NO SLEEP TILL BEDTIME

My kids don’t sleep. As a result, I am 39 in human years and 147 in mummy years. I have not slept through the night for three and half years. I am a junkie for sleep. I crave my bed like a chocoholic pines for Cadburys.

As I write, at 11.00 pm on a Tuesday night, Olly is banging out a rhythm on the kitchen door with a pencil. Actually there’s no rhythm; it’s just banging. In fairness, Olly usually goes to sleep by 7.30 but he’s ill with a cold at the moment. Billie, oh Billie, is an Olympic Gold bad sleeper. She’s asleep on the sofa, where she gave up trying to stay awake and I gave up trying to get her upstairs.

Even when Olly goes to bed that will not be the end of it. There will be at least one occasion when he requires urgent attention from exactly the right parent in exactly the right mode with exactly the right equipment in order to affect a smooth transition back to sleep.

“No not Mummy, Daddy” or “no not Daddy, Mummy”.

“I don’t want you to stand by the bed you must get in the bed”

“No turn the light on I can’t see” “No turn the light off it’s too sunny”

“No, not juice, milk” “No not milk, juice”

(By the way Olly has just informed me that my tapping on the keyboard is spoiling his concentration as he draws).

To the uninitiated, or to those parents who have by luck, judgement or sheer guts and determination managed to get their kids to sleep, this will sound like a nightmare yet to come or a bad dream that’s returning. Yes, we’ve heard of controlled crying. Yes, we’ve heard of camomile, yes we have spent a ton of money on a sleep councillor. And yes, I know we brought a lot of it on ourselves. The fact remains, that as things stand, I regularly come across Steve asleep standing up, I can’t remember what my name is I’m so tired and we conduct much of our relationship on the landing between bedroom visits.

Our kids really seem to know when to pick their moment. You go to bed at 10.00 and they wake up and cry and fuss till midnight, then fall fast asleep. So the following night you leave it till midnight to chuck in the towel and just as you turn off the light they start up. What I hate most is when I’ve just hit deep sleep and Bill starts yelling. It’s like being a deep-sea diver being yanked up from the seabed with no time to change the pressure. I reckon I have the waking equivalent of the bends.

Billie is a “lie in bed and yell till someone comes” merchant. Olly on the other hand, arrives like some dishevelled traveller carrying his most important possessions (pillow, toy, book) and sobs by the side of the bed. The Zombies to his Witchdoctor influence we rise, make room for him and one or other of us wanders off to find a new place of rest. One of the most bizarre and Kafkaesque stories I heard of nighttime waking was from a guy who did some plumbing work here. He said that every night his child comes into their bedroom, wakes them up and asks them to take him back to bed. Talk about playing with your mind.

And so we struggle on yawning and stumbling through the day and snatching sleep like sneakthieves during the night. We know that we have to do something about it (again), but we’re just waiting till we’ve had a bit of sleep before we tackle it. I’ll keep you posted.

Quote of the Week

Olly playing doctors: "This baby is ill, she has ants in her ears, blood in her eyes and no eyebrows"

Juliet Jones lives in domestic chaos with husband Steve, son Oliver (aged 3) and daughter Billie (aged 2) in Hertfordshire.