How does sleep deprivation affect you?

[NurseSooz]

I've found since bubs was born that sleep deprivation has been a total killer. I feel so alone in how it makes me feel. I feel light headed, imbalanced and sometimes confused. I struggle to focus (visually) on things and feel everything is "slow" and a bit unreal. Bubs is now starting to sleep longer so I'm hoping these feelings may go away. Am I alone in this?

 

[charlotteliz]

Sounds like you could have low blood pressure or a low iron count. Get checked to be on the safe side x

 

[Brieanna]

When my lo was smaller I had really bad sleep deprivation. OH works a lot and there was no family or friends that could help. I felt like I was in a dream a lot of the times. I was eating fine, taking vitamins, drinking water etc, but it was too much with her feeding all the time, especially when she was cluster feeding.It was literally every hour all day and night, no long sleeps.

One time I had to call OH home because I actually started hallucinating! I saw bugs crawling up the walls and dd had a snake tongue! Kinda funny now but it scared the crap out of me! OH came home and I took a nap and felt better, but after that I made sure to sleep WHENEVER lo was asleep. The house looked horrible, I wasn't cooking and I was only wearing pj's all day, but it was what I had to do to keep sane for me and dd.

It does get better! LO started getting into a schedule and sleeping for longer stretches of time, but what REALLY helped was when I could predict when she would fall asleep next so it didn't seem like an un-ending feeding session. I actually started to be able to have days and nights again instead of just sleep for an hour, feed, change, sleep for 30 minutes, feed, change, etc. Looking back at my schedule (I wrote everything down) I am amazed that I did it, but you will manage!

 

[Squiggy]

Currently I have a 22-day old and the sleep deprivation IS a killer; especially through the night when I'm shaky and unbalanced and have to handle, carry, and tend to baby.
I also have extreme difficulty taking naps during the day, which makes it all the worse!

Baby takes 1-2 hours to get 20-30minutes of feeding.

 

[AC1987]

Ummm I cried I just was so exhausted the two days alone at home, with my clueless dh.. that it was just so hard so I mainly just bawled my eyes out. It wasn't until my mom came that I started to feel human, still in a whole lot of pain(from stitches) but human

 

[Bevziibubble]

I didn't cope too well in the first few months. The sleep deprivation is awful. I am pretty sure I once fainted when walking into my LO's room in the night but it was such a blue. Once when I woke up after a nap I was still so tired I couldn't actually talk, as much I was trying to make myself the words just wouldn't come out! I spent a lot of the early days feeling sick and shaking with exhaustion and felt very panicky all the time.

Over time I've got more and more used to it. My LO still wakes up numerous times a night but the majority of the time I'm not feeling too bad the next day. I always have to start the day on espresso, though!

I agree with the suggestion about getting your iron levels checked as this can cause tiredness or make it much worse.

 

[NurseSooz]

Oh my goodness I feel so less alone!! It has improved but DD still gets up 3x a night. There's a huge difference in the way I feel when it's 2 or 3 times I'm up. I'm so much less giddy when its once or twice. I find the vision thing annoying as I feel it sometimes takes me ages to focus on things. I almost feel like my eyes are "slow". I hate it. I've always been someone that needs a good 9/10hr sleep so this has been hard to handle. I just feel like I'm abnormal! I feel like I'm living in a dreamy, hazy world. I really appreciate you girls responding xx thanks so so much xx

 

[lanaross]

this is my second and for some reason I feel better than last time. I am exhausted especially with my preschooler being so active during a day but I do whatever works: I sleep whenever possible even if it's just twenty minutes, I do drink 3-4 cups of coffee to survive, if I need to keep my LO upright after I feed him - I will fall asleep upright; if LO wouldn't calm down at night, I will co-sleep in our bed. Again it's whatever works. Your body will adjust to shorter sleep cycles and remember this will pass very quick. With my first I always thought omg what have I done I will never sleep ever again. Well at 3 months she slept 5 hours stretches and at 4-5 months she slept through the night consistently (aside from teething, regressions, growth spurts etc.). So you WILL sleep and you will sleep very soon, just need to survive this. Don't try to be a superwoman, there will be time for it later but it's not now

 

[NurseSooz]

Thankyou so much you give me hope. I feel like such a failure for feeling so lame about it! I love my girly to bits and wouldn't change her for the world!