Will You Just Bloody Sleep

Four and a half years into this mothering malarkey and I am still beside myself with sleep deprivation. I dream of the day I can arise feeling refreshed and ready to embrace the day and all it offers....

In one area we are lucky - the boys go off to bed beautifully every night. They love bedtime reading and chatting time, but come 4am, 5am, 6am, they’re up, bright as a button and ready for the day. The problem is they haven’t had enough bloody sleep, so the brightness wears off quickly and we have two emotional, unreasonable, demanding little turds to contend with and if they just bloody slept for long enough, it wouldn’t have to be that way.

As you can probably guess, we’re back into an early rising cycle. Neither child is responsible, they take it in turns, bless. Every night we say to them “if it’s still dark outside, go back to sleep. If you can’t go back to sleep, come and wake up Mummy (but preferably Daddy) or jump in to bed with us until the sun comes up.”

“OK Mumma” they say, but do they ever follow those instructions? Oh no, the early riser for that day wakes the other one (because they can’t be without each other,) and they either a.) raid the fridge for chocolate and if there’s enough chocolate, eat it until they spew (although that only really happened once – almost burning down the house was another awesome morning) or b.) they go and hang off the balcony, throwing toys and thinking it’s a hoot. As such, we can’t languish in bed, because c.) they might fall off the balcony and die or d.) we want them to have great teeth so eating chocolate in great quantities is a no no.

In the meantime, Steve and I have trouble sleeping because we are listening out for every noise, mainly concerned that they’re going to fall off the balcony and die, so we never get any peace of mind in this whole parenting shebang! To think a significant reason for moving countries AGAIN was to enjoy the Singapore 365 days a year 7am sunrise/7pm sunset - because the 4am Queensland sunrise/Kookaburra chorus was killing us – and yet still we do not have consistency. The good news is it’s not as bad as Australia was...

And so many parents said “it’ll get better from about four. At four, they become independent and just get up, turn on the TV and chill until you wake up” - ummm really? I dream of the day I get up around 9am, come out to two peaceful lads hanging on the couch, being responsible, sorting their own healthy breakfast, not doing any death defying stunts, and being QUIET.....

That is what I dream about now, when I can get to sleep of course.

I’ve heard many times that tiredness is a state of mind and you just have to decide not to be tired anymore. For those who think like that, I challenge you to come and take care of my boys for a few months and see if you still believe it’s a state of mind.

Yours, without the bollocks
A weary, Andrea