Tamworth Post Natal Depression Support Group

The despair of Post Natal depression is hugely exacerbated by a continued and relentless lack of sleep. The first 5 weeks I tried to shoulder the burden of getting up in the night on my own (I was breastfeeding anyway) but it’s so draining. Once I’d asked my partner for help we started a pattern of taking turns. I felt our whole lives revolved around sleep and trying to cope with it. I became obsessed with recording how many times I’d had to get up. The one thing I longed for every morning was to explain in detail to someone (who was actually interested) how many times I’d had to get up. I really felt I had to prove it was true - I really had only got 2 lots of 2 hours sleep; I genuinely believed nobody believed me when I told them. No one can actually understand the hopelessness unless they’ve experienced serious long term sleep deprivation. In the middle of the night, when you’ve been woken every couple of hours and been forced to function (changing beds, finding medicine etc.) the despair can be almost suicidal. I was overwhelmed by thoughts of not being physically or mentally able to carry on. After a very bad night I felt there was no-one to tell. I was bleary eyed anyway and then spent the first hour of every day constantly crying. Without my husband’s help I would have gone mad.

I was very resentful of other new moms whose little darlings slept for 12 hours every night. I was especially sick of people saying “I couldn’t manage without my sleep” what made them think that we could? A lot of people seemed unsympathetic - was it our fault for spoiling them? Months of the ‘controlled crying’ method proved fruitless, our babies just found it difficult to stay asleep and had a lot of coughs. Once we accepted the situation and realised sleep was a luxury and expected to be awake most of the night it seemed easier to cope. Every day was a struggle, unable to remember what you are doing, constant fuzzy head, recurring colds and feeling unable to function well. I felt I was not really in the real world - just trying to appear normal to the people around me. The fact is any opportunity to sleep has to be taken, for a year I slept alone in the spare bed, with cotton wool in my ears and never going to bed more that 2 hours after the children had.

For most people it is a torture that will eventually pass, and it did for us. I feel immensely sorry for people with disabled or ill children for whom no sleep is an inevitable part of life.

Now after 2 children and 3 ½ years we have begun to get sleep. It’s marvelous, and it’s easy to be complacent, yet one night without sleep and the feelings come flooding back.
If your life is in a sleepless muddled limbo you really do have my heartfelt sympathy.

Take any help that’s offered and sleep at any opportunity.