1. Endless expert advice.
If your baby isn’t sleeping well, fear not. Just casually drop this into conversation with your well meaning acquaintances or even better on your social media account/s, and before long you’ll have so much advice to draw upon you could write your very own (slightly crap) book on how to get babies to sleep through the night. Your own baby won’t read it (or even care very much really), but at least it’ll give you something to think about as you go about your ‘shush shush shushing’, or ‘sway sway swaying’, or ‘just go to F’ ing sleep-ing’, or whatever else it is you do come the 3am wake up call. In case you are feeling confused by it all. Here are a few highlights I’ve learned from ‘sleep advice’ so far:
– Whatever you do, don’t leave your baby to cry. They will lose all trust in you, wake even more and hate you forever. Babies’ cries’ should ALWAYS be answered.
– If your baby cries, NEVER give in and go to them. You are teaching them to ‘need you’ to get back to sleep and they likely will be doomed to a lifetime of inability to fall asleep without you by their side.
– Remember when the baby wakes to leave the lights low, not to talk and to keep everything calm and peaceful. (Resist the urge to scream “no fucking shit Sherlock, it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference” should any well-meaning acquaintance offer this shiny pearl of wisdom).
– Have you read (insert sleep-training book here)? In truth one book DID get my baby to nap well, both times. But nighttime sleep? Not a chance.
2. Feeling like everybody else’s baby in the world, universe and beyond sleeps through the night and has done since day dot:
It isn’t true. They don’t. At least not all of them. And deep down you know that you can’t be the only one awake at every unGodly hour. But at least four of the babies from baby group are sleeping through, and come to think of it so is the neighbour’s baby and your best friend’s, uncle’s, friend’s, daughter’s baby. Oh and all the babies on your news feed look happy, and their parents look pretty good, so they must be sleeping too, right?
3. Nighttime swearing
It doesn’t matter how sweary you are by the light of day. Mary Poppins herself has been known to turn the air blue when faced with a sleep refusing child at 2am, then 4, then 5…
4. Coffee is your new best friend.
You’ve resorted to two spoonfuls per cup, literally cannot function without it and your blood is pretty much 60% caffeine. Woe betide the person who tries to speak to you before your morning fix.
5. Your biggest dilemma is deciding whether to stay up for a slither of precious grown-up time in the evening or go to bed early to catch up on sleep.
If you should ever opt for the latter, be sure to make it to bed before 11pm to avoid a panic infused frenzy and rush to bed, only to be greeted with the first waking of the night.
6. The ageing process is accelerated
You feel and look like you’ve aged years in months and daren’t post a photo publicly without applying a carefully chosen insta-filter to hide your pale skin, new wrinkles and dark under-eyes. You don’t look in the mirror very often, but sometimes you catch yourself and give yourself a fright. After a particularly bad night, you might answer the door to the delivery driver who looks at you and your babe in arms, before saying ‘Oooo. Rough night?’. Resist the urge to punch him in the face. Likewise anyone who points out the obvious that ‘you look tired’ – a personal favourite and not so subtle euphemism for ‘you look like crap!’
7. The ‘Brain fog’
You live in a permanently dazed state and everything is a little hazy. Before maternity leave, you may have had a responsible or difficult job, but these days you struggle to remember what day it is. To your shame, you even forgot your own child’s date of birth when booking them in at the doctors the other day and make Dory from Finding Nemo look positively ‘with it’.
8. Sugar cravings
You regularly eat half a packet of biscuits without even realising you’ve done it. But if you don’t remember, it doesn’t count , so you finish off half a grab-bag of malteasers for good measure just a few hours later.
9. Being a glutton for punishment
It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but one day your tiny sleep-thief WILL sleep through the night. Far from savouring it though, you will forget all the struggles and stupidly do it all over again.
https://www.facebook.com/thislittlesprogblog/
Keep Calm and Carry On Linking Sunday
Yes!! Totally understand these! I didn’t sleep for two years, then just as my son starting sleeping I have another. Glutton for punishment for sure. #kcacols
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Haha! I hope you are getting more sleep now! Thanks for reading x
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So so true!! My little one didn’t sleep through til he was at least 1 and even then he’d wake at least once. He’s just turned 2 and started waking at 5-6 every morning, wahhh!! #ablogginggoodtime
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Feel your pain on the early mornings! Thanks for your comment and for reading 🙂 x
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I am right there with you- check out my post on our shitty sleepless nights with four littles. Basically I have not slept in ten years.
#ablogginggoodtime
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5 is gold!!! Yes!! Always the dilemma. Stay up or try and get some sleep? I had a good sleeper first; then a child who just didn’t need much sleep. She still doesn’t. It was torture. It has so bloody tough those early years and one hell of a shock. #FridayFrolics
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And this is proof they sleep when they are ready! Thank you 🙂 x
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Number 6, number frigging 6!!!! My face now moves south over the course of the day. This is all thanks to my little darlings. Very funny post. Thanks for linking up to #FridayFrolics
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Haha! I still look 21 in my head. But ONLY in my head…thanks for hosting x
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I always felt inadequate with the number of people who apparently had babes who ‘slept through the night’ until I found that ‘through the night’ meant 1am to 5am.
A great read – thanks. #FridayFrolics
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Yes! It’s funny how definitions of ‘through’ differ…thank you for reading! I hope you are getting to make up on all that lost sleep now 🙂 x
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Loved this, and I love that there’s always a clause at the end of it “I’d do it all over again..” ha ha
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Thanks so much 🙂 x
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#FridayFrolics
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So true! I think all parents live in a fog of sleep deprivation! #KCACOLS
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I always found the first wake up call after I had only been sleeping for an hour the worst. I could have been rocking and shushing a teddy bear and wouldn’t have been any the wiser! Thanks for linking up to #FridayFrolics
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Very true. I don’t remember waking a lot of the time! Thanks for hosting x
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So so true! The unwarranted sleep advice always got me too. That and everyone asking if my babies were sleeping through yet. None of their bloody business!!! Thankfully I am past that stage and my boys both sleep like a dream now! #KCACOLS
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I will look forward to this stage with glee 🙂 Thank you! x
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Yes to all of this! I was an absolute sugar monster when my daughter was waking every few hours through the night! That and coffee were all that kept me going! x #KCACOLS
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I don’t even feel guilty. We earn it right? 😉 Thank you for reading! x
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Is this dedicated to me? It should be! This is my life still. My eldest is 3 and still doesn’t bloody sleep through the night. Sleeps for the weak right?! #KCACOLS
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Haha! Sleep is for the weak in our house. That is for sure! Hope you get some sleep soon. Thanks so much for reading x
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It really irritates me when people ask constantly “is he sleeping through yet?”
If he was sleeping through would I look like I’ve been dragged through a bush?!?! #kcacols
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Yep – right there with you!! If nothing else at least we know we are not alone 😉 Thanks for reading x
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Oh god this was brilliant, the nighttime swearing got me! I am Mary Poppins but without sleep
I’m awful! Thank you for linking up to #ablogginggoodtime 🎉
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Thanks so much 🙂 and for hosting #ablogginggoodtime – fab linky x
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So true! And I always stay up for the grown up time so I’m always sleep deprived!
Thanks so much for joining us on #FridayFrolics. Hope to see you next time.
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You and me both 🙂 Thanks for hosting x
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This is so so true!!! I have a 3.5 year old that STILL doesn’t sleep through the night! He did…for awhile….and then his brother came along and now they tag team me….8 times I had to get up last night….8….but hey whose counting….they certainly weren’t! 😁 X
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Oh my goodness that sounds horrendous! Thank you for your comment & hope you get some more sleep soon! x
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