Need. More. Sleep

The stages of a day in the life of a sleep deprived mum (is there any other kind of mum?)

I work part-time, a Monday and a Thursday night. So that means I’m up from a Monday morning until Tuesday bed time, with as many naps as I can manage, then the same again Thursday/Friday. Tuesdays and Fridays don’t tend to be overly productive days. Friday playgroup session helps, though it was a long road of being post-work and stuck in a play room full of noisy children as my son struggled with separation anxiety. Thankfully he now settles quickly so I trot off for a couple of hours of peace. But today I’m tired. And a bit delirious. I can totally understand why they use sleep deprivation as a form of torture, on the extra tired days I feel tortured (though, in fairness, that could be the fault of the toddler and not necessarily the lack of sleep..) I’m sure most of the human race has experienced tiredness. Any parent can empathise with tiredness, we’ve all felt it.

The stages of my exhaustion go like this:

1. The stingy eyes. I generally get the stingy eyes on my way home from work. It’s pretty self-explanatory, my eyes go red and stingy and make me look much worse than I actually feel. This works well for a hit of sympathy from the husband when I arrive home and might even bag me a cup of tea made by him.
2. The dizzy fog. This is the part that feels tortuous; I hit The Wall of tiredness and my head clouds over with a dizzy fog. This leads to poor parenting choices and the over-use of a snack bribe. Any motion more than the living room/garden/kitchen is tough with the dizzy fog. In the past I have attempted soft play in this state (with the logic of letting him run off steam while I caffeine-up. Never works out like this. Should be avoided.) with consequences such as (but not limited to) falling asleep in the ball pool (almost) and ignoring my child’s requests for me to join him thus being on the receiving end of judgemental glares from other parents (leading to more mum-guilt. Mum-guilt + tiredness = emotions everywhere)
3. The munchies. GIVE. ME. SUGAR. (disclaimer: I’m not advocating the use of sugar in place of vitamins and healthy nourishment)
4. The rage. Why does everyone around me do everything wrong? Why can’t everyone read my mind? Why is my child feral? Why is there not enough sugar/caffeine in the world to pick me up? Patience is thin on the ground in times of tiredness.
5. The neediness. I love a cuddle. I do, I really do. But in my family I’m easily the least tactile. Some days I have to pry Christopher from me in order to go to the loo, and I have to employ a technique learned from Ross (off’ve Friends, obviously) to get the sleep space I require at night. When I’m overtired this all changes. I need cuddles. I need attention. I once read an article that said a person needs 8 hugs a day to thrive (not sure of the science, but it was on the internet so it must be true.. no?!) and on my tired days I need roughly 80. Abe generally sends me off to bed early so I can catch up on sleep and he can have some peace.

Sleep. Some days I’d swap my right leg for a nap. A successful nap can make me feel like I’ve won the lottery (even the nap where Christopher didn’t actually nap, just pretended to then trashed our living room with all the toilet roll he could find while I snoozed. Still worth it.) I’ve never met a parent who said they’re having adequate sleep. We don’t get enough sleep so we need to maximise the quality of the sleep we do get. I (sometimes) try a screen-ban as part of my nighttime routine, and much as I love scrolling aimlessly through Instagram for hours, I have to admit this really helps. When I was pregnant my auntie gave me a sleep spray and I am now addicted to it, a lavender scoosh around my room before bed makes me feel calmer. I have other sleep aids too, a temple balm (not convinced it does much but I like the smell and it does no harm so I’ll use it up), a cooling eye mask which is the dream (I’ve also tried and loved the Optrex lavender heated masks but they’re single use so not practical for everyday use), a relaxing bath with epsom salts and some nice smelling candles. I’m also becoming strict with my routines, I say no to most invites for things on the night following work and I’m protective of the sleep I am able to get. I don’t have anything new to add to the relaxation game market, but one piece of advice is not to ignore the tiredness. Try different things, talk to your friends about what helps them, look on Google/Insta for ideas and don’t apologise for needing sleep.

Need. More. Sleep.