Crash and Burn

[judecorp]

I think all of the adrenaline and hormonal power of pregnancy and birth has finally completely petered out. Either that, or three weeks of in-home visitors has taken its toll. All I know is that I am /exhausted/. Six weeks (today!) of getting about four hours (or less) of sleep per day has burned me out. I can't really function, and feel totally glazed and glassy.

I knew this was happening when the baby, by some miracle, fell asleep around 11:15 one night and woke up at 3am to eat. That's almost five hours. And what happened? When she woke me up, I was /awake for the day/. I couldn't go back to sleep, because I haven't gotten that much sleep in forever. Scary.

The baby has decided that all day is for sleeping and all night is for screaming to wake the living dead. Jen sleeps through it unless I wake her, and it's difficult to wake her and also makes me feel bad and makes me grumpy at the same time. So mostly I sit up like a zombie trying to nurse and/or rock a baby, twitching every so often because my body wants to drift off, and worry frantically about actually falling asleep unintentionally and dropping the baby. It's awful.

I know the solution should be "sleep all day, then, if the kid is sleeping all day," but my internal clock will not let me sleep during the daytime hours. I just can't. I try. It doesn't work. And then, the sky starts to darken, I begin yawning, and it's Play Time for Baby Girl.

I am losing my mind.

Comments

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Once you get to "I am losing my mind" territory, something has to change. The day / night confusion is pretty common at this age, and boy howdy is it rough. But you need to sleep, or else the consequences you're describing are inevitable.

Here's my suggestion: as soon as you start to yawn, give the baby to your wife and go to bed. Put in earplugs if you have to, but go to bed. Ask her to give you at least five hours. If you're going to sleep at, say, nine o'clock, five hours is two AM; she can then hand Gus over and you can play wakies until 7. Then Jen can get up and take Gus while you shower and get a cup of coffee. It's brutal, but it will get everyone involved at least five hours of sleep, which in my experience is the minimum required to remain sane and with your head screwed on right.

Eventually her days and nights will get sorted out. it is a long, hard road, but I promise it will happen.

[rexlezard.livejournal.com]

Oh, that *does* sound hard. I like that suggestion.

I'm good at napping, but if you're not, well, maybe I could tutor you or someting?

[mayna.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. We had to do that with Greg who really didn't sleep much at all at night (and was difficult to nurse so it was trying to get food in him all night long).

Another thing to try is to try your best to get Gus to wake up more during the day. If she's wanting to take 4 hour naps, wake her up after 2 hours, change her diaper, feed her, and if she's insanely tired and wanting to go back to sleep, then let her, but if she's willing to be awake for a little bit then yay. We're going through the same thing and only if I get Vivi to have some decent awake time during the day will she sleep semi-decently at night (unfortunately it's being really hard to make it a habit for her, she wants to revert back to her nocturnal habits way too quickly)