(This is traditionally where someone pipes in with ‘Well mine wakes up every hour to breastfeed still!’ or ‘Mine doesn’t go to bed until 10.30pm whatever I do!’. Calm down, it’s not a competition. I don’t know why sleep does that to people. Maybe it’s the sleep deprivation).
Shit sleep is shit for everyone that it affects.
We are all in this together. Whether that is being woken up multiple times a night to locate a drink or being woken up at arsehole-o-clock everyday, if you’re regularly not getting enough sleep it f*cking sucks.
That’s where we are; the early morning wakings. In the most part, on a good week, he’ll go down around 7 or 8pm and sleep right through… Until about 5-6am the next day.
Every day. For two years and four months. I think once he slept in until about eight, but he was ill and had been up most of the night being hot and whiny and kicking me in the face. Still, it felt luxurious at the time.
When the day starts at 6am, it doesn’t seem so bad.
That’s a kind of normal time to wake up, even if it is seven days a week FOREVER. When it’s nearer – or god forbid, BEFORE five am – then that’s going to be a really a crap day. That’s a day when I don’t want to leave the sofa, when I don’t want to clean up Play Doh, when I don’t want to mum. It happens WAY too often.
Thank god I don’t have to go to a real job where people depend on me to have a working brain.
Five am wake ups also come with a delightful soundtrack of screaming, being punched, kicked and sometimes even bitten.
He’s not all that happy about being up either you see, although he’ll staunchly (loudly and violently) deny it. ‘I’M NOT TIRED!’.
For the past week, we’ve had to take the long route to preschool because the attached school is still on holiday and the nearby gate is shut. As it’s a little further than usual, I’ve taken the buggy with me and about half way there he has climbed in. Two days out of four he’s fallen asleep on the way back, by about 9.10am. A two year old shouldn’t need to nap at 9.10am.
I feel like I’m on the edge today.
Broken. Totally knackered.
On the way back from preschool, I took my sleeping child to do some errands, and then went to the shop where I bought biscuits before taking a stroll through the park and eating them. Half an hour later, he is still asleep.
I’ve necked two cups of tea and I am totally torn between going to take a nap myself (I never seem to be able to; could be the excessive tea consumption) or doing something useful, but I settled for writing this instead because I can’t face doing anything else.
I’m really tired.
I don’t want advice (cheers though eh) because I already made a sleeping one, so I’m fairly sure there’s nothing you do or don’t do that makes your kids crap at sleeping. There is no magical spell you can cast (aside from medication, we’ll not go there though…yet) that will suddenly make them see the glory of a lie in.
And trust me, if you think you know a way to do it, we will already have tried it.
No, I know it can’t be ‘fixed’…
I’m not really looking for solutions anymore. They say that an hour of sleep lost is the equivalent of necking a shot of vodka, but believe me it is way less fun. I must be basically hammered all the damn time. I’ve almost accepted that this level of tiredness is normal now. I’m not going to feel myself again, not for a few years if ever. I just want a cathartic whine.
If you’re tired as balls, feel free to do the same in the comments here or on Facebook:
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I feel your pain. I am also tired all the time due to non sleeping and early rising little ones so I sympathise with you COMPLETELY. I know that feeling of looking desperately at your own bed and thinking never ever will I sleep in there all night ever again. I have no advice….which is good as you don’t want any and there is none to give ha ha but….you are not alone!! Best wishes and thank you for all the blogs, they always make me laugh. 🙂
That makes me feel better, it really does. I hope all of our children learn to bloody well sleep soon Emma!
‘Five am wake ups also come with a delightful soundtrack of screaming, being punched, kicked and sometimes even bitten’.
Don’t you just love when they do that? Wake you up in the middle of last night, just to scream at you for taking the time. Anyone else in the world would swiftly be told to go and f**k themselves. Ho hum…
BTW you are doing a real job! Quite the realest job there is, really. Well done you!
Thank you
Yes it’s totally the highlight of my long, long day 😉
LOOOOL my son is nearly 4 and still wakes up. I heard another mum of a 7 year old that their son still wakes up :O
This is not super good news 😉
Urgh this! It just feels so shit & everything feels impossible! My eldest is the worst for waking everyone up at 5am because she can’t sleep, she has tons of energy & so chatty I struggle to stay focused on anything on those days!
It’s awful isn’t it! How are we supposed to human like this? How did our ancestors cope?! I would get eaten by a bear or something.
I feel your pain. Our two year old can wake up anytime between 4am – 6am without any sort of pattern. He has had a run of illness so throw in that and the clocks going back it’s all gone to hell in a handcart. He woke up from midnight the other night and didn’t go back to sleep till half five. I had to be up at six for work. Yep. Feeling it.
It sucks. Have a virtual coffee and a hug x
Yup. It totally sucks. I often mull over the evolution thing. I think it must be some sort of cosmic joke. Somewhere out there is an alien race that broke the prime directive and interfered. Ants or some other insect like bees should be the top species. So industrious and organised. My brain is full of holes 🕳
I hear you. Almost smug (but never completely confidently smug) that we got the going down and sleeping through shizzle kicked over last two weeks and now the blighter has reverted to waking from 4:30-5:45. WTF! We used to swoop him in to bed and then he’d sleep with us till 8! Joy. Now it’s ‘downstairs..water…no bed.. no cot…” NO SLEEP CHILD. I am hoping Louis Vuitton will give me sponsorship for my designer eye bags. It’s shit. Sending hugs and a truck load of coffee. Xx
I completely hear you lady. My nearly 4 yr old wakes me anywhere from 5am, I used to look forward to lighter mornings so much pre child but now I dread them. Bought a tent lately for upcoming summer holiday…got excited as it’s the “blackout” version….God I hope it’s worth the extra money. Only a cherished few in my life get that sometimes I just need to moan about working mum struggles which are not just unique to my newly single mum status…when I want advice I’ll ask. I can’t cope with the married to rich daddy’s, Lycra clad, time to run triathlon’s, stay at home mums who read all the books and want to impart their knowledge to me!