Sleeping like a baby

I have come to the conclusion that sleeping is overrated.

I used to sleep well. Since I was 10 I have had a double bed to sleep in. I did not have to share it. It was mine. I loved it. I had plenty of space to sleep, tussle, sleep sideway, and sleep with arms and legs extent to the full. It was bliss.

I was lucky enough that, apart from a couple of years in student’s accommodation where I had a single bed, I had a big double bed to sleep.

Then I met my husband to be. Until him, I had always made a point of sending any boyfriends back to their own beds. I treasured my sleep too much and was unwilling to compromise. Then I fell in love and had to compromise. Sharing my bed was the most difficult decision of my life (followed closely by sharing toothpaste but that is another story). I loved my retreat, my cocoon.

I have now been sharing for almost 15 years and I still miss those nights of pure bliss.

Then as if sharing a bed wasn’t enough I gave birth to 2 children at once. I was aware that babies did not sleep much and that they were demanding but having never been left in charge of a newborn (let alone two) I did not realise how little sleep I would learn to survive on.

Child 1 and 2 were born at 32 weeks and spent the first 20 days of their life in hospital. During that time they were trained to eat every four hours and sleep in between. I saw them at feeding time and was recovering on the ward for the first 10 days. After day 5 I was allocated a room on my own near the exit and was allowed to sleep in between expressing milk for the girls (every four hours on the dot, 10 minutes each breast).

Then I was allowed home and carried on with the same routine.

On day 20 after having spent one restless night on the ward with both girls in our room we were allowed home. I micro napped a lot. I do remember sleeping no more than a couple of hours in one go.

My husband was getting more sleep than me but as he had to go to work every morning he needed to be able to function.

Whenever we saw the Health visitor I would ask when babies were supposed to start sleeping through the night. I always got the same answer: don’t worry my son started sleeping through when he started primary school. I did not want to know that. I wanted to be told that at some magical point (weight) a switch would be turned and child 1 and 2 would sleep.

We reach that magical weight and nothing happened.  We decided to refer ourselves to the sleep clinic. A special health visitor came to our house and told us that child 1 and 2 were not sleeping because I was too concerned about the state of my bathroom. Weird or what? She told us that as they were twins we should not separate them as they were getting comfort form each other.

We suffered on until the girls reach the grand age of 11 months. We split them up one night and they slept through the night. They went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 6am. I slept and could not believe it. We thought it was a fluke.

No, it wasn’t. They carried on sleeping and I returned to a more human state. I had been back at work for several months at that point and feeling human was definitely a bonus.

Then having slept well for another year we decided to have child 3. That child made it impossible for me to sleep past month 6 of pregnancy and then continued until he started primary school. Oh yes I had one of those children. The ones that whatever you do wake up during the night to tell you that they are awake/hungry/been to the toilet, etc…

But on a very positive side child 3 learnt eventually to go back to bed himself after having had a midnight picnic (banana and water) in his bedroom.

Then one day he decided that I did not need to be woken up. I think it did involved me being soundly asleep and being completely terrorized by him waking me up. A short and curd conversation later he went back to bed knowing that unless he was being physically sick or bleeding I should be allowed to sleep until 6am.

Now you may think that I sleep like a baby. Child 1 and 2 can stay in bed for ages mostly during the day but not so much at night. Child 3 sleep until 6am every day. My husband keeps me awake with his snoring. The best reason for him to wake me up lately has been: Are you awake? I can’t sleep. Me answering curtly: I was asleep. By that point he was snoring again.

In 15 years my children should have left home and I should be able to move to another bedroom and buy the bed of my dream. A woman can dream after all…..and sleep.