up lady on TV".
Is it fair that I am the one who has to deal with this? I get no help at all with the night wakings. I guess this is more of a vent. I had to get it off my chest. Thanks if you got this far.
No advice, just sympathy. I only had one child, but she didn't sleep through the night until she was three. I worked full-time to support the family, and around the time I became pregnant my husband started stepping up his efforts to reach his goal to become an unemployed alcoholic. He would be passed out and the house could have burned down and he would never have moved. My memories of my daughter's first years are foggy because I was constantly operating under sleep-deprivation.
Time will help, but in the meanwhile, maybe you and your husband could work out some kind of alarm system where he could somehow be alerted enough to wake up. Would a phone next to his bed (and you carry one, too) work, or is he in such a deep sleep that this won't help? There has to be some way. Perhaps HE has an idea of what he could do to support you in this. Throw the question out to him and put it on him to come up with a solution. You could have broken your neck, and then where would your children--and HIM--be?
In answer to your question, NO, it's not fair at all.
I have always been the one dealing with night-wakings too. Heck, even before we had kids, if the dogs needed to go out in the middle of the night I was always the one who had to do it. It's because if I get up and then go back to bed, I can fall back asleep pretty much instantly. If my husband gets up, he can't fall back to sleep for like an hour. So he just thought that it was more of a hardship for him to get up, and I guess it was. Not that it was fair, just the way it was.
This carried through after we had a baby and I did everything with her at night. But, once we had our 2nd child, the deal has changed: now I get up for the baby and he gets up for the older one. So he doesn't have to get up as often, but when he does it's usually because she wet her bed and he has more to deal with than I do just to nurse the baby and go back to sleep. He has to clean her up, change her jammies, change her sheets, deal with her freaking out because she's still mostly asleep, etc.
No it isn't fair..
But I think if your hubby has sleep apnea issues, doesn't that have the potential to effect his health if he isn't sleeping properly? I know in some cases apnea can be harmful.
I am the one who diagnosed his sleep apnea. I would notice that he would snore and then stop as if he couldn`t breathe. He got a sleep study done and they diagnosed obstructive sleep apnea. I know he has to sleep with it for health reasons as untreated sleep apnea can cause a wide array of problems such as putting too much strain on the heart etc.
You cannot wake him up when he has that machine on. It`s not possible. I`ve tried.
I am worried about him. He is very overweight and refuses to see a Dr. to get a check-up or blood tests. I told him he needs to get his cholesterol checked. He tells me his cholesterol is fine. HOW WOULD HE KNOW THAT.He hasn`t EVER had a blood test. He claims to be scared of needles.
It's difficult, but you'll be okay when you return to work without much sleep. I returned to work when mine was 6 weeks old. She wasn't sleeping through the night for many months. She woke up every 3 hours, which meant that every 3 hours I only got 1 hour sleep. A total of 3 hours of separated sleep each night for the first few months I was working. I was a single mother at the time.
Your husband needs to use the machine because apnea can be dangerous. Look at it as a disability. If he were in a wheelchair and couldn't walk downstairs for a bottle, you wouldn't be upset that he couldn't help with the baby in the middle of the night. If he was deaf and couldn't hear you in the middle of the night, you wouldn't expect him to be able to hear you call him.
Talk to your husband about trying to provide some balance by helping more during the day when he is awake.
I wish I had some kind of magic wand advice for you - but I don't really, so I just wanted to say I sympathize and no it's not fair. Hopefully now that your little girl is 1 her sleep patterns will start improving and it won't be long before you don't have to get up in the night.
I'm sorry Lisa. I don't like to see people miserable. Just hang in there and know it won't last forever.
Perhaps you can talk to your husband about it, he may not be aware that it's getting to you - you don't want to build up resentment on your part. There may be something he can do do help.
Thanks for the kind words....much appreciated. I hope her sleep patterns change soon too. I know she`s teething but she has been waking up like this for months.
I love her so much. She wasn`t a planned baby however. She just brings so much joy to everyone. I was at the Dr`s wit`h her and this woman aksed me how old she was. My daughter smiled at the woman and at her toddler. The woman said told me how cute my daughter is and then she said ``She knows shes cute doesn`t she`` That just brought such a smile to my face.
I didn't realize how sleep deprived I was until my young SIL came to stay with us for two weeks one summer and my husband and she waited on me hand and foot for that time - including dh getting up with my son every night of those precious 15 days.
It's the toughest part of motherhood - sleep deprivation. If you can afford to hire someone just for one week (if family isn't available) to come in and "relieve" you, do it. After that time, my dh relieved me more often and when he wasn't at sea, I was much more rested. If I had it to do all over again, I'd just hire someone to come in at least one night a week - a babysitter, except instead of going out to dinner, you go to bed!
This too shall pass, no matter what you choose to do!
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He hasn`t EVER had a blood test. He claims to be scared of needles.
