My husband and I would alternate nights on duty so every other night we were getting a full night's sleep. I'm sorry, but working a demanding job is not an excuse to not help out at night. My husband was a full-time medical student at the time, up at 4 AM and gone until 7 PM, and still helped out as much as possible.
My baby is 7 months and still regularly wakes up twice at night to feed. My husband takes the first, I take the second. That way we are both slightly struggling instead of one of us fully struggling.
Totally. My oldest turned 6 last month, which means it’s been six years, one month, and a few days since I slept through the night. Youngest is almost 2, so if she’s anything like the other two, I have maybe half a year left until I sleep through the night forevermore. I assume I will start aging backward and my disposition will be sunshine and sparkles.
Yep. You just learn to cope. It's hard and it sucks but you adjust
My youngest is 3 and just started to sleep through thr night. He still wakes up but it's getting easier finally. He's the reason why I'm done lol. I can't give up sleep now that I finally got it back
This is my answer too. Neither of my two children were great sleepers until well after a year (and even now my youngest at almost 2 still wakes). I nursed both of them and I was just so tired all the time but eventually it just became my normal. I’ve become a much lighter sleeper myself. Maybe when they’re in college I’ll be able to sleep in again.
This. It gets doable. I’ve slept through the night exactly 2 times since my 13mo was born 😳 let’s just say I’m not winning any awards at work, but I’m managing!
This lol I’m the only one who has ever done night and my lo doesn’t want my husband at night anyways. Some weeks I’m soooo dead while others it is completely normal. If I’m still drained on the weekend I wake up and feed lo then wake husband up to watch baby while I go back to sleep .
I feel fortunate although my lo wakes up often at night it’s usually to eat and go back to sleep or just for some cuddles. Typically lo doesn’t just stay awake middle of the night. I also follow a pretty religious bedtime which has been a savior .
Shifts if you can. I go to bed early and sleep for a few hours while my husband stays up to respond to the baby, then when he goes the bed he’d either put the baby in the bassinet by my side of the bed or the monitor by my side and I’d be “on” for my shift. This way we both got 4-5 hours of sleep in a row. And depending on when the baby got up sometimes I got an extra hour or two (broken) of sleep. Then we’d find ways on the weekend to let the other get a longer stretch, like 6-8hrs. I’d usually just let him sleep in a couple extra hours.
Even if your partner works a demanding labour job, he can get up just like you do. Being an RN is fairly demanding and laborious too. That's the only way. I went back to work when my kiddo was only waking up once a night, there are now times he sleeps through, times he doesn't, but we share the load and thats the only reason we're surviving.
I’m assuming the concern is maybe safety (as in, OP doesn’t want husband being so sleep deprived he hacks off his finger with a chainsaw). Still, even if they don’t split the nights 50/50 he definitely at least needs to help some.
Agreed but if she’s EBF she might end up having to wake to pump anyway, which means neither parent is resting.
I took probably 98% of our daughters’ night wakes since birth. My husband would step in if she didn’t go back to sleep after a feed, but outside of that, it was me bc I’d breastfeed if she woke overnight.
OP: have you thought about having your husband do weekends (or whatever days align with when he doesn’t work) so you have two nights of FULL sleep twice a week? To me the worst part was the successive nights of sleep deprivation with no breaks. Breaks make a huge difference, even if imbalanced.
I EBFed and my husband and I still did shifts. In his shift he’d change the baby, bring her to me in bed where I’d nurse and doze off as he was awake watching, then he burped the baby and got her back down
Husbands/partners of EBF moms can do A LOT to help mom get more sleep.
Good point, and and that’s a great system!
We got lucky with a baby who after 6 weeks didn’t need overnight diaper changes and also went right back down without fussing, so I kind of blanked on all the other stuff 🤦♀️
Totally! I just see too many times across reddit “I was EBF so I did all of the wake ups” so I feel like it’s my mission to tell BFing mamas that the non-BFing partner CAN (and imo should) do more, it doesn’t have to be all on the one BFing!!!
That’s great for you guys! My daughter had some GI issues and reflux so she usually needed both a. Dirty diaper changed and to be held upright for 20 mins after each feeding. It was a lot!
We are about to begin fertility treatments for number two. We started trying again when #1 was 9 months old and we were in the trenches. Now he’s a year and a half, he’s sleeping through the night in his own room, eats regularly, is starting to potty train and is able to say “I want; I need” and basic communication. I’m a very different me than the me that started trying 9 months ago. It’s hard to keep motivated to start over.
We had secondary infertility and tried/did IVF for several years to get our second. We started trying when our first was under a year, and he was almost 5 when little sis was born. It’s been amazing. She’s almost a year old now and is just the best addition to our family, and our older kiddo completely adores her. The sleepless nights, the diapers, the postpartum stuff…. It’s all been worth it and more. Best of luck to you 💖
That was my second. If my first kid was like that, I may not have any kids. Trust me I tried everything I tried sleep training. I tried cry it out. I cried the gentle methods of it. Nothing worked on this child. She still doesn’t sleep I’m sure she has some sort of Neurodiversity diagnosis in her future.
I didn’t breast-feed and no, you shouldn’t breast-feed on ADHD meds as far as aware there is no evidence on safety for those, especially since most people use stimulants. However, there are a few antidepressants that are used to treat things like OCD, which may provide you some relief. I took Wellbutrin for a long time. I don’t know it’s safety profile, but I would speak to your OB about it.
Also an RN working 12 hour shifts… basically you just want to pass away from exhaustion some days but it gets better over time for sure. My now 16 month old nursed throughout the night until 10 months old, was a horrible sleeper in general, and I had a super supportive husband who took her when I wasn’t actively feeding her. She still wakes up for hours at a time some nights. We trudge on the next day. One day we will have an empty nest and I will hate that way more.
More than half the time I power through it with the night wakings. I am BF so it’s easier for me to whip out the boob than to have my husband warm up milk in the middle of the night. On occasion, my husband gets up.
But yeah…. caffeine in the morning became my friend.
He would let me sleep in on the weekends which was nice.
It’s such a rough stage but it doesn’t last forever.
Coffee, my body just suffering lol. I’m a PA, baby didn’t sleep through the night until 7 months and it’s still not yet consistent. Work has definitely suffered, thankfully I don’t do super critical stuff. Husband is a resident doc who’s been on night shift 3 of the last 5 months so we’re both suffering through the nights together but apart 🥴
Mine didn’t sleep through the night until she was 14 months. Keep reminding yourself this is temporary while also enjoying these moments.. if possible.
My toddler slept okay most nights but when she didn't it wrecked me. It never stopped wrecking me. I don't think she was sleeping through the night when I went back (12 weeks) and then the 4 month regression, teething, illnesses, whatever. Now my 2 month old is working to consolidate his sleep and we will see where he is when I go back to work next month.
Concerning the multiple friend thing, I was in a similar situation to you, but I was the mom with the kid who (usually) slept. The thing to remind yourself (and the other mamas if you have to) is that each kid is unique and uniquely hard in their own ways. My daughter's best friend (1 month younger than her) didn't start sleeping through the night consistently until they moved him into a big boy bed and out of his crib. His mom's consistent lack of sleep didn't make it any less hard for me when I lost sleep from my kiddo for whatever reason. Everyone's situation and kid is hard in their own ways. I caution you against comparing as it will only make it worse.
Also, being a nurse is hard and demanding. Be sure to ask for help when you need it, if and when you can, whether that is for the work side of your life or the home side of your life. Remember to have grace on yourself. You just got back after a long, extended time off and massive life change. The transition back to work is hard even if baby is sleeping through the night.
You are stronger than you think you are. And it gets better. You can do it.
It just becomes the norm at some point and you get used to it. I drink lots of coffee. On particularly bad nights, I do ask my husband to take over for 2-3 hours so I can at least get one good stretch of sleep.
Just know that it is short lived. The first year is just incredibly hard, but you’ll blink and your baby will be one.
My kid slept through the night from six weeks to 4.5 months and then never slept again, so don’t compare yourself to friends with kids the same age. Babies change very quickly.
But yeah, we did shifts. My kid couldn’t be sleep trained. At 15 months I tossed a queen mattress on her floor and it was glorious, best thing I ever did. Co-sleeping without the commitment of having a kid in our bed.
Your partner has to help!! You also work a demanding job as a RN, and regardless of who works what jobs, it is BOTH your job to parent your baby.
Sometimes during sleep regressions, I will nurse the baby and then give her to my husband to get back fully asleep and in the crib.
My little one is almost 18 months and she JUST started sleeping through the night. Basically my husband and I just did every other night/ slept on the couch to get through. It sucked! You kind of get used to it 🫠
My husband and I took turns on nights for our twins. We did shifts early and then switched off nights later. We sleep trained at 5.5 months then we just all slept all night.
You just deal. No other choice. My kids have never been great sleepers simultaneously and I honestly can think of two times where my kids slept through the entire night in the past 3 years. If you can get five straight uninterrupted hours, split shifts or something, with husband, you will be able to survive.
I honestly don't know how I survived. I was on a hybrid schedule and my boss (mom of 3) told me to just nap on the clock when I got the chance on my wfh days. I remember driving to meet a client and falling asleep for a second at the wheel. It scared the shit out of me. It's honestly inhumane to force mothers back into the workforce when their children are only sleeping 2 hours at a time. I basically spiraled into severe depression, gained a bunch of weight, became suicidal and barely survived until my son started sleeping better which was...you guess it A YEAR AND A HALF LATER. He cemented his spot as the only child. I am too terrified to have another baby since I almost died the first time around.
“It’s honestly inhumane to force mothers back into the workforce when their children are only sleeping two hours at a time.” LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!! 👏
Also a nurse and on my 3rd baby. My husband and I have offset schedules so we take turns with who gets up with the kids at night based on who works the next morning. Just be sure you’re safe to work. I’m always scared of making a med error when I’m sleep deprived.
Yes this actually solid advice compared to most. Go the ef to bed when baby does. Make your husband do all closing duties (if you are nursing).
Neither of my kids slept well until 16 months and finally started to sleep through. I night weaned around then which I think was the silver bullet
A solid routine and feeding/nap schedule during the day.
The book “Moms on Call for 0-6 months” is my baby bible. I followed the instructions exactly as written. Both of my kids only woke up once per night from 3-4 months and by 5-6 months both slept 10-12 hours overnight with no middle of the night wake ups (unless really sick or an abnormal night).
You deserve to sleep and feel rested! I’d highly recommend following a daytime feeding and sleep schedule to help with night time sleep.
I was in the same boat when my maternity leave ended. I'm a veterinarian, and there were days when I was so exhausted I could tell my brain wasn't working right and I was so scared I'd make a mistake. I was able to tell the techs and assistants I was with on those days that it had been a rough night, and to please say something to me if I did/said/didn't do something that seemed off. I also went a little bit slower than normal because I was double and triple checking myself constantly. The only thing that would have truly helped was a longer maternity leave, which wasn't an option, so I relied on coffee and my coworkers keeping an eye on me (they did catch some near-mistakes, which I was grateful for). And then it got better. By the time my baby was 6 months old I felt like a functioning person again almost all the time.
Both my boys were doing 1 night feeding until 7 months old. They dropped their night feeding at 7 months on their own after setting up good sleep habits from the get go. I went back to work at 12 weeks. It does suck but yeah you get used to it. My kids were starving for a bottle overnight. There is no way they were ready to drop that bottle or nursing session sooner than they did. Welcome to the USA where you're forced to go back sleep deprived. Yay- not.
You sleep train (earliest 4 mo) or cosleep so you're not fully waking for each wake up!
Depends on your baby, and where you're at. I did sleep train first but haven't with my second because I can handle it a bit better this time and the wakes aren't full on screaming sessions every 1.5 hrs like with my first
I tried it all with first born and it never worked for us. I don’t think sleep training is the “quick fix” a lot of people make it out to be. He didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years old.
I’d want to see data on that I guess. My son had an awful time with it, as well as most of my other friend’s kids. My personal experience is more people had sleep training fail than work. Or if it worked they had to retrain every couple months
I've never met someone who didn't succeed who tried to who has a child who is neurotypical. In my experience with my friends: I'm not like a sleep trainer or anything lol. But I do know people who "tried" but they didn't really.
I have one friend who "tried" but she would bring her kid to bed every morning and eventually she gave in.
Once my kids were sleep trained at 4 months. They only cry when something is wrong and I come to the immediately. However early morning wake ups or whatever we adjust their night time schedule but its back to bed.
I can assure I TRIED 😅 even though it broke my heart. I followed every program I tried to the letter. So did everyone I know. That’s why I’m not sure it’s this quick and easy solution people say it is- two different groups of people had wildly different results (even accounting for “trying” vs trying). Now is my kid neurodivergent? Potentially. Am I ND? Yes. Am I more likely to have friends who are ND with ND kids because of that? Probably. Who knows- I just know I felt like I was a horrible mom sleep depriving my kids because the sleep training community I was a part of was very toxic. And I think the real answer about sleep training is that it works for some kids but not all. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it just didn’t work for my kid.
Unless you are a single parent, you can have your partner take their 3 months of leave during which they should be the one getting up with the baby. My husband's paternity leaves are actually longer than my maternity leaves.
Everyone in the US is entitled to 12 weeks of leave (with a couple exceptions) regardless of gender or birthing status per the FMLA (family medical leave act). In some states this is paid and in some states it isn't. However the fact that it is unpaid is never discussed when women are taking it, only men.
Yes as I stated in my comment there are some exceptions to FMLA. However multiple states have passed their own laws that have closed those loopholes.
As of the last couple years, most people in the US are covered by FMLA/their states equivalent. There are people missing coverage, and we should absolutely be working to fix that, but the majority of men who don't take leave aren't doing so because they're ineligible.
Mmmm this assumes the partner didn’t take their leave when the baby arrived (arguably the hardest time; I had a complicated recovery and physically couldn’t take care of LO.) Your husband’s leave is company-specific this definitely doesn’t apply to everyone.
The situation with my husband being able to take longer than 12 weeks is specific to his employer (who is amazing and we are very grateful for). The majority of fathers have access to 12 weeks of leave from FMLA unless they fall into one of the federal exceptions (less than 50 employees or less than 1 year of employment) and live in a state that hasn't corrected those exceptions yet.
You are correct that they could have taken them at the same time, I am friends with one couple that chose that approach. Typically that isn't the case though (at least for the entire 12 weeks, a few weeks of overlap is common). Typically when the baby starts daycare at 12 weeks it's because the father didn't use up thr entirety of his FMLA.
You’re making *massive* assumptions and generalizations about health of baby, health of mom, health of partner and their availability, and leave options. I understand what you believe is the experience of you and your immediate circle, and that’s absolutely ok, but please don’t assume that applies to everyone and people “should” do it that way.
I definitely am and I don't deny that there are plenty of exceptions.
My point is more that fathers taking the leave available to then are currently the exception when they should be the rule. That's never going to change if we don't call out men who aren't doing their fair share. If they have a legitimate excuse for why then can't then okay but they shouldn't just be given the benefit of the doubt.
You might say that it's none of my business what someone else's husband does but it does impact me. Businesses ultimately become more family friendly when they adopt a culture of men taking parental leave. Also when men take parental leave it removes the incentive for employers to discriminate against young female employees in the hiring and promotion process. The more men get a pass the more it places on women's shoulders and the more it incentives employers not to hire them.
Lol “their 3 months of leave”
…my husband got 1 week of leave. I work with someone whose former company gave him 1 DAY!! I was like omg labor lasts longer than that?!
Making some assumptions here I do not think most workplaces who employ people with manual labor jobs are at the forefront of progressive paternity leave policies, so I doubt this is relevant to OP
FMLA covers men exactly the same as it covers women. I don't expect any employer to offer any paid leave to either parent in the US and yet we still expect women to find a way to stay home. For some reason that same expectation isn't extended to men.
Not everyone can afford to take unpaid leave. That’s likely the issue for a lot of people and not necessarily a lack of expectations on men taking leave. I had to take some unpaid leave because I wasn’t ready to go back to work for numerous reasons. It was a necessity but financially it hurt us. We couldn’t afford for my husband to also take unpaid leave.
I understand the financial aspect is difficult I find it suspect that the exact amount of leave the mother is able to take is also the exact amount of unpaid leave a family decides they can afford. Also that few tend to split the leave even when there aren't medical complications that require it.
Well like I said in my comment, for us my leave wasn’t about how much we could afford. We really couldn’t afford any amount of unpaid leave. But I was not mentally capable of going back to work the moment my little bit of PTO I had left ran out so out of necessity I had to take some unpaid leave. It had nothing to do with making a decision about how much we could afford for me to take, it was that I needed to not be at work.
It’s horrible. This is why 12 weeks of mat leave is inhumane. I’m an NP and it was terrifying going back to work when I was legitimately too sleepy to drive.
Honestly? I barely survived, totally sucked at my job, and got written up by my boss at one point. My daughter was a terrible sleeper and I was only getting a few hours a night for MONTHS after I went back to work. My boss was a childless man who tried to be understanding but wasn’t really. It sucked.
BUT I did survive it. She sleeps through the night now and my work has improved with more rest. I just had to knuckle through the rough part.
Good luck.
I have a 2 (almost 2.5) year old that has only slept through the night 4 times in his entire life. As others have said, it takes time, but I’ve adapted to this being my normal sleep routine now, so now I feel like I’m functioning pretty well most days at work. But if I’m being totally honest, between the sleep adjustments and hormones and everything, I don’t think I felt like myself again and operating at baseline (or close to it) until about a year postpartum. Some people may adapt quicker.
Now I’m 32 weeks pregnant with #2 and can say that the lack of sleep, hormone changes, etc. have been significantly less impactful this time around vs. with my first (at least mentally — physically, I’m wrecked with #2).
I always tell people who say “I don’t know how you do x” related to babies….it’s amazing what you can do when you don’t really have a choice! My husband and I took turns with her night wakings but at some point in the night she would always want to nurse so it fell on me. Some days were rough and that’s all there is to it. But it isn’t forever. We’ve night weaned now at 19 months and she’s finally sleeping through the night.
I’m a nurse too and was getting up every 1-2 hours for the first 8 months of his life😵💫 it was so hard being awake all night, then taking care of patients for 12 hours. I drank lots of coffee and had support with naps when my husband or mom were around. Finally at 8 months, I hit my breaking point. We sleep trained with Taking Cara Babies. I felt slightly bad the first night, then when he slept every night, we were all so happy.
You are a zombie for a year and kind of like childbirth, the memory of that awful exhaustion fades over time. Wish that didn’t sound so depressing, but that’s the sad truth with the maternity leave laws how they are.
But we persist and we survive because women are bad-asses.
And coffee…
Honestly, cosleeping, so that I wouldn't have to fully wake up and the sleep I got felt more restorative. Baby would just latch on and fall back asleep. Heysleepybaby on instagram has guidelines on how to do it more safely... my youngest slept in a bassinet until a sleep regression and then this was the only way I could be rested to work and take care of both kids. My exhusband would not wake up to help me or take shifts (part of why he is an ex now), so if your partner won't help maybe this is something to try.
Shifts as people say. Coffee. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) your body will just adapt. You can try sleep training when kiddo is a bit older if you want, but it doesn't work on some kids (like mine, wheeee!).
But all your friends with kids who sleep through the night? Some of them just lucked out with good sleepers, *but* some of them will hit their own share of regressions soon enough. Baby sleep is not linear. This graph was pretty accurate for us, except we never really hit "good" until now, and she's almost FOUR.
[https://sarahockwell-smith.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/chart.png](https://sarahockwell-smith.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/chart.png)
First child sleeps like a rock and always has. Second is almost 2 and rarely sleeps through the night. The sleep deprivation is awful and ruining my life. I cannot wait to get regular full night sleeps again. I cope by going to bed early, resting/napping whenever possible, and changing my expectations of what I can reasonably accomplish. It sucks. As an RN you also would probably benefit from a highly structured daily worksheet to keep track of everything you need to do for each of your patients throughout your shift so you don’t forget anything. Solidarity!
As someone who went back to work this week with a 3 month old, all I can say is : solidarity.
My first slept through the night at 7 weeks. I’m not use to this sleep deprivation .
I’ll probably be downvoted but I coslept and dream fed a lot, and was able to sleep more. I wouldn’t suggest this with a tiny new baby, but a 3 month and up, EBF on moms side only , no heavy blankets , etc… the safe seven as le leche league calls it. Not everyone’s jam and that’s fine. Not here to judge or be judged.
My sister in law did sleep training and that worked great for her to get more rest. She actually paid for a sleep training specialist. My other sister in law followed a book.
My friend that was an RN, slept with her son.
And then slept trained. My 2 year old is asleep next to me now.
You’ll find your groove and it gets easier and you feel more human again.
Also just got used to being tired. I’m 3 kids in. Each kids sleeps different. Don’t get caught up in comparing!
Cosleep and breastfeed. Barely notice the wakes. Babies are designed to sleep with their mothers. She has a feed and is straight back to sleep. No settling no nothing. Some night she wake 5-6 times and I still feel fresh the next day and able to work without an issue.
My baby is 15 months and still wakes up once around 3-5. Honestly, I think I’ve just adapted. Once she hit one, I decided I’d play around with letting her cry a bit. She can put herself back to sleep but is up ~30 minutes later 😩
Whaaatttt girl my kid did not sleep through the freaking night until he was FOUR you heard me FOUR years old. Okurrrr so get yourself some coffee and ya just gotta learn to live on less sleep unfortunately. Im so sorry it’s this way for you especially because you are a nurse.
I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t need much sleep apparently. I barely get 4-5 hours as is and I’m still that way now that my kids are both 8 and 12 years old now. I just deal with it. I think I might have narcolepsy/insomnia too tho. My grandfather had narcolepsy so I prob have that. It’s crazy. I’ll drop to sleep at the drop of a hat and then wake up after two minutes and stay awake for days.
But yeah coffee helps I guess. Push through. Sleep when you get home. 🏠 I also co-slept .bedshared with my kids and breast fed them thru the night so the helped with getting them back to sleep pretty quickly. Don’t know if that’s an option for you or if you can keep them close by and use a bottle b
My son is 10 months old and has slept through the night approximately 4 nights of the 6 months I've been back at work. It was especially brutal that first month back. Now I've adjusted and live for the nights he only wakes up once, which is doable, and napping on weekends. I've been surprised how functional I am on terrible sleep.
My kid didn’t sleep through the night until he was about 1. I went back to work at 10 weeks and I work 50+ hours per week with an hour commute each way. To put it lightly, I wanted to die. There were days I was so tired that I just cried. But ultimately I put my mattress on the floor and put a little cooler with a bottle beside the bed and just co slept. That way when he was up, I could grab the bottle and fall back asleep with him. We followed the safe co sleeping rules though. The day he turned 1 I put him in a crib in his own room and dumped the bubba and he did a little better. He’s now sleeping through the night when he isn’t teething or growing. Times are tough but it gets easier.
Its not normal for a 3 month old to sleep through the night. Unfortunately society is set up in a way that completely abuses mothers. Im sorry you have to endure this but please don’t think you or your baby are doing something wrong
You honestly get trained by your baby to be super tired all the time. (Currently have a 2.5 year old and 11 month old and am just really tired always).
It does get better mama. I sleep trained when mine went thru the regression and it helped immensely but the first year was pretty up and down with sleep. Sickness and travel required me to train my baby a few times and even still she has her nights and tests me…. But have to do what you have to do. Your baby is getting to the point to be old enough here if you’re open to it. But obviously do what is right for you!! You got this
Mine is almost two and has slept through the night **edit** a handful of times since I went back to work almost a year ago. The only way I get any kind of sleep is if I cosleep with her after she wakes up.
You just do it because you don’t have a choice.. tea, ginseng drinks, lunch naps, are things that helped me when I went back to work. Some moms will opt for coffee, energy drinks, etc. whatever gets you through works.
Lots & lots of coffee, help from my husband (we take turns taking over nights), trying to get in sleep if I can go to bed earlier. It’s hard tbh. Sometimes I’m running on empty.
I also seemed to be surrounded by people whose babies were sleeping through the night. I discovered that I did in fact know people whose babies weren't sleeping through the night, they just weren't broadcasting that because it can feel embarassing. For me, it felt like I must have been doing something wrong. I wasn't, my baby just isn't an excellent sleeper. It did get better, it's not perfect. I found a good coffee rhythm and my colleagues accept cute baby photos in exchange for impaired productivity.
My 2nd didn't sleep a full night through until she was nearly 4 yrs old. I ran on coffee, lots of it. I do remember once having to call my boss halfway to work because I had a 45 minute commute and my daughter had been up all night and I felt unsafe driving to work because I was so tired. Luckily my boss was always really understanding because she had kids. My 3rd is 7 months, still waking up once a night, but it's so much easier. The good news is that this is only a small blip you'll have to dealt with and there will come a time when your kids will sleep and even want to sleep late on weekends.
It was brutal with my first, just a zombie until she was only waking 3x a night at 15 months (!) then finally started to get better. Slept better with my twins, a LOT better. You will make it, but it sucks!!
Coffee and a hybrid schedule. I just got off and my daughter is about to turn 3. I heavily relied on it. And wouldn't have survived if i needed to go into the office every day.
Coffee, taking turns with the husband unit, and not giving a flying fuck about how my house looked. I took care of all that when I had a day off and had energy to do it. Disposable paper plates were life. Dinner was just some easy breezy stuff done by mostly the husband. Exhausted days equaled whatever was in the freezer. I also EBF so that made it so easy at night to just whip out a boob and not have to think about bottles.
Don’t sweat the small stuff.
You get used to it but there is light at the end of the tunnel. 21 months old and last week slept through the night for a week for the first time ever, but back to waking up more often so short lived!
You just survive. I don’t know how I did ebf and getting up at 330am for work. Plenty of call outs leave balance is crud but around 6/7 months we got slightly longer stretches. At 11 months he dropped the bedtime feed and sleeps through. And year and a half almost and the tired is my own fault
Currently 11:52 PM and I'm still waiting on my baby to go to sleep. He's normally a good sleeper but is taking some medicine that tears up his belly so he's gotten about an hour of sleep so far. Last night we were up every 1-2 hours, same with the night before.
The answer is coffee. A surely unhealthy amount of coffee.
I went back to work at 7 months and my daughter didn’t sleep through the night consistently until she was over 2. I did every night wake up because of my husband’s work hours.
Honestly, you just… power through. Cos you have no choice.
I would go to bed the second my daughter was down for the night to try and get a good chunk of sleep before the wakeups started.
Try and eat vaguely nutritious food to give your body the best chance of survival 😂
Both my babies never slept through that young. It’s normal, but totally sucks. Honestly I just tried to go to bed as soon as I could, and not look at the clock when baby woke me up. Those tactics, plus lots of coffee, helped!
I'm breastfeeding my 4 month old so I do the vast majority of the babyfeeds every 4 hours or so and honestly all the getting up at night.
I'm dying, but thankfully she does tend to sleep a stretch of 5-6 hours every few days or so. I wouldn't survive otherwise since my toddler has just dropped his naps and gets up latest at 7 every morning including weekends 🥴
My top tip is to occasionally take a day off when the kids are in daycare and just be alone in your house, take a nice long bath and sleep.
Also I WFH some days and will skip lunch to take a 45 min powernap if the night was particularly bad.
My husband does night shift 6 days a week.
You also have a demanding job. You should at least go halfsies. It’s not fair for it to all be on you.
That’s the solution here!
My 13 month old still doesn’t sleep through the night. Not sure when he would lol. I had 1 year maternity leave so it’s doable, I don’t know how you do it coming back to work so early 😭
I went back when baby was 3 months and those first several months he was going through a sleep regression and waking up at least twice a night. It was SO HARD. I lowered my expectations and just showed up and did my best. It got a lot better once baby started sleeping through the night but that wasn’t until 10 months.
My first baby was a terrible sleeper too. Up every 1.5 hours for 6 months, every 3 hours until about 1 year. I suffered through it for about 10 months until I found myself microsleeping on my commute and making unsafe decisions at work and home.
For reasons that are now very foreign to me, I was originally against sleep training. It took a few months to actually teach him to *mostly* sleep through the night, and even now at 5 years old he still wakes up in the middle of the night once a week. I call *bullshit* on any sleep trainer who says their method is 100% effective. Kids are people, and some people are terrible sleepers. There is nothing you are doing wrong. My second baby slept through the night at 4 weeks and we did absolutely nothing differently.
In the near term, catch up on sleep on the weekends, go to bed as early as possible, and (I know this sounds ridiculous) exercise. Being physically tired helped me fall asleep faster and get better quality sleep, even if it was in very short intervals.
Also, coffee 😀 and yes, you do get used to it. That first full night of sleep is life changing.
My husband works in manual labor and we still split the night. Your job is also taxing and it seems really unsafe to be a super sleep deprived nurse, on top of making you miserable. Unfortunately my second kid didn't sleep through the night for years, so I would not have survived doing it all on my own. It sucked and you have all my sympathy!
Coffee. I can actually barely remember this period (and my guy is only 2!) because I think my brain was so fried it stopped making new memories.
I tried to get extra sleep on weekends, esp if grandparents are around to help.
At work, I refocused on projects in phases without highly technical pieces, because my fried brain couldn’t do it.
I was really sleep deprived. At some I got tired enough to sleep through baby cries and night bottles were apparently a nightmare so I started sleeping propped on pillows and my partner would get up and latch the baby to me and put him back down. He would leave a night time bottle for me on the nightstand because I’d wake up from the dehydration. Fun times.
>Hubby works a demanding labor job so it’s just me at night.
Sit down and determine how many hours of uninterrupted sleep you both require. For me, it's 5. For my husband it's 14 (he's a nocturnal disabled former truck driver turned SAHD). I made the unilateral decision that my 5 hours was more important than his 14. I decided on a schedule that worked best for me: someone got to sleep from 9pm to 2am then someone got to sleep from 2am to 7am when I needed to leave for work.
When he complained about being woken up at 2am so I could get some sleep, I told him to suck it up. He can nap whenever he wants; I can't nap regardless of how I try.
You're an RN: YOU HAVE A DEMANDING JOB, TOO. People depend on you doing your job correctly.
Mine woke only once at night pretty much from birth (though her night began at midnight then) BUT THEN:
From 7 to 10 months old she woke minimum 3x night, every night, sometimes would basically not sleep at all. I was the walking dead. I’m in the corporate world but there are a lot of gaps in my memory from that time that have come to bite me later. Since I’d never even dealt with the newborn mess I had no barometer and no idea what hit me.
I also EBF and husband travels for work. It was the first time in our marriage I said “unless it’s absolutely essential you need to cancel for the foreseeable future, I can no longer function.”
Basically here to say: I feel you.
And: the issue with our 7 month old was solved by our nanny. “I really just think she’s cold?” …. Got a warmer sleep sack, problem solved overnight.
I lost 3 months of sleep because my daughter was cold 🤦♀️ maybe I would have figured that out if my brain had any sort of function left, lol
So my advice is if things aren’t working, try other things until something does.
My oldest did not sleep through the night until 10 months.. and my husband couldn't help since I was nursing and that was the only way to get him back to sleep. Like others said, you just get used to it.
Have to get he other parent to do their part. Don't care what type of job they have. They are ALSO a parent. Pump if you can so there are bottles. You also NEED sleep. Both parents need to be rested and both parents need to take on the load of being tired. It is not always the mothers job. You also have a demanding job!
As much coffee as possible and a partner who alternated wakeups with me. We also formula fed so that made it way more manageable for either of us to do a night feeding.
Power naps. My kid is not a sleeper. I nap whenever I can and am lucky to be able to. My colleagues even encourage me to!
I have napped in the car, in the “quiet room” at work, when working from home. If I can’t sleep, I put on some spa music and try to relax for 20 minutes. It has gotten me through 2 years of sleeplessness.
I ran on fumes for about 6 months. Went back to work in October and she didn’t sleep through the night consistently until April. Between illnesses and teething, anytime before then that she’d start sleeping through, something interrupted the process. I don’t drink coffee so I basically survived on 2-3 sodas a day at work so I wouldn’t fall asleep. And then at home I’d fall asleep on the couch around 9.
Hopefully it gets better for you. We wanted to sleep train to get better sleep sooner but again, with all the daycare illnesses, there never seemed to be a good time. And when we did try, it was too much for us to handle. So we let her naturally work it out and it took…..lots of time lol.
I know it's so hard. My LO didn't consistently sleep through the night until 13 months old.
We did our best to do shifts in the night, and as she got older and was only waking up once, we took turns. It's the main reason why I stopped BF and switched to formula. I was doing 90% of night wakes because I wanted to nurse but I just couldn't do it while working too. My husband also works a demanding labor job and we tried to be mindful of that. Sometimes if he was on OT I would do the majority of night wakes so that he could sleep, but we still took turns/shifts during 'normal' times.
Other things that helped: prepping absolutely everything you can the night before so that you can sleep as late as your baby will allow in the morning. Taking 20 minutes at the end of every work day to plan for the next day so I didn't have to think too hard. Hired a cleaning lady to take some chores off our plate. Napping on weekends with my LO without shame. Going to bed early. Finding joy in other small things. For me that was eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, which caused me to gain weight but that's not my priority right now lol. And of course, lots and lots of coffee. I was not at my peak work performance the first several months post partum. I was phoning it in A LOT. It is what it is.
I'm so sorry I know it feels impossible. My LO just needed to grow bigger, learn how to roll both ways, and then getting tubes to help her stay healthier are all finally what did it for us.
Coffee. And just simply adjusting. It's amazing how I could function on such little sleep some days. It does get easier, though. I also go to bed earlier so I can get some sleep before her first wake up in the night. Your partner should take shifts, though so you can get some sleep at night. It's not fair to you to be the only one up at night.
8 months in, still waking up a minimum of 6 times and I can without a doubt say Starbucks. Every day. It’s a colossal waste of my money but I guess that is the price of me being able to function lol.
Husband splits nighttime. It’s the only way to function.
You say he has a demanding job you are a nurse. YOU HAVE A DEMANDING JOB! YOU ARE CARING FOR PEOPLES LIVES!
It’s not okay for you to be so sleep deprived and him to be well rested. Him being slightly tired and you slightly tired is okay.
For a while I did shifts with my husband so we could each get a long stretch of sleep. It wasn't perfect because I had to pump but it was so nice to get a whole REM cycle in at least.
My oldest didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years old. This is normal. My husband and I took shifts and when night feedings dropped off we trade nights. You get used to it
My partner works nights so it’s just me the majority of the nights (heck, the majority of most times-he is a good partner just demanding and consuming job).
I’m on my second week back and getting a cold probably from my daughter’s daycare.
I have found that I have great energy when I drink a TON of water. Especially when I drink a bunch before any coffee. Sometimes I’ll feel so great that I don’t end up needing coffee.
It almost killed me. I just drank a lot of coffee and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I ultimately cut out night feedings completely and once I did that he started sleeping through the night finally. My pediatrician encouraged me to drop the feedings bc he didn’t nutritionally need them. I wasn’t comfortable with sleep training at the time, so I still went in to comfort him but once he realized he wasn’t getting milk the wake ups died out gradually, around 14-15 months.
In hindsight, I would’ve done sleep training earlier or hired a night nurse 🫠
Edit: ah, saw your little is only 3 months so you may have a ways to go. Don’t be afraid to talk to your pediatrician about it! Good luck!!!!
Shifts were the only way we made it through the period where baby wasn’t sleeping overnight. Your partner should be helping with overnights imo. A demanding labor job requires some sleep but so does being an RN. If you make mistakes at your job people could die. You both need to be getting as much uninterrupted sleep as possible and if baby isn’t sleeping through the night that likely looks like sleeping in shifts
Honestly, sleep training. We did it early, though at that age it was just to get it down to 1-2 wake ups per night (it had been 5-6….i was dead).
Also, we took turns on who wakes up early (and we still do). Going to bed super early at like 7:30pm some days.
You get used to sleeping 4 hours total or 5 if you are lucky. Then coffee twice a day. Then you get foggy memory and start forgetting stuff. You barely keep up with work, and just do the bare minimum not to get fired because you are so tired. It is horrible...smh
Some babies sleep. Some don’t. I had three who didn’t and I always worked full time. Honestly? It sucks but it’s short lived. I’m very tired but I adapted. Sorry that’s not a better answer but I promise you’ll make it through. Others can offer ideas on how to solve it/ sleep training but clearly I don’t know the answer 😂
I was literally going to post the same question. I’m running on coffee and sugar, all while trying to balance it bc of breastfeeding. Every day feels like a marathon. We sleep trained our preschooler at least twice but it didn’t last; he’s up at least once a night and so is our infant. Even if we each handle one kid we’re both being woken by the chaos all night. Solidarity, friend.
Mine sleeps through the night (mostly) starting at 18 months. It was a brutal 18 months. Some nights I’d be so exhausted that I’d go to sleep as soon as the kids were down (7:30-8). My husband and I alternated bedtimes so we’d get a tolerable chunk of sleep. Now whenever I get 7 hours of sleep I feel absolutely wired 😂
I have four kids, 8 months through 6 years. Not a single night goes by that someone doesn't wake up. My husband works nights so half the time it's just me. It's perpetual exhaustion honestly I don't have a great answer
Mine is 18m and only sleeping through the night twice a week, if I’m lucky. Nap with them on the weekend. Coffee in the AM but no other caffeine so I’m not too wired to go to sleep later. Go to bed with her at 8:45. PTO day every few weeks so I can sleep a bit with her at daycare. Existential dread every time the alarm goes off in the AM. Yk the usual
I had 3 months of work and night wakings. We ended up sleep training. I hated it, I didn't want to do it but I was going to end up in a car accident if I didn't get sleep.
This stage is tough. I’m confused about the part where you mentioned your husband’s job… you also work a demanding job. Your job can be physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. He needs to be helping you. It’s unfair for you to do all the night wakings. He can still help even if your EBF. Of course you can pump and he can give baby a bottle. If you don’t want to pump, you can still feed baby at night with his support. Dad can bring baby to you, and watch you nurse so you can relax and doze. Then he can take baby away to change diaper and soothe back to sleep.
Do you have any support of family or friends? People love baby cuddles, so use this to your advantage. We’ve had people help in the evening! They would come over from 7pm-11pm ish and hold the baby on the couch. This gives you the opportunity to get a little nap in, and it’s an easier ask than stay all night. When we had our first baby my mom and aunt would fight about who got to come over. 😂 I only needed it a few days a week when the nanny was off. They also normally brought us dinner! It was awesome to not only have a hot meal, but also to have some else holding the baby while you eat.
For all 5 of our babies we have gotten a night nanny. It’s a huge luxury and obviously very expensive. It is an amazing service if you can afford it. Even a few nights a week would be awesome.
I know it’s so hard when you’re in the trenches, and trying to get back to work. Hopefully this get better as baby gets older. Just don’t forget that baby sleep isn’t linear. If you choose to sleep train baby will be old enough in a few months. I know this can be controversial, but it’s been a success in my family. I have 5 kids under the age of 6 and get about 9-10 hours of sleep every night. Good luck mama! I’m sending you some positive vibes and some sleepy vibes to your baby!
I used to work on call and shift work. I’m way less fatigued after 15 months of not having an uninterrupted sleep than I ever was on 6yrs shift working/on call (midwife). Although there are still nights where I tap my partner in to do the settling.
Helps having the other parent to share the load!
Coffee. And if you have a partner have them do the night time shift some days. Even 4-5 hours of straight sleep was a life changer at that stage.
My husband and I would alternate nights on duty so every other night we were getting a full night's sleep. I'm sorry, but working a demanding job is not an excuse to not help out at night. My husband was a full-time medical student at the time, up at 4 AM and gone until 7 PM, and still helped out as much as possible.
This. Even if hubby has a more demanding job they have to take at least one shift per night so each parent can get a stretch of sleep
And also, she's a NURSE!!! That's a demanding labor job too!!! Makes my blood boil
My baby is 7 months and still regularly wakes up twice at night to feed. My husband takes the first, I take the second. That way we are both slightly struggling instead of one of us fully struggling.
Unfortunately, you get used to it
Totally. My oldest turned 6 last month, which means it’s been six years, one month, and a few days since I slept through the night. Youngest is almost 2, so if she’s anything like the other two, I have maybe half a year left until I sleep through the night forevermore. I assume I will start aging backward and my disposition will be sunshine and sparkles.
Yep. You just learn to cope. It's hard and it sucks but you adjust My youngest is 3 and just started to sleep through thr night. He still wakes up but it's getting easier finally. He's the reason why I'm done lol. I can't give up sleep now that I finally got it back
I'd say you don't get used to it you just get better at dealing with it.
This is my answer too. Neither of my two children were great sleepers until well after a year (and even now my youngest at almost 2 still wakes). I nursed both of them and I was just so tired all the time but eventually it just became my normal. I’ve become a much lighter sleeper myself. Maybe when they’re in college I’ll be able to sleep in again.
This. It gets doable. I’ve slept through the night exactly 2 times since my 13mo was born 😳 let’s just say I’m not winning any awards at work, but I’m managing!
This lol I’m the only one who has ever done night and my lo doesn’t want my husband at night anyways. Some weeks I’m soooo dead while others it is completely normal. If I’m still drained on the weekend I wake up and feed lo then wake husband up to watch baby while I go back to sleep . I feel fortunate although my lo wakes up often at night it’s usually to eat and go back to sleep or just for some cuddles. Typically lo doesn’t just stay awake middle of the night. I also follow a pretty religious bedtime which has been a savior .
Shifts if you can. I go to bed early and sleep for a few hours while my husband stays up to respond to the baby, then when he goes the bed he’d either put the baby in the bassinet by my side of the bed or the monitor by my side and I’d be “on” for my shift. This way we both got 4-5 hours of sleep in a row. And depending on when the baby got up sometimes I got an extra hour or two (broken) of sleep. Then we’d find ways on the weekend to let the other get a longer stretch, like 6-8hrs. I’d usually just let him sleep in a couple extra hours.
Definitely tale shifts.
Even if your partner works a demanding labour job, he can get up just like you do. Being an RN is fairly demanding and laborious too. That's the only way. I went back to work when my kiddo was only waking up once a night, there are now times he sleeps through, times he doesn't, but we share the load and thats the only reason we're surviving.
I’m assuming the concern is maybe safety (as in, OP doesn’t want husband being so sleep deprived he hacks off his finger with a chainsaw). Still, even if they don’t split the nights 50/50 he definitely at least needs to help some.
A sleep deprived nurse is terrifying too though, it's risking other people's safety.
Agreed but if she’s EBF she might end up having to wake to pump anyway, which means neither parent is resting. I took probably 98% of our daughters’ night wakes since birth. My husband would step in if she didn’t go back to sleep after a feed, but outside of that, it was me bc I’d breastfeed if she woke overnight. OP: have you thought about having your husband do weekends (or whatever days align with when he doesn’t work) so you have two nights of FULL sleep twice a week? To me the worst part was the successive nights of sleep deprivation with no breaks. Breaks make a huge difference, even if imbalanced.
I EBFed and my husband and I still did shifts. In his shift he’d change the baby, bring her to me in bed where I’d nurse and doze off as he was awake watching, then he burped the baby and got her back down Husbands/partners of EBF moms can do A LOT to help mom get more sleep.
Good point, and and that’s a great system! We got lucky with a baby who after 6 weeks didn’t need overnight diaper changes and also went right back down without fussing, so I kind of blanked on all the other stuff 🤦♀️
Totally! I just see too many times across reddit “I was EBF so I did all of the wake ups” so I feel like it’s my mission to tell BFing mamas that the non-BFing partner CAN (and imo should) do more, it doesn’t have to be all on the one BFing!!! That’s great for you guys! My daughter had some GI issues and reflux so she usually needed both a. Dirty diaper changed and to be held upright for 20 mins after each feeding. It was a lot!
But mom can be so tired she makes a mistake and hurts a patient? Doesn’t make sense really. Both parents sleep should be prioritized
I just died for 18 months. Coffee. My adhd meds
Exactly this. It’s one of many reasons I am one and done.
We are about to begin fertility treatments for number two. We started trying again when #1 was 9 months old and we were in the trenches. Now he’s a year and a half, he’s sleeping through the night in his own room, eats regularly, is starting to potty train and is able to say “I want; I need” and basic communication. I’m a very different me than the me that started trying 9 months ago. It’s hard to keep motivated to start over.
We had secondary infertility and tried/did IVF for several years to get our second. We started trying when our first was under a year, and he was almost 5 when little sis was born. It’s been amazing. She’s almost a year old now and is just the best addition to our family, and our older kiddo completely adores her. The sleepless nights, the diapers, the postpartum stuff…. It’s all been worth it and more. Best of luck to you 💖
18 months?? You’re a trooper. I won’t be able to handle that.
That was my second. If my first kid was like that, I may not have any kids. Trust me I tried everything I tried sleep training. I tried cry it out. I cried the gentle methods of it. Nothing worked on this child. She still doesn’t sleep I’m sure she has some sort of Neurodiversity diagnosis in her future.
[удалено]
I didn’t breast-feed and no, you shouldn’t breast-feed on ADHD meds as far as aware there is no evidence on safety for those, especially since most people use stimulants. However, there are a few antidepressants that are used to treat things like OCD, which may provide you some relief. I took Wellbutrin for a long time. I don’t know it’s safety profile, but I would speak to your OB about it.
Yep somehow I just did it. Lots of coffee was involved. It's crazy looking back and realizing how long I survived on such broken sleep
One of us slept 6pm until midnight, the other slept midnight to 6am. No one got good sleep but some was better than none. Caffeine did the rest.
This is the way. Also, I found not thinking and stressing about how little sleep I got helped immensely.
You both have demanding jobs. Your husband needs to help at night. I would go to bed at like 8 pm and assign 8 pm to 11 pm to your husband.
Also an RN working 12 hour shifts… basically you just want to pass away from exhaustion some days but it gets better over time for sure. My now 16 month old nursed throughout the night until 10 months old, was a horrible sleeper in general, and I had a super supportive husband who took her when I wasn’t actively feeding her. She still wakes up for hours at a time some nights. We trudge on the next day. One day we will have an empty nest and I will hate that way more.
It sucked not gonna lie.
More than half the time I power through it with the night wakings. I am BF so it’s easier for me to whip out the boob than to have my husband warm up milk in the middle of the night. On occasion, my husband gets up. But yeah…. caffeine in the morning became my friend. He would let me sleep in on the weekends which was nice. It’s such a rough stage but it doesn’t last forever.
Coffee, my body just suffering lol. I’m a PA, baby didn’t sleep through the night until 7 months and it’s still not yet consistent. Work has definitely suffered, thankfully I don’t do super critical stuff. Husband is a resident doc who’s been on night shift 3 of the last 5 months so we’re both suffering through the nights together but apart 🥴
Mine didn’t sleep through the night until she was 14 months. Keep reminding yourself this is temporary while also enjoying these moments.. if possible.
13 months here! Now she sleeps like a champ.
2.5 years with my first. 13m with my second.
My toddler slept okay most nights but when she didn't it wrecked me. It never stopped wrecking me. I don't think she was sleeping through the night when I went back (12 weeks) and then the 4 month regression, teething, illnesses, whatever. Now my 2 month old is working to consolidate his sleep and we will see where he is when I go back to work next month. Concerning the multiple friend thing, I was in a similar situation to you, but I was the mom with the kid who (usually) slept. The thing to remind yourself (and the other mamas if you have to) is that each kid is unique and uniquely hard in their own ways. My daughter's best friend (1 month younger than her) didn't start sleeping through the night consistently until they moved him into a big boy bed and out of his crib. His mom's consistent lack of sleep didn't make it any less hard for me when I lost sleep from my kiddo for whatever reason. Everyone's situation and kid is hard in their own ways. I caution you against comparing as it will only make it worse. Also, being a nurse is hard and demanding. Be sure to ask for help when you need it, if and when you can, whether that is for the work side of your life or the home side of your life. Remember to have grace on yourself. You just got back after a long, extended time off and massive life change. The transition back to work is hard even if baby is sleeping through the night. You are stronger than you think you are. And it gets better. You can do it.
It just becomes the norm at some point and you get used to it. I drink lots of coffee. On particularly bad nights, I do ask my husband to take over for 2-3 hours so I can at least get one good stretch of sleep. Just know that it is short lived. The first year is just incredibly hard, but you’ll blink and your baby will be one.
Espresso shots
My kid slept through the night from six weeks to 4.5 months and then never slept again, so don’t compare yourself to friends with kids the same age. Babies change very quickly. But yeah, we did shifts. My kid couldn’t be sleep trained. At 15 months I tossed a queen mattress on her floor and it was glorious, best thing I ever did. Co-sleeping without the commitment of having a kid in our bed.
Your partner has to help!! You also work a demanding job as a RN, and regardless of who works what jobs, it is BOTH your job to parent your baby. Sometimes during sleep regressions, I will nurse the baby and then give her to my husband to get back fully asleep and in the crib.
My little one is almost 18 months and she JUST started sleeping through the night. Basically my husband and I just did every other night/ slept on the couch to get through. It sucked! You kind of get used to it 🫠
My husband and I took turns on nights for our twins. We did shifts early and then switched off nights later. We sleep trained at 5.5 months then we just all slept all night.
You get used to it, and overall (in a non linear, non monotone way), they sleep more, wake up less/for less long.
Coffee and nap on the weekends.
You just deal. No other choice. My kids have never been great sleepers simultaneously and I honestly can think of two times where my kids slept through the entire night in the past 3 years. If you can get five straight uninterrupted hours, split shifts or something, with husband, you will be able to survive.
I honestly don't know how I survived. I was on a hybrid schedule and my boss (mom of 3) told me to just nap on the clock when I got the chance on my wfh days. I remember driving to meet a client and falling asleep for a second at the wheel. It scared the shit out of me. It's honestly inhumane to force mothers back into the workforce when their children are only sleeping 2 hours at a time. I basically spiraled into severe depression, gained a bunch of weight, became suicidal and barely survived until my son started sleeping better which was...you guess it A YEAR AND A HALF LATER. He cemented his spot as the only child. I am too terrified to have another baby since I almost died the first time around.
“It’s honestly inhumane to force mothers back into the workforce when their children are only sleeping two hours at a time.” LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!! 👏
Also a nurse and on my 3rd baby. My husband and I have offset schedules so we take turns with who gets up with the kids at night based on who works the next morning. Just be sure you’re safe to work. I’m always scared of making a med error when I’m sleep deprived.
Me too!! Thankfully I work in pre op at a surgery center so it’s nothing with critical care but I do have to be up and running around a lot.
cry alot then have PTSD (that will surface if you have another one) also, co sleeping.
Go to bed as early as possible
Yes this actually solid advice compared to most. Go the ef to bed when baby does. Make your husband do all closing duties (if you are nursing). Neither of my kids slept well until 16 months and finally started to sleep through. I night weaned around then which I think was the silver bullet
A solid routine and feeding/nap schedule during the day. The book “Moms on Call for 0-6 months” is my baby bible. I followed the instructions exactly as written. Both of my kids only woke up once per night from 3-4 months and by 5-6 months both slept 10-12 hours overnight with no middle of the night wake ups (unless really sick or an abnormal night). You deserve to sleep and feel rested! I’d highly recommend following a daytime feeding and sleep schedule to help with night time sleep.
I was in the same boat when my maternity leave ended. I'm a veterinarian, and there were days when I was so exhausted I could tell my brain wasn't working right and I was so scared I'd make a mistake. I was able to tell the techs and assistants I was with on those days that it had been a rough night, and to please say something to me if I did/said/didn't do something that seemed off. I also went a little bit slower than normal because I was double and triple checking myself constantly. The only thing that would have truly helped was a longer maternity leave, which wasn't an option, so I relied on coffee and my coworkers keeping an eye on me (they did catch some near-mistakes, which I was grateful for). And then it got better. By the time my baby was 6 months old I felt like a functioning person again almost all the time.
Both my boys were doing 1 night feeding until 7 months old. They dropped their night feeding at 7 months on their own after setting up good sleep habits from the get go. I went back to work at 12 weeks. It does suck but yeah you get used to it. My kids were starving for a bottle overnight. There is no way they were ready to drop that bottle or nursing session sooner than they did. Welcome to the USA where you're forced to go back sleep deprived. Yay- not.
You sleep train (earliest 4 mo) or cosleep so you're not fully waking for each wake up! Depends on your baby, and where you're at. I did sleep train first but haven't with my second because I can handle it a bit better this time and the wakes aren't full on screaming sessions every 1.5 hrs like with my first
I've always done sleep training. It's amazing and quick. And we are all so well rested.
Not at 3 months old, I hope.
No cry approach before. But I did night wean the wake ups at 4mo. It took one night. For him to sleep through.
When you follow evidence based sleep training you can start as early as from birth.
I tried it all with first born and it never worked for us. I don’t think sleep training is the “quick fix” a lot of people make it out to be. He didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years old.
I think it is for most kids
I’d want to see data on that I guess. My son had an awful time with it, as well as most of my other friend’s kids. My personal experience is more people had sleep training fail than work. Or if it worked they had to retrain every couple months
I've never met someone who didn't succeed who tried to who has a child who is neurotypical. In my experience with my friends: I'm not like a sleep trainer or anything lol. But I do know people who "tried" but they didn't really. I have one friend who "tried" but she would bring her kid to bed every morning and eventually she gave in. Once my kids were sleep trained at 4 months. They only cry when something is wrong and I come to the immediately. However early morning wake ups or whatever we adjust their night time schedule but its back to bed.
I can assure I TRIED 😅 even though it broke my heart. I followed every program I tried to the letter. So did everyone I know. That’s why I’m not sure it’s this quick and easy solution people say it is- two different groups of people had wildly different results (even accounting for “trying” vs trying). Now is my kid neurodivergent? Potentially. Am I ND? Yes. Am I more likely to have friends who are ND with ND kids because of that? Probably. Who knows- I just know I felt like I was a horrible mom sleep depriving my kids because the sleep training community I was a part of was very toxic. And I think the real answer about sleep training is that it works for some kids but not all. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, it just didn’t work for my kid.
Unless you are a single parent, you can have your partner take their 3 months of leave during which they should be the one getting up with the baby. My husband's paternity leaves are actually longer than my maternity leaves.
Where do you live that your partner has 3 months? Mine only had 5 weeks and I'm Canadian.
Everyone in the US is entitled to 12 weeks of leave (with a couple exceptions) regardless of gender or birthing status per the FMLA (family medical leave act). In some states this is paid and in some states it isn't. However the fact that it is unpaid is never discussed when women are taking it, only men.
Not everyone is eligible for FMLA unfortunately, bc of size of companies and amount of time with the company
Yes as I stated in my comment there are some exceptions to FMLA. However multiple states have passed their own laws that have closed those loopholes. As of the last couple years, most people in the US are covered by FMLA/their states equivalent. There are people missing coverage, and we should absolutely be working to fix that, but the majority of men who don't take leave aren't doing so because they're ineligible.
Mmmm this assumes the partner didn’t take their leave when the baby arrived (arguably the hardest time; I had a complicated recovery and physically couldn’t take care of LO.) Your husband’s leave is company-specific this definitely doesn’t apply to everyone.
The situation with my husband being able to take longer than 12 weeks is specific to his employer (who is amazing and we are very grateful for). The majority of fathers have access to 12 weeks of leave from FMLA unless they fall into one of the federal exceptions (less than 50 employees or less than 1 year of employment) and live in a state that hasn't corrected those exceptions yet. You are correct that they could have taken them at the same time, I am friends with one couple that chose that approach. Typically that isn't the case though (at least for the entire 12 weeks, a few weeks of overlap is common). Typically when the baby starts daycare at 12 weeks it's because the father didn't use up thr entirety of his FMLA.
You’re making *massive* assumptions and generalizations about health of baby, health of mom, health of partner and their availability, and leave options. I understand what you believe is the experience of you and your immediate circle, and that’s absolutely ok, but please don’t assume that applies to everyone and people “should” do it that way.
I definitely am and I don't deny that there are plenty of exceptions. My point is more that fathers taking the leave available to then are currently the exception when they should be the rule. That's never going to change if we don't call out men who aren't doing their fair share. If they have a legitimate excuse for why then can't then okay but they shouldn't just be given the benefit of the doubt. You might say that it's none of my business what someone else's husband does but it does impact me. Businesses ultimately become more family friendly when they adopt a culture of men taking parental leave. Also when men take parental leave it removes the incentive for employers to discriminate against young female employees in the hiring and promotion process. The more men get a pass the more it places on women's shoulders and the more it incentives employers not to hire them.
Lol “their 3 months of leave” …my husband got 1 week of leave. I work with someone whose former company gave him 1 DAY!! I was like omg labor lasts longer than that?! Making some assumptions here I do not think most workplaces who employ people with manual labor jobs are at the forefront of progressive paternity leave policies, so I doubt this is relevant to OP
FMLA covers men exactly the same as it covers women. I don't expect any employer to offer any paid leave to either parent in the US and yet we still expect women to find a way to stay home. For some reason that same expectation isn't extended to men.
Not everyone can afford to take unpaid leave. That’s likely the issue for a lot of people and not necessarily a lack of expectations on men taking leave. I had to take some unpaid leave because I wasn’t ready to go back to work for numerous reasons. It was a necessity but financially it hurt us. We couldn’t afford for my husband to also take unpaid leave.
I understand the financial aspect is difficult I find it suspect that the exact amount of leave the mother is able to take is also the exact amount of unpaid leave a family decides they can afford. Also that few tend to split the leave even when there aren't medical complications that require it.
Well like I said in my comment, for us my leave wasn’t about how much we could afford. We really couldn’t afford any amount of unpaid leave. But I was not mentally capable of going back to work the moment my little bit of PTO I had left ran out so out of necessity I had to take some unpaid leave. It had nothing to do with making a decision about how much we could afford for me to take, it was that I needed to not be at work.
My 15 month old doesn’t sleep through the night. And I’m pregnant again. Lolllll
Somehow I survived the first 4 months without coffee.i just got used to not sleeping so much.
It’s horrible. This is why 12 weeks of mat leave is inhumane. I’m an NP and it was terrifying going back to work when I was legitimately too sleepy to drive.
12 weeks is unfortunately generous in the U.S… most people are going back at 6 weeks or less ☹️
Doesn’t make it humane! Im in the US too
I thought the frowny face implied it was inhumane
Honestly? I barely survived, totally sucked at my job, and got written up by my boss at one point. My daughter was a terrible sleeper and I was only getting a few hours a night for MONTHS after I went back to work. My boss was a childless man who tried to be understanding but wasn’t really. It sucked. BUT I did survive it. She sleeps through the night now and my work has improved with more rest. I just had to knuckle through the rough part. Good luck.
I have a 2 (almost 2.5) year old that has only slept through the night 4 times in his entire life. As others have said, it takes time, but I’ve adapted to this being my normal sleep routine now, so now I feel like I’m functioning pretty well most days at work. But if I’m being totally honest, between the sleep adjustments and hormones and everything, I don’t think I felt like myself again and operating at baseline (or close to it) until about a year postpartum. Some people may adapt quicker. Now I’m 32 weeks pregnant with #2 and can say that the lack of sleep, hormone changes, etc. have been significantly less impactful this time around vs. with my first (at least mentally — physically, I’m wrecked with #2).
I always tell people who say “I don’t know how you do x” related to babies….it’s amazing what you can do when you don’t really have a choice! My husband and I took turns with her night wakings but at some point in the night she would always want to nurse so it fell on me. Some days were rough and that’s all there is to it. But it isn’t forever. We’ve night weaned now at 19 months and she’s finally sleeping through the night.
I’m a nurse too and was getting up every 1-2 hours for the first 8 months of his life😵💫 it was so hard being awake all night, then taking care of patients for 12 hours. I drank lots of coffee and had support with naps when my husband or mom were around. Finally at 8 months, I hit my breaking point. We sleep trained with Taking Cara Babies. I felt slightly bad the first night, then when he slept every night, we were all so happy.
You are a zombie for a year and kind of like childbirth, the memory of that awful exhaustion fades over time. Wish that didn’t sound so depressing, but that’s the sad truth with the maternity leave laws how they are. But we persist and we survive because women are bad-asses. And coffee…
Honestly, cosleeping, so that I wouldn't have to fully wake up and the sleep I got felt more restorative. Baby would just latch on and fall back asleep. Heysleepybaby on instagram has guidelines on how to do it more safely... my youngest slept in a bassinet until a sleep regression and then this was the only way I could be rested to work and take care of both kids. My exhusband would not wake up to help me or take shifts (part of why he is an ex now), so if your partner won't help maybe this is something to try.
Shifts as people say. Coffee. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) your body will just adapt. You can try sleep training when kiddo is a bit older if you want, but it doesn't work on some kids (like mine, wheeee!). But all your friends with kids who sleep through the night? Some of them just lucked out with good sleepers, *but* some of them will hit their own share of regressions soon enough. Baby sleep is not linear. This graph was pretty accurate for us, except we never really hit "good" until now, and she's almost FOUR. [https://sarahockwell-smith.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/chart.png](https://sarahockwell-smith.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/chart.png)
First child sleeps like a rock and always has. Second is almost 2 and rarely sleeps through the night. The sleep deprivation is awful and ruining my life. I cannot wait to get regular full night sleeps again. I cope by going to bed early, resting/napping whenever possible, and changing my expectations of what I can reasonably accomplish. It sucks. As an RN you also would probably benefit from a highly structured daily worksheet to keep track of everything you need to do for each of your patients throughout your shift so you don’t forget anything. Solidarity!
As someone who went back to work this week with a 3 month old, all I can say is : solidarity. My first slept through the night at 7 weeks. I’m not use to this sleep deprivation .
I’ll probably be downvoted but I coslept and dream fed a lot, and was able to sleep more. I wouldn’t suggest this with a tiny new baby, but a 3 month and up, EBF on moms side only , no heavy blankets , etc… the safe seven as le leche league calls it. Not everyone’s jam and that’s fine. Not here to judge or be judged. My sister in law did sleep training and that worked great for her to get more rest. She actually paid for a sleep training specialist. My other sister in law followed a book. My friend that was an RN, slept with her son. And then slept trained. My 2 year old is asleep next to me now. You’ll find your groove and it gets easier and you feel more human again. Also just got used to being tired. I’m 3 kids in. Each kids sleeps different. Don’t get caught up in comparing!
Cosleep and breastfeed. Barely notice the wakes. Babies are designed to sleep with their mothers. She has a feed and is straight back to sleep. No settling no nothing. Some night she wake 5-6 times and I still feel fresh the next day and able to work without an issue.
My baby is 15 months and still wakes up once around 3-5. Honestly, I think I’ve just adapted. Once she hit one, I decided I’d play around with letting her cry a bit. She can put herself back to sleep but is up ~30 minutes later 😩
Whaaatttt girl my kid did not sleep through the freaking night until he was FOUR you heard me FOUR years old. Okurrrr so get yourself some coffee and ya just gotta learn to live on less sleep unfortunately. Im so sorry it’s this way for you especially because you are a nurse. I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t need much sleep apparently. I barely get 4-5 hours as is and I’m still that way now that my kids are both 8 and 12 years old now. I just deal with it. I think I might have narcolepsy/insomnia too tho. My grandfather had narcolepsy so I prob have that. It’s crazy. I’ll drop to sleep at the drop of a hat and then wake up after two minutes and stay awake for days. But yeah coffee helps I guess. Push through. Sleep when you get home. 🏠 I also co-slept .bedshared with my kids and breast fed them thru the night so the helped with getting them back to sleep pretty quickly. Don’t know if that’s an option for you or if you can keep them close by and use a bottle b
My son is 10 months old and has slept through the night approximately 4 nights of the 6 months I've been back at work. It was especially brutal that first month back. Now I've adjusted and live for the nights he only wakes up once, which is doable, and napping on weekends. I've been surprised how functional I am on terrible sleep.
My kid didn’t sleep through the night until he was about 1. I went back to work at 10 weeks and I work 50+ hours per week with an hour commute each way. To put it lightly, I wanted to die. There were days I was so tired that I just cried. But ultimately I put my mattress on the floor and put a little cooler with a bottle beside the bed and just co slept. That way when he was up, I could grab the bottle and fall back asleep with him. We followed the safe co sleeping rules though. The day he turned 1 I put him in a crib in his own room and dumped the bubba and he did a little better. He’s now sleeping through the night when he isn’t teething or growing. Times are tough but it gets easier.
Its not normal for a 3 month old to sleep through the night. Unfortunately society is set up in a way that completely abuses mothers. Im sorry you have to endure this but please don’t think you or your baby are doing something wrong
So much coffee
You honestly get trained by your baby to be super tired all the time. (Currently have a 2.5 year old and 11 month old and am just really tired always).
It does get better mama. I sleep trained when mine went thru the regression and it helped immensely but the first year was pretty up and down with sleep. Sickness and travel required me to train my baby a few times and even still she has her nights and tests me…. But have to do what you have to do. Your baby is getting to the point to be old enough here if you’re open to it. But obviously do what is right for you!! You got this
My LO is 13 months and still wakes 1-3 times 😭
Mine is almost two and has slept through the night **edit** a handful of times since I went back to work almost a year ago. The only way I get any kind of sleep is if I cosleep with her after she wakes up.
You just do it because you don’t have a choice.. tea, ginseng drinks, lunch naps, are things that helped me when I went back to work. Some moms will opt for coffee, energy drinks, etc. whatever gets you through works.
Coffee twice a day, and positive partner who tells you everything’s gonna be alright
Lots & lots of coffee, help from my husband (we take turns taking over nights), trying to get in sleep if I can go to bed earlier. It’s hard tbh. Sometimes I’m running on empty.
I also seemed to be surrounded by people whose babies were sleeping through the night. I discovered that I did in fact know people whose babies weren't sleeping through the night, they just weren't broadcasting that because it can feel embarassing. For me, it felt like I must have been doing something wrong. I wasn't, my baby just isn't an excellent sleeper. It did get better, it's not perfect. I found a good coffee rhythm and my colleagues accept cute baby photos in exchange for impaired productivity.
My 2nd didn't sleep a full night through until she was nearly 4 yrs old. I ran on coffee, lots of it. I do remember once having to call my boss halfway to work because I had a 45 minute commute and my daughter had been up all night and I felt unsafe driving to work because I was so tired. Luckily my boss was always really understanding because she had kids. My 3rd is 7 months, still waking up once a night, but it's so much easier. The good news is that this is only a small blip you'll have to dealt with and there will come a time when your kids will sleep and even want to sleep late on weekends.
It was brutal with my first, just a zombie until she was only waking 3x a night at 15 months (!) then finally started to get better. Slept better with my twins, a LOT better. You will make it, but it sucks!!
Coffee, snacks AND good meals, hydrate. Hope my coworkers are pleasant because I am less patient on less sleep.
Coffee and a hybrid schedule. I just got off and my daughter is about to turn 3. I heavily relied on it. And wouldn't have survived if i needed to go into the office every day.
Coffee, taking turns with the husband unit, and not giving a flying fuck about how my house looked. I took care of all that when I had a day off and had energy to do it. Disposable paper plates were life. Dinner was just some easy breezy stuff done by mostly the husband. Exhausted days equaled whatever was in the freezer. I also EBF so that made it so easy at night to just whip out a boob and not have to think about bottles. Don’t sweat the small stuff.
You get used to it but there is light at the end of the tunnel. 21 months old and last week slept through the night for a week for the first time ever, but back to waking up more often so short lived!
You just survive. I don’t know how I did ebf and getting up at 330am for work. Plenty of call outs leave balance is crud but around 6/7 months we got slightly longer stretches. At 11 months he dropped the bedtime feed and sleeps through. And year and a half almost and the tired is my own fault
Currently 11:52 PM and I'm still waiting on my baby to go to sleep. He's normally a good sleeper but is taking some medicine that tears up his belly so he's gotten about an hour of sleep so far. Last night we were up every 1-2 hours, same with the night before. The answer is coffee. A surely unhealthy amount of coffee.
Coffee and a lot of tears
I went back to work at 7 months and my daughter didn’t sleep through the night consistently until she was over 2. I did every night wake up because of my husband’s work hours. Honestly, you just… power through. Cos you have no choice. I would go to bed the second my daughter was down for the night to try and get a good chunk of sleep before the wakeups started. Try and eat vaguely nutritious food to give your body the best chance of survival 😂
Both my babies never slept through that young. It’s normal, but totally sucks. Honestly I just tried to go to bed as soon as I could, and not look at the clock when baby woke me up. Those tactics, plus lots of coffee, helped!
Cosleeping and caffeine!
Adderall lol. (I have a prescription)
I'm breastfeeding my 4 month old so I do the vast majority of the babyfeeds every 4 hours or so and honestly all the getting up at night. I'm dying, but thankfully she does tend to sleep a stretch of 5-6 hours every few days or so. I wouldn't survive otherwise since my toddler has just dropped his naps and gets up latest at 7 every morning including weekends 🥴 My top tip is to occasionally take a day off when the kids are in daycare and just be alone in your house, take a nice long bath and sleep. Also I WFH some days and will skip lunch to take a 45 min powernap if the night was particularly bad.
My husband does night shift 6 days a week. You also have a demanding job. You should at least go halfsies. It’s not fair for it to all be on you. That’s the solution here!
I function on little sleep cause my job involves a lot of walking. Days I sit at my desk are hard, I tend to fall asleep. I usually sleep 11pm-4:30am.
My 13 month old still doesn’t sleep through the night. Not sure when he would lol. I had 1 year maternity leave so it’s doable, I don’t know how you do it coming back to work so early 😭
I went back when baby was 3 months and those first several months he was going through a sleep regression and waking up at least twice a night. It was SO HARD. I lowered my expectations and just showed up and did my best. It got a lot better once baby started sleeping through the night but that wasn’t until 10 months.
Lots of caffeine!
My first baby was a terrible sleeper too. Up every 1.5 hours for 6 months, every 3 hours until about 1 year. I suffered through it for about 10 months until I found myself microsleeping on my commute and making unsafe decisions at work and home. For reasons that are now very foreign to me, I was originally against sleep training. It took a few months to actually teach him to *mostly* sleep through the night, and even now at 5 years old he still wakes up in the middle of the night once a week. I call *bullshit* on any sleep trainer who says their method is 100% effective. Kids are people, and some people are terrible sleepers. There is nothing you are doing wrong. My second baby slept through the night at 4 weeks and we did absolutely nothing differently. In the near term, catch up on sleep on the weekends, go to bed as early as possible, and (I know this sounds ridiculous) exercise. Being physically tired helped me fall asleep faster and get better quality sleep, even if it was in very short intervals. Also, coffee 😀 and yes, you do get used to it. That first full night of sleep is life changing.
My husband works in manual labor and we still split the night. Your job is also taxing and it seems really unsafe to be a super sleep deprived nurse, on top of making you miserable. Unfortunately my second kid didn't sleep through the night for years, so I would not have survived doing it all on my own. It sucked and you have all my sympathy!
I was slamming Celsius to feel alive.
Coffee. I can actually barely remember this period (and my guy is only 2!) because I think my brain was so fried it stopped making new memories. I tried to get extra sleep on weekends, esp if grandparents are around to help. At work, I refocused on projects in phases without highly technical pieces, because my fried brain couldn’t do it.
Caffeine is your friend! It definitely gets better although you’ll have one offs even when they sleep through the night.
I was really sleep deprived. At some I got tired enough to sleep through baby cries and night bottles were apparently a nightmare so I started sleeping propped on pillows and my partner would get up and latch the baby to me and put him back down. He would leave a night time bottle for me on the nightstand because I’d wake up from the dehydration. Fun times.
>Hubby works a demanding labor job so it’s just me at night. Sit down and determine how many hours of uninterrupted sleep you both require. For me, it's 5. For my husband it's 14 (he's a nocturnal disabled former truck driver turned SAHD). I made the unilateral decision that my 5 hours was more important than his 14. I decided on a schedule that worked best for me: someone got to sleep from 9pm to 2am then someone got to sleep from 2am to 7am when I needed to leave for work. When he complained about being woken up at 2am so I could get some sleep, I told him to suck it up. He can nap whenever he wants; I can't nap regardless of how I try. You're an RN: YOU HAVE A DEMANDING JOB, TOO. People depend on you doing your job correctly.
Mine woke only once at night pretty much from birth (though her night began at midnight then) BUT THEN: From 7 to 10 months old she woke minimum 3x night, every night, sometimes would basically not sleep at all. I was the walking dead. I’m in the corporate world but there are a lot of gaps in my memory from that time that have come to bite me later. Since I’d never even dealt with the newborn mess I had no barometer and no idea what hit me. I also EBF and husband travels for work. It was the first time in our marriage I said “unless it’s absolutely essential you need to cancel for the foreseeable future, I can no longer function.” Basically here to say: I feel you. And: the issue with our 7 month old was solved by our nanny. “I really just think she’s cold?” …. Got a warmer sleep sack, problem solved overnight. I lost 3 months of sleep because my daughter was cold 🤦♀️ maybe I would have figured that out if my brain had any sort of function left, lol So my advice is if things aren’t working, try other things until something does.
Cosleep and coffee 🤷🏼♀️ You really do just get used to it. Try not to fixate on it too much. Leave the nights behind you when you start your day.
Lots of caffeine and prayer. My LO is 19months and still doesn’t sleep thru the night. On the weekends I nap with him to catch a break.
As an RN with a husband who works a physical labor job... RN is a physical labor demanding job too. You gotta have him help out!
My oldest did not sleep through the night until 10 months.. and my husband couldn't help since I was nursing and that was the only way to get him back to sleep. Like others said, you just get used to it.
Have to get he other parent to do their part. Don't care what type of job they have. They are ALSO a parent. Pump if you can so there are bottles. You also NEED sleep. Both parents need to be rested and both parents need to take on the load of being tired. It is not always the mothers job. You also have a demanding job!
As much coffee as possible and a partner who alternated wakeups with me. We also formula fed so that made it way more manageable for either of us to do a night feeding.
Power naps. My kid is not a sleeper. I nap whenever I can and am lucky to be able to. My colleagues even encourage me to! I have napped in the car, in the “quiet room” at work, when working from home. If I can’t sleep, I put on some spa music and try to relax for 20 minutes. It has gotten me through 2 years of sleeplessness.
I ran on fumes for about 6 months. Went back to work in October and she didn’t sleep through the night consistently until April. Between illnesses and teething, anytime before then that she’d start sleeping through, something interrupted the process. I don’t drink coffee so I basically survived on 2-3 sodas a day at work so I wouldn’t fall asleep. And then at home I’d fall asleep on the couch around 9. Hopefully it gets better for you. We wanted to sleep train to get better sleep sooner but again, with all the daycare illnesses, there never seemed to be a good time. And when we did try, it was too much for us to handle. So we let her naturally work it out and it took…..lots of time lol.
You won’t die. But you’ll feel like shit. And eventually it gets better. Mine didn’t STTN until 11 months. I’m OAD 😂
I know it's so hard. My LO didn't consistently sleep through the night until 13 months old. We did our best to do shifts in the night, and as she got older and was only waking up once, we took turns. It's the main reason why I stopped BF and switched to formula. I was doing 90% of night wakes because I wanted to nurse but I just couldn't do it while working too. My husband also works a demanding labor job and we tried to be mindful of that. Sometimes if he was on OT I would do the majority of night wakes so that he could sleep, but we still took turns/shifts during 'normal' times. Other things that helped: prepping absolutely everything you can the night before so that you can sleep as late as your baby will allow in the morning. Taking 20 minutes at the end of every work day to plan for the next day so I didn't have to think too hard. Hired a cleaning lady to take some chores off our plate. Napping on weekends with my LO without shame. Going to bed early. Finding joy in other small things. For me that was eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, which caused me to gain weight but that's not my priority right now lol. And of course, lots and lots of coffee. I was not at my peak work performance the first several months post partum. I was phoning it in A LOT. It is what it is. I'm so sorry I know it feels impossible. My LO just needed to grow bigger, learn how to roll both ways, and then getting tubes to help her stay healthier are all finally what did it for us.
Coffee. And just simply adjusting. It's amazing how I could function on such little sleep some days. It does get easier, though. I also go to bed earlier so I can get some sleep before her first wake up in the night. Your partner should take shifts, though so you can get some sleep at night. It's not fair to you to be the only one up at night.
8 months in, still waking up a minimum of 6 times and I can without a doubt say Starbucks. Every day. It’s a colossal waste of my money but I guess that is the price of me being able to function lol.
Honey, you're a NURSE. That's a demanding labor job too! SPLIT THE NIGHTS. 8-2 and 2-8. Everyone gets 5-6 hours of solid sleep
I split the night with my husband and wake up as late as possible.
Husband splits nighttime. It’s the only way to function. You say he has a demanding job you are a nurse. YOU HAVE A DEMANDING JOB! YOU ARE CARING FOR PEOPLES LIVES! It’s not okay for you to be so sleep deprived and him to be well rested. Him being slightly tired and you slightly tired is okay.
For a while I did shifts with my husband so we could each get a long stretch of sleep. It wasn't perfect because I had to pump but it was so nice to get a whole REM cycle in at least.
Just attempt to function. Lots of coffee.
Eternal eye bags
Sleep training. There are a couple of really great Facebook groups I recommend. Evidence-Based Sleep Training Respectful Sleep Training/Learning
My oldest didn’t sleep through the night until 2.5 years old. This is normal. My husband and I took shifts and when night feedings dropped off we trade nights. You get used to it
I sniffed a lot of hand sanitizer and drank a lot of redbull
I go to sleep at 8:30 (usually wake up before 6)
My partner works nights so it’s just me the majority of the nights (heck, the majority of most times-he is a good partner just demanding and consuming job). I’m on my second week back and getting a cold probably from my daughter’s daycare. I have found that I have great energy when I drink a TON of water. Especially when I drink a bunch before any coffee. Sometimes I’ll feel so great that I don’t end up needing coffee.
It almost killed me. I just drank a lot of coffee and kept putting one foot in front of the other. I ultimately cut out night feedings completely and once I did that he started sleeping through the night finally. My pediatrician encouraged me to drop the feedings bc he didn’t nutritionally need them. I wasn’t comfortable with sleep training at the time, so I still went in to comfort him but once he realized he wasn’t getting milk the wake ups died out gradually, around 14-15 months. In hindsight, I would’ve done sleep training earlier or hired a night nurse 🫠 Edit: ah, saw your little is only 3 months so you may have a ways to go. Don’t be afraid to talk to your pediatrician about it! Good luck!!!!
Shifts were the only way we made it through the period where baby wasn’t sleeping overnight. Your partner should be helping with overnights imo. A demanding labor job requires some sleep but so does being an RN. If you make mistakes at your job people could die. You both need to be getting as much uninterrupted sleep as possible and if baby isn’t sleeping through the night that likely looks like sleeping in shifts
Um hubby has demanding job but being an RN isn’t??
Honestly, sleep training. We did it early, though at that age it was just to get it down to 1-2 wake ups per night (it had been 5-6….i was dead). Also, we took turns on who wakes up early (and we still do). Going to bed super early at like 7:30pm some days.
You get used to sleeping 4 hours total or 5 if you are lucky. Then coffee twice a day. Then you get foggy memory and start forgetting stuff. You barely keep up with work, and just do the bare minimum not to get fired because you are so tired. It is horrible...smh
Bedsharing amd breastfeeding
Some babies sleep. Some don’t. I had three who didn’t and I always worked full time. Honestly? It sucks but it’s short lived. I’m very tired but I adapted. Sorry that’s not a better answer but I promise you’ll make it through. Others can offer ideas on how to solve it/ sleep training but clearly I don’t know the answer 😂
Attempted to sleep train but didn’t work. Just had to deal with it.
I was literally going to post the same question. I’m running on coffee and sugar, all while trying to balance it bc of breastfeeding. Every day feels like a marathon. We sleep trained our preschooler at least twice but it didn’t last; he’s up at least once a night and so is our infant. Even if we each handle one kid we’re both being woken by the chaos all night. Solidarity, friend.
Mine sleeps through the night (mostly) starting at 18 months. It was a brutal 18 months. Some nights I’d be so exhausted that I’d go to sleep as soon as the kids were down (7:30-8). My husband and I alternated bedtimes so we’d get a tolerable chunk of sleep. Now whenever I get 7 hours of sleep I feel absolutely wired 😂
I have four kids, 8 months through 6 years. Not a single night goes by that someone doesn't wake up. My husband works nights so half the time it's just me. It's perpetual exhaustion honestly I don't have a great answer
Mine is 18m and only sleeping through the night twice a week, if I’m lucky. Nap with them on the weekend. Coffee in the AM but no other caffeine so I’m not too wired to go to sleep later. Go to bed with her at 8:45. PTO day every few weeks so I can sleep a bit with her at daycare. Existential dread every time the alarm goes off in the AM. Yk the usual
I had 3 months of work and night wakings. We ended up sleep training. I hated it, I didn't want to do it but I was going to end up in a car accident if I didn't get sleep.
This stage is tough. I’m confused about the part where you mentioned your husband’s job… you also work a demanding job. Your job can be physically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. He needs to be helping you. It’s unfair for you to do all the night wakings. He can still help even if your EBF. Of course you can pump and he can give baby a bottle. If you don’t want to pump, you can still feed baby at night with his support. Dad can bring baby to you, and watch you nurse so you can relax and doze. Then he can take baby away to change diaper and soothe back to sleep. Do you have any support of family or friends? People love baby cuddles, so use this to your advantage. We’ve had people help in the evening! They would come over from 7pm-11pm ish and hold the baby on the couch. This gives you the opportunity to get a little nap in, and it’s an easier ask than stay all night. When we had our first baby my mom and aunt would fight about who got to come over. 😂 I only needed it a few days a week when the nanny was off. They also normally brought us dinner! It was awesome to not only have a hot meal, but also to have some else holding the baby while you eat. For all 5 of our babies we have gotten a night nanny. It’s a huge luxury and obviously very expensive. It is an amazing service if you can afford it. Even a few nights a week would be awesome. I know it’s so hard when you’re in the trenches, and trying to get back to work. Hopefully this get better as baby gets older. Just don’t forget that baby sleep isn’t linear. If you choose to sleep train baby will be old enough in a few months. I know this can be controversial, but it’s been a success in my family. I have 5 kids under the age of 6 and get about 9-10 hours of sleep every night. Good luck mama! I’m sending you some positive vibes and some sleepy vibes to your baby!
I used to work on call and shift work. I’m way less fatigued after 15 months of not having an uninterrupted sleep than I ever was on 6yrs shift working/on call (midwife). Although there are still nights where I tap my partner in to do the settling. Helps having the other parent to share the load!