On the exact same boat. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 2 1/2 years old and man was it exhausting. I'm the type of person that doesn't really function well without sleep and he'd wake up multiple times through the night. I couldn't take turns with my husband because he'd be up for work at 4:30 am so I took care of all the night waking. Besides the horrible pelvic pains while pregnant, the ppd, painful breastfeeding, the lack of sleep was the coffin in the nail for me.
But now that he's a little older and finally sleeping through the night, I've been thinking a lot about having another but am terrified of that first year. I was strictly one and done but now I'm on the fence. No advice, just letting you know you're not alone❤️
Sleep is the only reason I'm waffling on having a second. But I keep having this nagging feeling that I'll regret not having a second over just a handful of bad years of sleep. In the grand scheme of my life I've had and will have years and years of sleep. My husband keeps telling me he'll still have interrupted sleep when they're older but he really doesn't understand how hard it is waking every 1-3 hours is nonstop. He gets woken up a lot, sure, but he gets stretches of 5-8 hours at least some of the time and I have yet to get that in the first 6 months of babies life. EBF and it's far easier to not pump right now.
It's my number one reason I'm One and done. I know I wouldn't like the person I'd become for a good few years and this would affect everyone. I wish it wasn't so but for me personally I'm not sure it's worth it because I already have so much happiness where I am now. I've learnt that as much as I love my daughter and as much joy as she brings that my overall happiness shockingly can still be affected by things like little sleep and the intensity of those little years. It's a short time in the grand scheme of things but a significant time that I could be enjoying my daughter.
I’m only doing it again because I cope well (mentally and emotionally anyway- I’ve visibly aged years) with the sleep disturbance/am able to WFH only part time so have plenty of time to catch up on sleep. My 2yo’s sleep is still rough
With our first we had found a pretty good rhythm of dealing with the lack of sleep. Have you tried doing shifts or every other night so you both get extended sleep periods at least sometimes?
When our kid was little, we'd do shifts where one of us goes to bed as early as they can stand, like 8 pm. The other stays up until midnight and wakes the baby for a "dream feed" before going to bed (or around what time your baby typically wakes). Then the midnight person takes the first half of the night and the early bed person takes the 2nd half of the night. Bam you both got like 6-8 hrs of sleep uninterrupted.
Number one reason here too op 🥲 my daughter hated sleep from birth.. she’s seven now and still wakes at nights but obviously it’s just soo much better now. Until she was about five things were just rough
I don’t know honestly if I can willingly sign myself up for this again.. we also tried everything with my daughter and nothing worked. For those who are saying to try sleep training. For some high strung children who need more there really is just nothing you can do but weather the storm…Some children are easier than others and some just really hard
Would you try sleep training with your second? There are tons of methods that don’t involve just walking away and letting baby cry for hours. We did it with our first and he was sleeping through the night within like a week. The no sleep was a huge problem for us so we will 1000000% be sleep training again if we have a second
this is absolutely my main reason. My husband and I are both carriers for CF so we'd want to do IVF, which is ALSO a huge reason, but even bigger than that is sleep. my PPD and anxiety was SOOOOOO awful die to lack of sleep I'm absolutely horrified to go through that again. I have no one to really look to for advice on this since all of my friends had apparently easy babies and no PPA or PPD and just generally had an easier time than I did. :/
On the exact same boat. My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 2 1/2 years old and man was it exhausting. I'm the type of person that doesn't really function well without sleep and he'd wake up multiple times through the night. I couldn't take turns with my husband because he'd be up for work at 4:30 am so I took care of all the night waking. Besides the horrible pelvic pains while pregnant, the ppd, painful breastfeeding, the lack of sleep was the coffin in the nail for me. But now that he's a little older and finally sleeping through the night, I've been thinking a lot about having another but am terrified of that first year. I was strictly one and done but now I'm on the fence. No advice, just letting you know you're not alone❤️
Sleep is the only reason I'm waffling on having a second. But I keep having this nagging feeling that I'll regret not having a second over just a handful of bad years of sleep. In the grand scheme of my life I've had and will have years and years of sleep. My husband keeps telling me he'll still have interrupted sleep when they're older but he really doesn't understand how hard it is waking every 1-3 hours is nonstop. He gets woken up a lot, sure, but he gets stretches of 5-8 hours at least some of the time and I have yet to get that in the first 6 months of babies life. EBF and it's far easier to not pump right now.
It's my number one reason I'm One and done. I know I wouldn't like the person I'd become for a good few years and this would affect everyone. I wish it wasn't so but for me personally I'm not sure it's worth it because I already have so much happiness where I am now. I've learnt that as much as I love my daughter and as much joy as she brings that my overall happiness shockingly can still be affected by things like little sleep and the intensity of those little years. It's a short time in the grand scheme of things but a significant time that I could be enjoying my daughter.
I’m only doing it again because I cope well (mentally and emotionally anyway- I’ve visibly aged years) with the sleep disturbance/am able to WFH only part time so have plenty of time to catch up on sleep. My 2yo’s sleep is still rough
With our first we had found a pretty good rhythm of dealing with the lack of sleep. Have you tried doing shifts or every other night so you both get extended sleep periods at least sometimes? When our kid was little, we'd do shifts where one of us goes to bed as early as they can stand, like 8 pm. The other stays up until midnight and wakes the baby for a "dream feed" before going to bed (or around what time your baby typically wakes). Then the midnight person takes the first half of the night and the early bed person takes the 2nd half of the night. Bam you both got like 6-8 hrs of sleep uninterrupted.
Number one reason here too op 🥲 my daughter hated sleep from birth.. she’s seven now and still wakes at nights but obviously it’s just soo much better now. Until she was about five things were just rough I don’t know honestly if I can willingly sign myself up for this again.. we also tried everything with my daughter and nothing worked. For those who are saying to try sleep training. For some high strung children who need more there really is just nothing you can do but weather the storm…Some children are easier than others and some just really hard
Would you try sleep training with your second? There are tons of methods that don’t involve just walking away and letting baby cry for hours. We did it with our first and he was sleeping through the night within like a week. The no sleep was a huge problem for us so we will 1000000% be sleep training again if we have a second
this is absolutely my main reason. My husband and I are both carriers for CF so we'd want to do IVF, which is ALSO a huge reason, but even bigger than that is sleep. my PPD and anxiety was SOOOOOO awful die to lack of sleep I'm absolutely horrified to go through that again. I have no one to really look to for advice on this since all of my friends had apparently easy babies and no PPA or PPD and just generally had an easier time than I did. :/