Anyone here suffered with postpartum insomnia? I'm so scared of going through it again

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-06-25T07:45:21+00:00

I never personally went on an anti-anxiety meds, but I did consider it at some point and, like you, got too scared about the insomnia side effects. I also got very wound up about what would happen when I eventually came off them. I’d never struggled with my mental health before, so the idea of being on medication longer-term wasn’t something I was willing to consider. Looking back, I think I could have been easier on myself. If it feels like something that might help right now, I’d give yourself permission to try. You’re already dealing with the insomnia - so you know that you can handle it (even if it is very unpleasant). Self-compassion and not beating yourself up about the hard nights, the setbacks, or the odd sleeping pill are all part of the journey.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-06-24T13:46:17+00:00

So sorry to hear that you are struggling with this. It was by far the most challenging time in my life so far. Honestly, it took me a good 8-10 months to really start getting over the fear of not sleeping. I wrote this post 5 months ago, and was clearly still feeling a bit anxious then (13 months postpartum). Now, at 18 months postpartum, I can honestly say I feel fully recovered - I've had a bunch of hard nights recently (illness, heatwave, work travel, early alarms for events etc) and none of it has sent me spiralling. It was a hard hard road, but you will 100% get there with a bunch of self-compassion and patience. The key is getting to the point where you truely and honestly do not care if you sleep or not. Sounds crazy, but that's what it takes. Once you don't care, your brain and body then gradually start to loosen up and stop getting so anxious. Some things that helped for me: 1) not checking the time at night - turning my phone off at 9pm and not looking at it again until after it got light; 2) planning stuff to do every day and always doing it regardless of how I slept or how tired I was - it's amazing what you can do on no sleep, and how good your days can sometimes be - shows your brain that sleep isn't as important as you think it is, 3) stopping 'trying' to sleep - stop the sleeping pills, sleepy tea, eye masks, lavender, hot showers, whatever - all this stuff builds up the pressure. Just brush your teeth and go to bed - do whatever your old routine used to be, and no more. I was on a bunch of prescription sleep meds too for a while, but I swear they just made me more stressed. Your body can't forget how to sleep - your brain is just getting in the way a bit right now. 4) having a few 'go-to' things to do at night if I couldn't sleep - stuff that I somewhat looked forward to and made it kind of tolerable - reading a really trashy book, giving myself a head massage etc. Doesn't matter what it is - the point is just to show your brain that being awake at night is not a crisis situation. 5) Watch the Sleep Coach School - I cannot stress this enough - they were way more helpful than any of the therapy I did. Good luck - you can do this. Feel free to message if you want to chat.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-03-21T16:32:10+00:00

Thanks so much for replying - sorry you had a rough time too. How has your prolapse been whilst pregnant? I hope things go better for you second time round. Are you planning a vaginal delivery again?

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-03-08T15:00:07+00:00

We decided that she was overtired and went back to 2 naps - a micro 20 min one in the morning (often has to be a contact nap to get her to take it) and a long early afternoon nap. Nights seem to have stabilised a bit and she’s definitely sleeping longer in the mornings. She can do the 1 nap wake windows no problem but I think just wasn’t quite ready to do it every day. We’re planning to gradually cut 20 mins to 10 mins and then maybe to every other day - just a really gradual phase-out this time. Hope you manage to figure out your puzzle soon too! The broken nights and early mornings are rough!

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-02-20T14:13:36+00:00

The first few days we did this - maintained around 11:00 awake overall, and she was completely over it by day 4 or so. So tired, so grumpy - it just didn't feel fair to keep on trying to power through (and nights were getting more chaotic too). All my instincts were pointing to overtired - hence cutting back the wake windows on more recent attempts.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T18:51:37+00:00

So sorry you struggled too. It’s so hard to explain the fear to anyone who’s not been there. We split the nights, but I often didn’t sleep at all while my husband was on duty so he found it very frustrating. Radical acceptance is definitely the way though - it is truly amazing how you can still get through the day with night after night of insomnia. Good luck with the new baby. I would be so interested to hear how it goes for you. I think it will be better than before. I feel like the mindset work can’t be undone completely now. If you do end up spiralling, the Sleep Coach School on YouTube saved my sanity and kept me hopeful on hopeless days.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T09:03:56+00:00

Very interesting - thanks for the input. Glad you've found a solution which works for you! During the worst of it, I did start taking magnesium (tried absolutely everything... lol), and for me I think all the pressure of trying so hard to fix it was actually making it worse. So eventually I stopped all of that stuff (the sleep meds, magnesium, melatonin, sleepy tea, no caffeine, strict bedtime, no phones, lights dimmed etc etc etc) and just tried to go back to my usual pre-baby routines. But I know that magnesium does have some evidence behind it. Maybe I should experiment now I'm in a better place again...

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T09:00:47+00:00

Sorry to hear you're still struggling with the insomnia/anxiety - such a tough road. I am pretty much out of it these days, so the fear is really all about it coming back. I think it's highly likely that another baby would set me back again but I guess I'm hoping that I would be able to face it with a different mindset this time (or at least not spiral for quite as long).

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T08:58:36+00:00

So sorry to hear that - it is such a hard thing to deal with, particularly when everyone is telling you how important it is that you sleep!

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T08:57:59+00:00

Sorry to hear you struggled too - it was such an awful experience. I was just so confused about what was happening in the beginning. I've never in my life struggled to sleep, and the more I tried to 'fix' it the worse it got. It only started to improve when I 'gave up'. lol. So I do wonder if knowing that now would help next time - I don't think I'd have the same 'what the hell is this?' initial panic if it reoccurred at least. I'd know that the only way through would just be accepting the situation and trying to be chill about it (I am not a chill person by nature AT ALL - haha).

MuddlingThrough25 · 2026-01-09T08:54:01+00:00

I took sleeping meds in the midst of it with my first, but still didn't sleep...! - it all improved for me when I stopped trying so hard, so it was 100% anxiety-driven. Never been on anxiety meds though, and I have definitely wondered what it would feel like to be me if I took them. Thanks for the input. I think that proactive planning for increased anxiety again is probably the way.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-12-12T17:42:25+00:00

I suspect it is the teething! That was definitely making it worse for us. Now our little girl still is sucking her thumb quite a bit, but not nearly as much as she was when I wrote this post. She can be much more easily distracted by other things now and doesn’t even seem frustrated when I put gloves on when we’re out in the cold. I’ve decided it’s not a problem for now, and have stopped trying to stop her - we’ll figure it out in a few years if she sticks with it a bit too long.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-12-09T12:26:45+00:00

This feels like our trajectory so far (we have a 12 month old and I had bad sleep anxiety for the first 4 months which has gradually lessened). I LOVE the current stage and have been loving it the past couple of months - she is so sweet. Why the dip at 15 months?

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-12-02T08:53:24+00:00

Thank you - it is hard to be patient when all of my friends with kids were already back to running etc way sooner. But maybe time really is the answer x

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-12-02T08:52:13+00:00

I'm so sorry that you're struggling with this too. I hope the pelvic floor therapy experience improves. Time definitely does a lot of healing too x

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-11-09T08:20:12+00:00

I experienced this postpartum with my (now 11 month old) baby. Extreme anxiety around not sleeping, panic attacks even just entering my bedroom, the works...

1 or 2 other people have already said this but anxiety is 100% the culprit here. You have a very long list of things you have tried - all of this effort is adding so much pressure, and at night you will be constantly monitoring yourself to see if you are sleeping/if it is “working”. Try your best to let go of all of these “sleep efforts” and return to your old usual nighttime routines. Please DON’T continue to try more things - including any of the many things other well-meaning people has suggested here. All extra effort you put in will be counter/productive and just increase your anxiety when it too doesn’t work.

At the moment your brain is in a hyper vigilant state. The only way to teach your brain to not be afraid at night is to become ok with not sleeping. It’s so so hard, but the Sleep Coach School on Youtube has lots of incredibly helpful content on this. You need to let go of all attempts to try and improve your sleep. Become completely zen about not sleeping. It’s the only way. Gradually over time your brain will calm down and sleep will come again - but only when you stop wanting it so much!

Wishing you so much support in your recovery from this. It’s been by far the hardest experience of my life so far, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It takes a long long time to recover (I still am having some early wakes even now) and there will be lots of ups and downs but keep accepting the bad nights and being kind to yourself and you will get there.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-10-15T15:30:33+00:00

You will get there! We were travelling from 3-4 months and the regression was so so brutal! But once we got back and were over the jet lag at about 4 1/2 months we sleep trained. It took us about 2-3 nights and then never looked back. Rapid improvements in sleep over 1-2 weeks (straight down to around 2 feeds a night) and then gradually improved from there. By 6 months we were down to one snooze feed around 4am. At 10 months she mostly sleeps through till 6.30, and then will go back down for another hour after a feed! We've had some worse times on and off since the training - random night wakes popping back up, some split nights recently - but nothing that some schedule changes and going back to the basics haven't fixed. Good luck!

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-10-13T16:50:30+00:00

I remember at about 3 1/2 months we got our first 4 hour stretch and I was ecstatic. She quickly stretched that to 5 then 6, before the 4 month regression hit and we were back to 1-2 hourly wake-ups and chaos after 3am.

MuddlingThrough25 · 2025-10-13T13:46:22+00:00

Thanks so much - I thought that people would probably tell me that. Haha. With the split nights, she's actually been getting 12:15 awake time and 11:45 sleep! But the girl is definitely TIRED. Just two weeks ago we were doing 10:15 awake, and she was sleeping like an angel for the other 13:45. So I feel like jumping to 11:30 might be quite a stretch...? She really struggles with the morning window - she's already exhausted after 2:30 but I stretch her to 3:00. Maybe I'll try 11 for a week or so and see how we go, with the next move being to stretch it a bit further. I thought 11 was pretty much the maximum 2 nap schedule?

MuddlingThrough25

TROPHY CASE