She had what she describes as constant ‘white noise’ in her skull and was convinced relatives were putting nails in her baby’s crib.
Finally, she could take no more and contemplated killing herself.
Utter exhaustion: New mothers miss out on vital sleep
‘I could feel myself sinking lower and lower,’ she says. ‘Until that moment, I realised, I had been struggling to hold it together. I had been coping . . . just. Now I felt utterly out of control.’
But Helen, 35, a novelist from Liverpool, was not going mad. She was in the grip of a mania that affects millions and can destroy lives — extreme sleep deprivation.
For Helen, the nightmare started with the birth of her son in 2007 after a prolonged labour. After getting just three hours’ sleep in four days, she went on to average just 45-minute periods of unbroken sleep for the next two years.
Now she has written a novel, Go To Sleep, based on the fictional suicide notes from a mother to her baby that she penned at the time as an outlet for her desperation.
Her testament is so extreme as to be almost unbelievable. In her heightened state of paranoia, she believed she was being pursued by a mystery stalker who would be waiting for her every time she left her house. And she withdrew money from her bank account to flee to Spain because she thought neighbours were plotting against her with ‘the men in white coats’.
Everyone knows new babies lead to broken nights, but hallucinations, paranoia and suicidal thoughts? Those symptoms suggests mental breakdown, not new mum. Surely she exaggerates.
And yet I can understand how a new mother can fall into a black pit of exhaustion-induced despair.
I was never in Helen’s league, and certainly not for such a long time. But I vividly remember the time it took all my willpower not to walk in front of a bus as I crossed a busy road to post a letter. (My five-month-old son was taking a nap at home with his father.)
Daily struggle: Babies who do not sleep very well put an extra strain on their parents
Five months on, with the benefit of more kip, I find it hard to believe I was so desperate. But then, getting barely two hours of unbroken sleep at a time, I felt like a zombie, trapped in a twilight world from which I’d never escape.
I felt bleak beyond belief, and was so tired I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t care what happened to me, and for a while became convinced my husband, three-year-old daughter and baby would be better off without me.
Knowing in my heart that it was nothing more fundamental than a lack of sleep — that my depression would lift as soon as the sleep improved — did not make me feel any better.
I’m not alone. My friend Sarah recalls clinging, swaying, to the kitchen work surfaces to stop herself collapsing with an exhaustion she said felt as though it was penetrating her bones.
Over three years, after her two boys were born, she got just three hours of broken sleep a night, and felt physically sick as a result.
Another friend is racked with guilt for resenting her son and daughter because of how low the sleepless nights made her feel.
‘Could I live without them? No,’ she says. ‘But if you’d asked me that a couple of years ago, in the middle of my sleep-deprived state, it would have been a different answer.’
In an age of competitive mothering, where it’s a badge of honour to say your baby is ‘sleeping through’, to admit such desperation is taboo.
Another friend, Rachel, says: ‘It felt as if I was the only one in my mother and baby group who was suffering. Everyone else was boasting about when their babies started sleeping through the night — whether it was at six weeks or 12 weeks — and yet I felt permanently dizzy because I was getting only an hour-and-a-half of continuous sleep a night, and my son was seven months old.’
As Helen Walsh says: ‘Maybe the post-war ideal of “good parenting” has been replaced by one that is more competitive in nature; one that drives us beyond our rational limits in our quest to be model parents.’
Cumulation: Many new mums found sleeping hard when they were heavily pregnant too so have not slept well for months
Four years on she wonders how many sleep-starved mothers are dismissed as post-natally depressed and prescribed anti-depressants when what they really need is eight hours’ sleep.
Browsing the online forums for mothers, it’s clear many women diagnosed with post-natal depression feel this, too.
‘I was told I had severe post-natal depression with my first eight years ago,’ recalls a mother of three. ‘I always thought it was tiredness as I started having panic attacks and irrational fears.
‘At first I didn’t feel depressed, just weird like I couldn’t think straight.
‘I then spiralled into depression, but it would have been interesting to see if I’d had more sleep whether it would have led to depression. I’ve had two more children since and not had the same problems.’
Another writes: ‘My son never slept well and went through a phase of waking every hour.
‘The sleep deprivation left me feeling as though I was drowning. My memory was shot, I cried or got very anxious over silly things and was resentful of my son.
‘I am sure that’s what tipped me into post-natal depression. Six months on, although taking antidepressants has helped, my son sleeps from 7pm to 5am and I feel I can cope with most things.’
So why does sleep deprivation have the power to make you feel like the world is caving in?
Dr John Shneerson, of the Sleep Centre at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire, says millions are affected in Britain, from new mothers to shift workers.
WHO KNEW
A quarter of the population regularly misses out on the healthy 6-8 hours of sleep we need a night
‘People dismiss the importance of sleep, but my reaction is: “Why would you think that lack of sleep wouldn’t have a profound effect on you?”,’ he says.
‘It’s a vital function like eating. No one would expect to feel fine if they didn’t eat for three days.
‘Everyone needs sleep so brain cells can dispose of waste and store up energy for the next day. Without it, the brain simply cannot function properly.
‘The first things to go are the higher functions — those handled by the frontal cortex of the brain. This includes the ability to plan tasks and execute those tasks.
‘Next we lose the ability to think creatively, behaviour becomes more stereotyped, then it’s mood changes — particularly irritability and paranoia — and clumsiness. In very extreme cases, yes, people can hallucinate.’ He adds: ‘If you are sleep-deprived you are more likely to get depressed, and if you’re depressed you are more likely to sleep badly so it can be a vicious circle.’
For me, my sleep — and my state of mind — began improving when my baby started on solid foods at six months and he began taking in more calories. Until then, he had been waking through the night, hungry for breastfeeds.
Helen Walsh believes the pressure on mothers to breastfeed is a contributing factor to the problem of sleep deprivation, because it requires the mum to be awake every time the baby gets hungry.
She recalls how, despite visibly coming apart at the seams, she was made to feel that to give up breastfeeding would have made her a bad mother.
I, too, remember telling a health visitor that I was considering weaning my son early because I couldn’t carry on without more sleep and believed he was waking through hunger. At the time, the Government recommended that babies shouldn’t start solid foods before six months.
‘Oh you must get to six months,’ she said. ‘You must. Don’t give in.’ I could have slapped her.
As for Helen Walsh, despite periods of respite — she was eventually put under the care of psychiatrists and prescribed sleeping pills — she had to wait until her son was nearly two before, for unknown reasons, he began to sleep through the night.
Despite everything, there is a happy ending. She says the tough early days forged a special bond between her and her boy. ‘There is an intensity and an intimacy between us that might not exist if things had been easier,’ she says.
Many women know exactly how she feels. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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