I just need to vent this I think. Not sure if there's any solution except for one foot in front of the other. I'm just utterly shattered. I have not slept for longer than 3 hrs straight (except one freakish 5 hours stint) for 5 months and it's usually more like 1.5 hrs. DS cat-naps through the day, fights almost all sleeps (but will occasionally, like once a fortnight, self-settle and sleep for 2 hours just to remind me that he can do it), won't go to sleep without a 3 hour battle every evening and then wakes 4 - 10 times over night before getting up at 6.

I did get a great deal of solace from my recent thread about cat-napping (so huuuge thanks again to those who replied), and since I have let go of trying to make him nap longer, I have felt slightly saner. But the sheer exhaustion and lack of down-time is breaking me. I am snappy and impatient with DD. She is such a beautiful little soul, and as 2.5 yr olds go, incredibly cooperative and calm. But like most, she can dawdle and defy... and instead of doing what I know is best for her... instead of having the energy and patience to distract, humour, explain, play our way through the hard bits, I have lost my temper with her. Three times in three days I have ended up in a terrible state myself because instead of diffusing a situation, I have escalated it and it's ended with her screaming and crying, and me just crying along with her.

She said to me today... "I make you very sad Mummy?" and I felt sick to my stomach. I tried to explain to her that I'm really really tired and we all get a bit cranky and sad when we're tired. That it's not her. But she sees the worst of my 'crankiness' in response to her behaviour and cannot help but fill in the blanks and surmise that it's her that makes me so angry and sad.

We barely get any time just the two of us as I spend all day holding / entertaining / feeding an increasingly tired DS. She's desperate for a play mate and even when DS is briefly asleep, it's all I can do to read a story. I just don't have dancing and cooking and imaginative adventures in me. I don't have the good humour to have silly glasses put on me and I'm not much into pretending to be a dog.

But I was. I was a fun Mummy. I was patient. I was creative. We went places together and had the most amazing conversations. I don't resent DS. I wouldn't be without him, obviously. But I'm so sad that his arrival has shifted DD's world, and my relationship with her so massively and I want so desperately to be 'that' Mummy for her again.

My anxiety is escalating and I'm finding that I can't sleep even when I have the opportunity to as I'm surviving on adrenalin and it's impossible to switch off.

... AAAARRGGHH... and I FINALLY got DS to sleep 30 mins ago, and he's awake again.

ETA: and to the lovely BBer that visited me yesterday... yep, I know it probably didn't look this bad. And some days, some hours, it isn't. Especially when we have fun and understanding company. But today, well today is just F'ed.