THE ROLLER COASTER OF SLEEP

Sleep is such a huge topic for me, for our household actually and the reason being is that we're not getting all that much of it. Noah is, he always slept well, a complete diamond and a textbook child. Patrick however, not so much. It's no secret he's our wild child, we love him for it, he's fierce and feisty, I wouldn't want him any other way. But if I could have one magic wish, rub the lamp and have a genie grant me something, it would be that he'd sleep through the night. I've lost the courage to even think of a full nights sleep anymore, but just one when I didn't need to wake up six times would be great. There's this false sense of your child will be sleeping through when they're a toddler, but I don't know all that many parents who fall into this category, why this illusion of sleeping children? I feel like I was tricked into believing that sleep was a given, not a privilege. Boy, oh boy, how wrong was I?



Sleep is my most asked about subject, it would be my top question on a FAQ, 'how do you get your child to sleep through'. An answer I'm certainly not qualified to give. Before Patrick I thought we had it all sussed out, Noah being a picture perfect display of how children sleep, he wasn't great as a newborn, obviously. But as he grew up he slept for longer periods, until around one when he didn't need us at all, from that point nothing changed and he goes to bed independently, sleeping through every single night. He's one of the elusive children that you actually have to wake up in the morning, or he'd continue to sleep till noon. The boy loves his sleep, it's in his genes after all as both me and John are quite the same, so why on earth is our littlest not falling suit? I've used every excuse of why he just isn't quite there yet, I've thought about trying absolutely everything and anything, from wanting to head down to Dreamers Bed Centre and grab him a new mammoth beds, as that 'must be the problem', to adjusting the temperature of his room across every end of the scale, as 'maybe he's just too hot or cold?' I can't sit here and tell you what works, what our miracle saviour has been and the thing we'd been missing the whole time - as we don't have it, we're still stuck on this sleep rollercoaster of one good night followed by six bad ones. But I can tell you what doesn't work, because I have twenty months of knowledge behind me on that subject;

Making excuses; Oh I can sure tell you there isn't one excuse I haven't made for my son. It's his teeth, he has a sore bottom, he's hot, he's cold, he needs a pillow, it's too noisy, he had a late nap, he has an intolerance, he hasn't pooed today his tummy must hurt. You think of an excuse and I have used it. In truth, he's just a bit of a pants sleeper and that's ok (well it's not ok, but you know) Making excuses has never solved my problems, it's just let me push them aside for another night and pretend they aren't happening. It's ok to admit your child doesn't sleep, without having to follow up with 'I think it's because he's teething', it's ok not to have the answer. I certainly don't.

Feed them to sleep; Patrick loved his bottle before bed, but when he got to a stage where he didn't really need it anymore, I kept it up anyway. After all, it was a signal to him that it's time for bed. A great theory, but one that is detrimental. Whenever Patrick woke, which was a lot, he'd expect milk again to get him back to sleep. This was his sleep association and it's not a great one to have. If he wakes at 2 and then 4, layering him up with milk is going to do nothing but give him an uncomfortably full tummy, so that he doesn't sleep anyway. It's an endless circle of no sleep and one you'll thank yourself for not getting into.

Bringing them in bed with you; at the first moment you try this, think carefully, you have to make a choice. Are you willing to become a co-sleeper, if so go ahead, it's a wonderful journey for so many and I don't know any co-sleeping parents that say it wasn't beneficial for them. For me though, for a multitude of reasons it wouldn't work, our beds too small, I like to be wrapped up in the duvet, we've got a sids death in the family, the list goes on, so bringing Patrick in with us wouldn't have ever solved our problem. As selfish as it sounds I didn't want him to sleep in our bed, I wanted him to sleep in his. Bringing him in with me and John for a night or two to get some short term relief and sleep has been tempting, it really has, but I know it's just unfair for me to then expect him to go back to his own bed. So unless you're keen for a co-sleeping route, this probably isn't a long term solution.

Baby products; How many lotions and potions out there are aimed to help little ones sleep. None of them work, or else we'd all be using them. It took me a while to realise this, but one day it clicked when I looked at my wonderfully sound sleeping child (Noah) and realised I'd never used anything of the sort on him yet there he was, fast in the land of slumber. It's all a marketing ploy and one I was happy to buy into if it gave me a glimmer of sleep. They didn't though, of course, but made my purse a hell of a lot lighter. I'd spend the money investing in some nice pyjamas instead so when you're up thirty times a night, you can at least feel a bit sassy.

As you can see I am no sleep expert, but I do think I'm well trained in what doesn't work because here sits my toddler of living proof. There's never a rhyme or reason as to why he has a good night, and the same works for bad nights - there isn't any correlations and I can't get my head around what this boy is doing. One things for sure, he's definitely not sleeping.

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