Let’s cut to the chase: SLEEP DEPRIVATION.
Can you guess what I am going to write about? Hur hur.
So. Lack of sleep. Every parent’s battle to fight. Or, in our case, pure and unblemished resignation. We are rather resigned to the fact that Mr A sleeps like crap in the night. He wakes up, Mr Thick goes to soothe him. If he refuses to calm down, he comes to me and I whip out the Holy Milk Bar. Sometimes, it takes me three to four attempts at latching before he is knocked out, by which time I would be semi-awake and doomed to have a bad night’s sleep.
If I am lucky, I get to nurse him only twice a night. But on the nights when the moon is full and winged pigs are streaking across the velvety dark sky, the little fellow wakes up three, four SOMETIMES FIVE times, in our bed. And guess who needs to be the bartender to this free-for-all buffet?
Whatever the reason for his shitty sleep, I don’t care. I’m tired. Constantly. I drink so much teh-si on a daily basis that I should be a shareholder of Toastbox.
(I am considering becoming an NTUC union member, just so I can get 15 percent off my Toastbox purchases of $5 and above! #auntydom)
Look, I get it. I get that sleeplessness is part and parcel of parenthood. But when I say that I am tired, I am not asking for candies or poms poms to be waved in the air. I am not even looking for a hug or a kind word. And I most certainly am not looking for comments in the vein of “this is parenthood, everyone else is doing the same” or “been there, done that”.
Because I don’t give a rat’s ass how little “everyone else” is sleeping. My primary concern is MEMEME and how I can stay on top of MY game. Four months in and the kid is still not showing any signs of sleeping through the night like he used to. There were once periods where we can look forward to a decent night’s rest but those nights are gone. LONG GONE. DEAD AND GONE.
So yeah, when I say I am tired, I mean that I am FREAKING TIRED. I don’t want to hear pithy words, I don’t want to hear about you and your sorrows, I don’t want to hear about how YOU lived through YOUR sleepless nights, I don’t want to be all SUNSHINE! and OMGAMSOPOSITIVETHATRAINBOWSARESHOOTINGOUTOFMYARSE.
I just want to sit here with a beer (if only!) and give myself a pitying pat on the back.
While watching Grey’s Anatomy.
And munching on some Kettle chips.
…Preferably the sweet onion flavour.
(Disclaimer: we are considering sleep training and night weaning but it is our personal parenting philosophy not to do so until he turns one. We are not against it, nor are we for it. We just believe that you do what you can to get through the situation and if sleep training is the solution, then yay for you. No judging!)
Yannisms 
Hi yann, since u are still breastfeeding, could it be the caffeine in ur dose of tea?? I know we are allowed to drink some caffeine during breastfeeding, but maybe ur boy is just particularly sensitive towards caffeine?? Just thinking out loud.. Of coz, it might be totally unrelated. But definitely worth a shot right? :).
Other tips I heard is to feed baby with water instead of milk at night. Of coz, I haven’t tried that out personally but just sharing some advice fm old birds!
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Our tiredness can say hi to each other. Min still sleeps like “crap”, a max of 3-4 hrs before waking up with a cry. I know she’s not hungry and I can pin it down to 1) her needing me to soothe her back to comfortable sleep and 2) waking up being a habit (urgh).
I did manage to wean her off needing any bottle to go back to sleep (smhow, it was easier after 18 mths to do so, for us). It doesnt take more than 5 min to get her back to zzz but it’s still interrupted sleep for us adults nonetheless. 😦
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I feel you babe! Sleep deprivation is definitely something that throws my life off balance – my son still wakes up during the night now even though he’s 2. It sucks to feel tired all the time isn’t it? Unfortunately we still have to juggle work and not to mention household chores. Guess it helps, temporarily at least, to just talk about it – I think my hubby is quite sick of hearing that I am tired all the time. Ah well…I tell myself the boy is just so young once and I probably will miss days like this when he grows up – ok, maybe not the sleep deprivation per se :p hang in there hugs!
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Hi Genie, I down about two cups of tea a day and I am pretty sure he isn’t caffeine-sensitive. He used to sleep well previously, so I do think it’s developmental.
lilsnooze, ~y: surviving! And just functioning. We will get through this soon enough!
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