ADHD and sleep

Baby is 9 months and has always been a bad sleeper and since having her I realized I have severe untreated ADHD (I’m a therapist and have talked to others and we all agree I just had great coping mechanisms before and didn’t realize it). I don’t have the ability to get on meds right now. The reason that is important is because following any routine is almost impossible to me and wasn’t a problem until I had a baby. She does really well when my husband does bedtime routine and feeds and whatnot, but I’ve been awful at it and I am currently a SAHM while my husband is in school and working full time. I know I shouldn’t rock her to sleep or feed her to sleep anymore because it’s causing us all grief but I just can’t keep a consistent schedule and usually am not even present at all while doing simple tasks unless it’s written on my phone and I check off each thing as I do them (though 90% of the time I have no idea where my phone is and my baby is at the age where any distraction is pretty bad). Just not sure if anyone else deals with similar things? I feel like I’m going crazy. I can’t sleep train right now because we are going on vacation in a week and will have absolutely no consistency lol. Anyway that’s a ramble. I just feel bad for my baby because she seems so tired and I feel like routine and consistency would help her during her regression a bit but uh I can’t get myself to be consistent..

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As someone who also didn’t discover I had adhd (and that I was autistic) until after my kids arrived.. my kids now being 8 and 9 and also audhd kids…. And me being a single parent… the routine is sooo hard… you are not alone… I also have PDA and that demand kill avoidance kicks in and I watch the clock and can’t do what needs to be done cuz of the demand… honestly yeah routine is hard and I am unmedicated as well. But I will say my kids are happy even though it’s a bit chaotic here

That’s reassuring <3

I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD as a child & refused medication even until now. Like you & many others I was high masking UNTIL I COULDNT kids definitely make it harder to mask since now it’s not you you’re managing but a little human too, I struggled a lot with routine too and still do but what I will say is body doubling has helped a lot for us, what I can’t do for me I might be able to for my babies. Parenting isn’t a uniform thing. What works for you might look different to another family’s “normal” for me that’s going to bed with my kids until sometimes midnight & waking up at like 9:30-10:30 am. Sounds crazy but it’s what’s allowing all of us some rest. Both my babies are of support needs so our routines definitely are truly different than what I’ve seen with other mom friends IRL & online and I’m ok with that. Sending you a virtual hug!

Honestly I could have written this therapist, self diagnosed adhd, symptoms worse since baby (add a heavy dose of birth trauma that also made everything so much worse). I used a reframe that my baby is learning flexibility with the inconsistent bedtime. But I also try really hard to have some things consistent- brush his teeth, turn on relaxing music, then diaper/pj’s, maybe a book, change the color of the light to cue bedtime, then nurse to bed. The timing is different every night, but the steps are fairly consistent. I also set alarms on my phone to help bc my time blindness is strong.

Thank you all. It’s nice to know I’m not alone..

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