Hi guys,

I just need to vent to someone other than my husband.

My daughter will be 3 this fall and her sleep is complete crap. She’s up crying an average of 2-5 times a night. Heavily towards the average of 5, but I lowered the number because she did sleep a 7 hour stretch two nights within the past month, so I’m really hoping that’s a good sign. But anyways. She sleeps roughly 6-8 hours total overnight so this is basically still newborn sleep stretches in general. She has been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. So that explains her little and very poor sleep. And it’s not her fault. But in a selfish way, I’m just so deeply tired. This was so much easier in the first few months before the sleep deprivation set in hard. It seems like every month it gets harder to function and I don’t even work I stay home. My husband works a lot and we don’t have family or friends who will babysit so I can get some sleep. Often I get so tired that I feel my heart beating super super fast and it is like a sharp burning pain all over my body just being awake. My daughter climbs everything and bounces off the walls and runs and screams all day long so I have to stay as alert as I can all day. I try to do a lot with her, read to her and take her to the park to play and take her to preschool groups, etc. But a couple weeks ago my husband was able to take her out and I got to sleep 3.5 straight hours and I honestly didn’t remember my body could feel that good and pain free and my head could feel that clear. After my nap I played with my daughter and had SO much fun and it just made me realize how I’m such a worse mom on an average day 😭 I used to always sleep whenever she would take a nap even though I got tons of judgement for it but she hasn’t napped for about a year now unless she’s in the car so of course I can’t sleep then lol.

My daughter is having surgery next month to remove her tonsils & adenoids and put tubes in her ears. I feel sick every time I think about it. I know kids who got just their tonsils out and their recovery was awful they didn’t eat solid food or sleep longer than an hour for 3.5 weeks. With as tired as I am on a day to day basis I don’t know how I am physically going to manage caring for my daughter and that is super scary. I know deep down inside that no matter how tired I am I will be able to physically move my body to keep her safe and cared for. But I know it is going to be absolutely brutal physically. I also feel like a selfish jerk being so worried about my lack of sleep when my daughter will be recovering from major surgery 😭 I know this will be much worse for her than me. Her doctors have said that they think this surgery will help her sleep after the recovery but after this long I’m not getting any hopes up.

If you read this far I’m sorry for my rant. We went through a miscarriage and years of infertility prior to having her. I wouldn’t change a single thing. I adore her with every fiber of my being. She’s my best friend. But I absolutely did not expect to be up every 2 hours when she’s 2.5 years old and I had no expectations of the physical toll the sleep deprivation has taken on my body. Take a nap for me today if you can ❤️❤️❤️ love to everyone