Middle of the night exhaustion/ frustration behavior

annar49a

Whoever is willing to share - I’m interested in hearing about the most intense middle of the night sleep deprived behavior you experienced as a new mom. There have been a few nights where I was up for the 10th time in two hours replacing a pacifier or trying to soothe my inconsolable baby, and every time she was asleep (or so I thought) she would wake up screaming the minute my head hit the pillow. I know you’ve all been there.

A few times I got so frustrated and exasperated I broke my own glasses in half because I just wanted to break something. Another time I was so sweaty and gross from trying to rock a hysterical baby to sleep that I tore my T-shirt right off my own body, Incredible Hulk style. Weird maybe but it felt oddly freeing. Other times just broke down sobbing from exhaustion wondering if I would ever sleep again. Now we’re almost at 5 months, more or less sleep trained and things have gotten a lot easier. But thinking back to how hard those nights were the first couple months, I don’t know how I (or you all) got through it. Hoping you might share some of your weird/funny sleep deprived/first few months of baby life behaviors with me and if your husbands thought you were crazy or understood the the intensity of what you were going through.

echo-charlietango

@annar49a Don't expect a flurry of responses, this board is dead.

For your question, not much sleep deprived drama here. Until LO learned to STTN, DH and I took baby shifts so that we each got a six-hour block of sleep. When I can't get real sleep I can't just fix it with coffee and mascara  -I become useless- walking into things, slurring speech, eyes can't focus. Letting me sleep was our first priority because I am baby's primary caregiver.