The battle that is sleeping

If you really tell the truth, even before your precious bundle of joy was here, your pregnant ass was preparing you for the sleepless nights with no comfortable sleeping positions because it felt like a marathon to just turn over and that fact your bladder felt like a punching bag with an endless supply of pee.

Well now that bundle is here and the real work begins. The feeds every three hours become not just a horror story but a reality, and you hit a point of sleep deprivation you wonder whether even attempting those couple hours you’ll get are even worth it.

Oh I’ve been there, dragging my bird nest of a head out of bed, putting my slippers on the wrong feet and just accepting that one of my boobs is just hanging out. Just a picture of pure beauty.

That was 6months ago..

Now I have a whole new battle of sleep to attend to. And that’s the bedtime routine.

From the age of 2 months I was one of those lucky parents that had a baby that slept through from 9pm until anywhere between 6am and 8am, but the catch was she would only fall asleep in a lap, then she became what we called a “teeny tiny time bomb”. Don’t get me wrong, it was beautiful, I would go to bed when she did, and get the uninterrupted sleep that made me the envy of many.

But, now I had a new plan, a plan that would eventually get me a whole hour before I went to bed, baby free. It felt daring, scary, and was a whole new territory for me, the boyfriend and the baby.

And one day it begins, at 5months old we start the process of –

1. Putting her to bed earlier

2. Putting her to bed without her falling asleep on us first.

I made a choice that so many parents choose to make, the choice of self soothing. At first it wasn’t for me, it was hard, it hurt to hear her cry, but I knew the cry, it was the cry for attention, the kind of cry when you walk in the room to see what’s wrong and they smile at you smugly knowing they’ve won.

Of course, you know your babies cry, you know the difference between the “I just wanna look at you” and the “I need you right fucking now!”

So we persisted, and slowly, the time it took her to fall asleep lowered, the time we could put her to bed became earlier. And now after a month, she goes to bed at 8pm and takes a whole 10 minutes to settle, it’s magical.

You don’t realise how much you miss free time, until you get it back. The process was hard, and not over yet, the true goal is a half 7 bedtime, but am I fuck pushing my luck just yet. It takes all the time and patience in the world, and a strong will. I’ve caved many times, gone up to soothe her, and on those days I don’t feel guilty. It will never be perfect, there will be days where I will let her fall asleep on me before I put her to bed, and there will be days where she will cry for just a little bit longer before I check on her.

This doesn’t make me a bad parent, this makes me a human one, and one that is doing whatever she can to make it through the day with a healthy happy baby and mama.