Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gambiting 1620 days ago
I'm in that place right now. 8 month old son, wakes up every 1-2 hours at night. Not even to feed, just.....wakes up and cries until you settle him. Feeding sometimes helps sometimes doesn't - but it doesn't change the fact that you have to wake up for him.

My wife is a complete zombie, I don't think she had more than continious 3 hours of sleep for at least 6 months now. I would cut my own arm off to make this situation improve at this point.

2 comments

Really sorry to hear that. We had a nightmare scenario at about 11 months where she howled all through the night and my wife cried pretty hard too as there wasn't anything we could do. We cut a trip short and just drove 5 hours back home (the next day) to get our daughter back to familiar surroundings if it meant sleep for us. She then slept through the night and more or less has done that since. We felt so much better, although I remember checking in on her often to make sure she was ok as she'd never slept that long. I really hope you catch a similar break sometime soon. It might also help when they start to get a more varied diet that isn't just milk, so they aren't always hungry if that makes sense (I'm definitely not any kind of expert though and not giving advice).

Hang in there! It won't be that way forever.

The way my wife and I had it with my first was for me to start taking care of my boy at 6am when he wakes up and let her sleep until 9am every morning, when I'd start work (from home). If you can find a time where the boy does not need her (eg. those times when he's fussy but not hungry), that's the best you can do.

Sometimes that's not an option, but this worked great with our first (we couldn't do it with our second, so my wife is more of a zombie this time even though the daughter is a better sleeper on average).

I do exactly that - she leaves him with me 6-7am and then I look after him until I have to start working around 9pm. And while yes, it provides her with some much needed sleep, it's still nothing in the grand scheme of things. I think as a human you really need that uninterrupted 6h+ of sleep at least every now and then, and not having it for months at the time just absolutely wrecks you as a person.