Sleep deprivation

Sleep deprivation - a sufficient lack of restorative sleep over a cumulative period so as to cause physical or psychiatric symptoms and affect routine performances of tasks.



Emmeline clearly does not suffer sleep deprivation



That is how the dictionary describes it. This is now my life. I had to look it up to check if it could explain how I feel some days, and it comes close, but may days, the word ‘tired’ doesn’t seem sufficient. It seems such a weak word to describe something so big!

I have a new born baby whom I am breastfeeding. Of course I am sleep deprived.  However, I sometimes feel weird saying this to people. Why? Because they all just give you that superficial ‘oh shame’ look and nod their heads swiftly moving on with the conversation. They just don’t seem to believe me!

I think that generally people fall into 3 categories.

• Those that cannot even begin to imagine the sleep deprivation that you are feeling as they have never experienced anything similar.
• Those that think you are just exaggerating “oh, all mothers say that. Ha ha ha”.
• Those that think you should just accept it and get on with things. ‘You had a baby, what did you expect?’

Maybe I am totally wrong, but it is how I feel, I feel guilty to tell people how crap I actually feel some days due to lack of sleep because they probably think I am just exaggerating. I AM NOT. Take your worst ‘ooh I am so shattered’ day and multiply it by around 50. EVERY DAY. ALL DAY. ALL NIGHT!

My baby girl Emmeline is now more than 4 months old. However my lack of sleep began way before she was born. It began when I fell pregnant. Back then it was due to a large number of reasons such as the need to go to the toilet 5 times a night, the increase in body temperature, the increase in the size of my tummy meaning that I could only sleep on my side (not so comfortable for me), the hunger pains, and again the need to go to the toilet 5 times a night. But my sleep deprivation took a drastic increase with the arrival of my little girl.

I am breastfeeding her which means that I cannot share night time feeds with my partner. He would love to help, but he is lacking in essential equipment! Anyway, I don’t see the point in Xavi waking up to ‘give me the baby’ and share my hell. What is the point? Seriously? So that we can both just be exhausted the next day but at least we get to say ‘Oh yeah, Xavi wakes up and helps’. Why? To show how he shares responsibility? He does a lot for Emmeline during the day so dont need him to show me anything during the evenings. Yes, I could express milk and he could bottle feed her, but I would much rather prefer that he gets a good night sleep so that he can be fine at work (he wakes up very early and he has a physical job). Plus, I really need him to be in a good mood, because depending on how tired I am , I may not be so rosy, and I need him to not only support me, I need him to put up with me and my irritability. Anyway, Emmeline sleeps right next to me, so I would wake up even if xavi did the feedings. Our close proximity does mean that I am aware of her every move and her every sound. She whimpers and I wake up. She strains to go to the toilet making noises and kicking and tensing her legs, I am right there with my eyes open cheering her on to get that poo out. My little one eats a lot. No more than other babies I am sure, but a lot anyway, so she whimpers for boob a lot as well.. I am very happy to be able to satisfy her appetite, and I will wake up as many times as I need to for her. I will do what she needs. . .

But my god I am tired!

I think that before I had Emmeline I must have thought that all mothers just said that they were tired, but really that they could not have been quite so tired. Boy has karma kicked me in the arse for that thought. I could never have imagined how I would feel, so I guess I just never really believed or appreciated other mother’s pain. From the beginning, Emmeline has always woken up a lot. So many nights it feels like my head has just hit the pillow and I have to get up again for her. For a long time, until past 3 months old, she was waking every 2 or 3 hours. Some nights she could do 4 hours, some nights we would wake up exactly every hour. You may think to yourself ‘Well, 3 straight hours of sleep isn’t bad’. Oh no my friend, it is not 3 hrs. You see, when we say she woke every 2 hrs, it is actually 2 hrs between the time she started her last feeding and the time she starts her next one. What generally happens is something like this: 02:00am baby wakes, stumble out of bed, groggily attach baby to boob, play endless rounds of free trial Tetris games on my mobile to not fall asleep on baby, burp baby, optional poo to then change, attempt to attach baby to other boob, watch Xavi turning over taking all my blankets with him, huff and puff irritably no avail, look down and see baby is fast asleep, put baby back in crib, go to toilet, suddenly feel hungry so quietly grab a biscuit from the biscuit tin, go back to bed, climb into bed noting that it is 02:30 ish. Attempt to fall asleep. Great, get to do it all again at 04:00am. Not pretty. There are times that I do have to hold my head in my hands and just go ‘Oh Emmeline, really?’ when I have to get up regularly during the nights. And the minute I have had this slight moment of impatience, I feel bad and guilty even though I know I haven’t done anything wrong. I would hear of other people’s baby’s sleeping 8, 10 or even 12 hrs and would wonder why I did to piss Mother Nature off so badly that she gave me a baby allergic to sleep. Was I doing something wrong? The one time that Emmeline slept for 6 hours, I bounded out of bed like a bloody panther to make sure she was still breathing!

When you are deprived of sleep on such a constant basis, you are no longer tired. You are so much more. It is not just that your eyes have that burning sensation that is normally the result of a night out and too few hours sleep. Your body feels tired, your brain feels slow, you can hardly think straight, you can’t really follow conversations at a normal rate. Then there are your emotions, they are stretched to the limit. I get irritated when I haven’t slept enough, irritated and generally feel on the verge of crying. Then I get irritated about being so ready to cry. I lose my patience and my temper with those around me. I just generally tend to have no time for anyone. I feel like half a person. The other half left me to go and get some shut eye somewhere.

I am optimistic that there is light at the end of my sleep deprived tunnel, and almost every night I go to bed I think “is this the night she sleeps for 6, 7, or 8 hours straight?” I am always hopeful that yes it is. I am still waiting. I told myself it will get better when she is 4 and a half months, or when she is 5 months, or when she is on solids. I motivate myself thinking well I have done it for this long, I can keep going.

Then some bitch on the internet stated that this will continue into the first year!

Someone please tell me that she is totally wrong!!!!!!!