Coping With Long Term Sleep Deprivation

Coping with a year of sleep deprivation

When you have a baby you expect that you will be tired and have many interrupted nights of sleep. In fact it's one of the first things people will gleefully tell you when you announce your pregnancy .. Better get your sleep in now is one of the statements I'm sure you heard before your bump was even showing.

But coping with less sleep and coping with real sleep deprivation is another matter. Our first child woke a lot for the first 13 months of her life. Initially for feeds,at times out of habit and sometimes for comfort. This we expected and although difficult we coped. Our second child introduced us to real sleep deprivation. Waking on average 20 - 30 times per night. Some nights not sleeping at all. It has meant that some days it feels that we barely function. Every day is like the newborn haze.

So how do you cope when your child actually does not sleep?

The truth?

You don't really. You don't magically find a way to continue the way you always were on little to no sleep. It's not possible. So the truth is you find a different way. It's not the way you want to live but that's kind of the deal when you become a parent. You accept life may never be the same again. And for us it really hasn't been.

This is what we do.

We get our eldest to bed around 6.30pm which fortunately is easy. She loves her bed and sleeps every night for 12 -13 hours. We then TRY to get our youngest to bed. Some nights she will go to sleep within about 45 minutes ..this is a good night. Other nights you try for an hour, maybe more before accepting you need a break or you will snap. Maybe you swap with your partner or if they are in work you take her downstairs. Downstairs she is exhausted and wants to cling to you in a not yet asleep but not quite awake state. After a few hours you find the will to try again and this times she settles ..finally. Either you or your partner go to bed at that point ..it's probably about 9.30pm. Whoever stays up ( normally me as once I take my medication I can't stay awake - but that's another story ) is on the first shift of the night. She normally wakes up for the first time within 30 minutes and then it's up and down every 20-30 minutes until 2.30am when I swap with my other half. I then head to bed for a few hours. If it's a good night we may get the odd 2 hour stretch. If it's a bad night then she will only get any stretch of sleep if she is upright on our chest.

What this means for us as a couple is that we are never in bed at the same time or rarely so. We don't get any downtime in the evening when the kids are in bed. We are snappy,tired and we have little time for each other. In short it's hard.

There is no real way to cope with long term sleep deprivation. You just change the way you live.

The next post will explain why she doesn't sleep...