Kylie Orr
It's not a competition, but if it was, we would win. Us parents. Yes, this is one of those topics that creates clear division. Before you roll your eyes, yawn and head for bed, hear me out.
Sleep deprivation is something we've all experienced one time or another, parent or not. Feeling tired seems to be a fundamental component of the crazy, over scheduled lives we lead.
Working full time in most jobs is exhausting. Friday nights used to see me passed out at 8pm, often on someone else's couch with a line of drool pooling on the cushion a-la-Homer Simpson. It was a running joke amongst our friends that they'd invite my husband over for dinner and me over for a sleep.
I could snooze on a railway track whilst the train ran over the top of me. Sleep was my comrade; my bed was a loving embrace that wrapped me tight in a swarm of zzz's. If I didn't manage a sturdy eight hours a night, consider me cactus the following day. Even seven and a half hours would do my head in.
I couldn't concentrate, was incomprehensible in meetings and almost fell in the door at the end of the day crying in a fatigued heap, scrambling for my bed. Pathetic, I was, and completely indifferent to the mockery.
I didn't know many parents of young children before I became one myself but I sure as hell knew I was not going to be one of those whinging twats who despaired the lack of sleep and how hard it all was. Par for the course, right? You chose to have kids, suck it up.
Murphy would have it that I am now up to my third atrocious sleeper. And boy, do I whinge. So much so that friends are too scared to mention that their child is a good sleeper, or a settled baby for fear I may fly completely off the handle at the wild injustice of it all. Which would be totally excusable in my current sleep deprived state.
I was at a party on the weekend and had had just enough champagne to be borderline obnoxious. (In my mind, I was hilarious).
When a friend said she had to leave because she was tired, I laughed out loud and somehow transformed into that incredibly annoying parent-who-is-more-tired-than-anyone-else character I loathed prior to having my own children.
Combative jibes about having no right to be tired slipped out and fell awkwardly between us. And then it came. I don't know from where, a place deep and buried in the pit of my subconscious, it slinked past security and burst out my mouth – “Wait till you have kids! Then you'll know tired!”
That voice I employ to shout "Shut your pie-hole!" when it sees a dangerous thought nearing my lips was obviously asleep that night.
Such an intractable stance on the topic is a great example of how to win friends and influence people. Perhaps I should re-read the book. I allowed my friend no room to be tired, despite the fact she works two jobs and starts her long days at 5am. “At least she gets a full night's sleep,” I was thinking to myself. If only I'd kept the other thoughts to myself too.
Everyone gets tired. Having said that, I have never known fatigue like the demented state I have experienced since becoming a parent. I've certainly been really really tired before, but I always sought solace in the knowledge the weekend was approaching and I could sleep in to catch up.
There was also the possibility I could be wondrously dull and have an early night by trading off an evening out. Replenishing the sleep bank was achievable before children came along.
Having a baby steals your sleep, in the initial stages for most and long into the first year and beyond for other unfortunates. There is the possibility to sleep in the day while the baby sleeps, if you are one who can nap in the day and if your baby is agreeable to a nap. Once you have more than one child, options for afternoon naps or sleeping when the baby sleeps are out. You are forced to get up and get on with it.
Luckily, parenting can be brain numbing at times so joining in with a rock version of Mashed Potato by The Wiggles can be achieved on relatively minimal sleep. In fact, sleep deprivation probably makes The Wiggles a comedy act for an adult. I'm not sure that driving with children in the car or being permitted near anything with an open flame (such as a stovetop – oops, there's goes dinner) are sensible activities for the sleep deprived.
If I ordered takeaway every night and failed to drive my kids to school, however, I'd be expecting a knock at the door from the Bad Parenting Police.
In addition to the broken sleep that is part and parcel of parenting, I have become a reluctant insomniac, but then who ever met a willing insomniac? I am so incredibly tired that I almost can't sleep. By the time the children are in bed, I should collapse in a dismal heap reminding myself if I was smart I'd go to bed.
Instead the second wind whirls in because I know this time of the night is one to savour. There is peace. There are TV shows only entertaining to adults. There is my husband who speaks in normal sentences. There is wine. And chocolate that I don't need to hide or share.
There is also the hidden dread that as soon as I lay me down to sleep, the baby or one of the older children may call out with a bad dream, a sore leg, a need for water or just a desire to say hello. At 3am. Being so incredibly cosy and comfortable only to be screamed at, repeatedly, makes going to bed no longer a joy.
The accumulation of non-sleep has made me wired awake. I live in a foggy haze of life, meandering through each day wrestling with the concept that one day soon, I will get eight hours sleep again.
So, although being tired is not exclusive territory of the parent and carer, ongoing fatigue is something that tends to be more epidemic among people with young children. And maybe shift workers and truck drivers…
In the words of Leo J. Burke “People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one.”
Are you more tired since becoming a parent or is whinging about it something we learn to do as parents?!
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