I now have a 13 month old. She is a 13 month old who amazes me every single day. She is funny, charming, adventurous, fearless, affectionate, independent, curious, intelligent and of course beautiful. She makes me smile and laugh and I love watching her develop and learn new things. I love seeing her explore her surroundings, she’s starting to pick up some Makaton sign language, she’s basically walking (or will be by the time I get home, she’s that close!), and despite her only words being ‘that’ and ‘yeah’ she is very good at communicating exactly what it is that she wants… who knew how much of life you could get through with just ‘that’ as your main form of verbal communication! But I have a confession to make: she does all this on broken sleep. Every night. Some nights are better than others of course, but on the whole we still have 2 wake-ups on a really good night and up to 6 or 7 (or 8 or 9) on a bad night. I don’t really mention this on Facebook or Twitter or in real life all that much. I just keep on plodding on, putting on a brave face, getting on with things. We’re on bad nights at the moment and, being back at work, I am exhausted. I long for four hours unbroken sleep, which is the most I’ve managed I think since she was born. Three hours (or less) is more common. This last week, since the change of the clocks, I don’t think I’ve got through a whole sleep cycle.
I’m sure I could Google “how to get a toddler to sleep” and find a myriad of advice. Add in “how to get a breastfed toddler to sleep” and I’d get even more. Some would be awful, awful, awful advice and some might be ok, but whether any of it would be right for MY toddler in THIS situation is questionable. It can be very lonely, and there have been times when I have felt like I must be the only mum with a baby who sleeps this badly. But I’m not. Rest assured, all you mummies in a similar position, there are loads of us. For now, I’m relying on support from some mums in a lovely, supportive Facebook group where we have a safe place to offload about anything and everything, sleep-related or otherwise. I remind myself that everything is a phase, and she’ll get through this one in her own time. After all, it could be teeth (I suspect we have her first molars moving around getting ready to pop through), it could be development, or it could simply be that she’s learning so much her little brain pops into gear and wakes her up… we all know what it’s like starting a new job and not being able to sleep due to having so much information rolling around in your head.
So that’s my confession. My life is lovely, but not ‘perfect’. My daughter is amazing, but doesn’t sleep through yet. I am generally pretty damn happy (not withstanding a few other big life things going on at the moment), but so very, very tired. I’d love to say I dream of sleep, but I don’t get enough sleep to even do that.
Yawn.
