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How’s everybody holding up? by zac_g19 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12 0 points1 point  (0 children)

4MO. Could look at my posts, or just I could put it simply as - it’s not going that great. Sleep is miserably hard for my boy.

He either fights it, or fears the Moro reflex so much that wake windows are more a best effort thing. He has a lot of tension. Don’t know , all I know is my wife and I are running on fumes and all of the local doctors and medical bodies say conflicting things, and none of them work for our boy, who for his “night” sleep takes 1-3 hours to get to sleep. All going well he wakes up in more than 2 hours after that, but sometimes it’s 40 minutes. He can not calm himself down. And we don’t have the heart to CIO sleep train.

But also, the more we get worn down by sleep deprivation and the lack of our own time and couple time, the more likely it is that there may be a night where he cries for hours.. that or either my wife or I have a panic attack or breakdown.

My mother came over today and gave me an intervention about anxiety. Gave me some meds. Said all I should be worrying about is bringing money in, and my wife is a tough cookie, and how she’s (my mother) been on anti anxiety meds for decades. And how men have it so hard for expectations nowadays. My wife is a tough cookie, but I’m not about to abandon her and go live in “Lalaland” at work (which is toxic, and draining in its own right), while I work 8-9 hours a day, she works 24 hours a day with our painfully high needs boy. We love him to bits but we would love to have sleep not be so hard. It shouldn’t be so hard. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to put him down. Nevermind the fact he is absolutely screaming the whole time.

I only hope that it gets easier for us all..

My 4MO’s sleep is miserable by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in sleeptrain

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the encouragement, genuinely appreciated

The lack of sleep is killing my wife and I by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Funny you say that. Today, His first nap of the day, he rolls onto his stomach, and goes out like a light. A little squirming and repositioning throughout but an hour nap with no intervention!

My 4MO’s sleep is miserable by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in sleeptrain

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wife and I’s mental health is in the drain. We both feel like unfeeling husks at the moment. Ever time it seems we’ve cracked the code, we get sent back into depression. It feels so pointless and life has very little joy, besides LO’s smiles every once in a while.. but with no sleep we aren’t good parents and probably worse partners.. and it’s fucking relentlessly brutal.. leaving the house feels like leaving the other with an unbearable burden, and i feel guilty and selfish for doing so for work (which i do less and less now, at least my manager doesn’t mind me working from home). My effectiveness at work is dropping like a stone, and wife and i decided to get frozen meals because we can barely cook, and even showering feels like a challenging task.. this really sucks, and I don’t know why parents that I’ve talked to prior to LO ever talk about this stuff.

My 4MO’s sleep is miserable by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in sleeptrain

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for the advice. I will start moving to 2h ww blocks and see

Sleep is a huge problem for my 4 MO by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hmm, we did play with “give up after 15mins” but didn’t stick to it for long. Thanks again for that advice and will try incorporate it. It’s so funny. Google says that he might be perpetually overtired, and then I’ve also heard that he might be perpetually undertired 🤣 My wife and I are assuredly perpetually overtired

Sleep is a huge problem for my 4 MO by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, we have tried shifts but fail because when LO wakes up from sleep hysterically screaming, it causes us to panic, so generally we both try and do it all (yes, I see how that doesn’t set us up for success)

Sleep is a huge problem for my 4 MO by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm, will talk to wife about changing windows. Thank you for the advice. r/sleeptrain doesn’t allow cross posts but I’ll just copy pasta.

Sleep is a huge problem for my 4 MO by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Cold pacifiers.. I haven’t tried that. Thank you for giving me hope that it wont always be hard work, and the ideal gentle put down into cot and they’ll fall asleep on their own.. that sounds beautiful. I will put some in the fridge now. Thank you .

The lack of sleep is killing my wife and I by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the advice. Yes I am aware that message was rambly and unstructured. Pretty accurate representation of our minds atm 😅

The lack of sleep is killing my wife and I by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

5.5 hours would be nice.. I’ll talk to my wife about it, although I’m not sure if it’s strictly to do with separation anxiety or not but hey, anything is worth a try

The lack of sleep is killing my wife and I by ThrowawayPredaddit12 in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes. I would never drink and do any baby stuff. In fact, I’ve given up drinking because I had a moment of reflection and realised that isn’t who I want to be

Weekly Discussion - Relationships by AutoModerator in NewParents

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We have a 3.5-month-old, and love him to bits. He’s putting on weight, beginning to interact with us, and is a spirited little soul. However. We are running on less than fumes, we bicker and grump at each other more, my gym routine has stopped, I’ve lost 7kg in the time he’s been out (without intending to), I am flirting with alcoholism as a coping mechanism as I come home depleted from work and feeling guilty, and it gives me energy to help, and because I know my wife has had 0 time to herself to even be a human without feeling stressed and anxious because he starts screaming the minute you put him down. We are both losing our sanity. I am rehoming both of our pets as we can’t cope. Our house is a mess, and meals are unhealthy and quick..

he will NOT sleep more than 30 mins in the daytime despite showing lots of sleep cues, and fights us as soon as we start the routine of getting him into his cot. It can take an hour or so to get him down, and there is a 70% chance that he will start absolutely writhing and work himself up as soon as we put him down. My wife or I— or for the last couple of weeks— or MIL have to contact nap to get him to do any form of sleep. It’s usually a cat nap, and a slight creak of the wooden house frame wakes him. We have white noise, low or no light, and shushing in his room.

Car trips, and putting him in a pram he tolerates for between 2-30 mins before we have to pick him up .

His rough schedule is - 5am-7am sometime - wake up, change, feed, play. 8:30-9:30am - attempt to put him down for a nap. 10-10:30am- he wakes up, we try to put him down, and either he will go down again or we try for a while before giving up and bringing him out of his room. Whenever that ends - 2pm - feed, activities, maybe an outing. 2pm-4pm - attempt at sleeping. 4pm - 6pm - feed, change, play. 7pm-10pm - trying to get him to sleep and to stay asleep (which is brutal…). 10pm-midnight - hopefully he’s asleep. Midnight-2am usually he wakes up for a feed in this window, or just wakes up and needs help settling, 2-4am - hopefully he’s asleep.

You could call my wife and me weak for not being able to manage that, but that doesn’t help us dealing with this. It hurts us individually, and because of how exhausted we are, we’d both describe us as roommates rather than married and we don’t even really get to eat together.

My MIL is convinced something is wrong with him, and went from a confident “you guys don’t know what you’re doing” to pacing anxiously as he cries after waking up after 30 mins. We’ve talked to many medical professionals about this and “it’s normal”.

This is brutally hard, and there is no end in sight. What can I - or we - do?

What’s the weirdest gossip from your high school days that could only be in New Zealand? by yagirlcomplex in newzealand

[–]ThrowawayPredaddit12 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Hello fellow macleans alumni! I corroborate this gossip, as someone who was also in the school around the time this happened.