Impossibly Low Sleep Needs, Impossibly High Energy / Stimulation Needs Baby
Long rant, but I need someone to hear me. My husband and I live in a state with no family and zero friends. His family is across the country, mine are a state over. We moved 6mo before having a baby and left his only church/friends behind. My husband works a blue collar job, and for several months has been working 60-70 hour weeks.
My LO is now 6.5 mo old. He has been an impossible baby from the start. From the literal day one, his wake windows averaged 4 hours, but ranged anywhere from 2 hours to 9 hours STRAIGHT. He would usually sleep for 3-5 hours and be awake for 3-7 hours. **He was never fussy and almost never cried.** He simply was wide awake and too aware of the world around him.
Starting at 4 weeks old, we hit the worst time of my life. He slept an average of 8-10 hours total in a 24 hour period. It would take me 2 to 6 hours each evening of straight nursing/rocking to put him to sleep. Over night, he would wake every 1-2 hours, and every single wake, he would be up 2-3 hours. During the day, he would cat nap 10-30 minutes at a time, and only a handful of times a day. I was so desperate one day that I decided to be "willfull" and just lay him on the bed, lay next to him, and let him scream himself to sleep... 5 hours later, my husband came home to us both crying and still very much awake. It took an additional 2 hours to get him to sleep after. I had to have him sleep on my chest for every sleep, every nap, every night. He would not sleep otherwise. I slept upright in excruciating pain every night. I got 1-4 hours of severely shattered sleep per day. All of this was every. single. day. for 8 weeks straight. I was so sleep deprived. The 2 month migraine (this coming from someone who has suffered migraines since childhood) and literal delusion was unbearable. I cannot express this to anyone who has not gone through it.
Out of the blue, when he was 3 mo old, for exactly one month, he slept 9-11 hours overnight without needing any help from me. He self-settled whenever he woke. It was magical. He never napped during the day, so he would be awake for about 12 hours straight, but I did not care. That suddenly changed at 4 months old. Now we slip in and out of no sleep day or night and sleeping 10 hours straight. He still only sleeps a total of about 10 hours per day. It is better than it was.
Again, he has never been fussy. He almost never cries. He isn't unhappy or seeming uncomfortable/in pain. He is an extremely happy baby. He just. won't. sleep. He wants to play. He wants to crawl. He wants to stand and jump. When he naps, even if for a mere 5 min, he "resets" into a totally awake and happy baby and won't even attempt another nap for several hours. It's like he thinks he he's slept and recharged. I need solidarity. I need another mom to tell me they understand. This isn't just the same as any other baby. I feel like there is no magic cure. There is no perfect method needing only discovered. This is just how he is. I have just survived because it hasn't been enough to quite literally kill me.