I Will Exact My Revenge

Sleep is something most parents have a love hate relationship with. We would all love more of it and hate having it disturbed.

When your bundle of joy comes along you accept that your hours laid in a soft, comfy bed under a cosy duvet will be less than before and this is a sacrifice you are willing to make in return for a beautiful baby all of your own.

However most of us see loss of sleep as a short term investment when having a baby; so why does it feel that an eight hour stretch in bed is equivalent to finding the holy grail in mummydomland.

You master what in week four seems like an impossible dream and at about six months little Freya or Freddie starts to sleep through. For a week or so you walk round with a grin to rival the Cheshire Cats. Then suddenly little Freya or Freddie starts to teeth, and for some reason teeth tend to try and break the skin during the midnight hours. Once more you emerge in the morning pale faced and clumsy after a night of pacing the floor boards with only a bottle of Calpol for comfort.

Teething settles for a while and cot sleep dancing begins. Whilst you sleep, baby rehearses for the next ‘you can dance’ audition and busts out some moves which inadvertently gets them fast within the confines of their cot, cue wails, cue mummy, cue sleep deprivation.

Eventually all seems to settle, baby turns to toddler and again mummy walks around looking radiant blessed with continuous sleep. Then mummy gets over confident, big mistake, huge, and she takes it a step too far; bye bye cot, hello big girlboys bed.

Bedtime is replaced by a game of where’s the toddler as the little beggar hides hisherself under the bed, in the toilet, behind the bean bag. When they finally drop to sleep on the floor when all the good TV is over an exhausted mum scoops them into bed to be rewarded for her efforts at about two am when toddler promptly falls out of bed. Once more cue wails, cue mummy, cue knackeredness.

Ditching the nappies welcomes in a new night time joy, have you ever changed a bed in the dark at three am? Have you ever done it three times in one night?

Night terrors?

Thirst?

Feeling too hot?

Feeling too cold?

The list is endless….

In short the harsh reality of having children is that you kiss goodbye to all night sessions with sleep. You blatantly cheat on it with its arch nemesis Mr Wide Awake.

The only plus is; I am told when they grow to be teenagers you can exact your revenge….

**By the way my little blog has been shortlisted in the MAD blog Awards; I am really flattered, if you want to help me win please click on this voting link and enter your name and email and my blog has been shortlisted in Best Mad Blog about Family life (the first one); just click ‘northern mum’   – Thanks from me, twin boy, twin girl, BB, and he who helped create them x x x