"Sleep? I'll sleep when I'm dead!"

(Many a drunken phrase is spoken in jest...)

It's one thing to be sleep deprived because you were at some banging party with free food and drinks, hanging out with the coolest people ever (who are going to be your new BFF's for life and eternity if... er... you can just remember their names), pashing the man of your dreams and waking up the next day with no money, no phone and no idea where you are. It's quite another to be sleep deprived because the newest member of your household has no idea how to shut the f up at bedtime. For one thing, it's not half so much fun. Not even a speckle of fun.

All Mums worry about how much their children sleep. Click on any Parenting Forum and you get pages of posts from cranky, glass-half-awake women anxiously comparing notes on how long, how much and if it happened at all during the day. (That's sleep not sex, people - focus). Plus, they're all hating on the smug cow who posted that her new baby slept the whole night through in his own bed, (btw, she's so full of crap). The angst of it all! It's enough to keep you up at night.

There is no point joining in on these anxiety filled rants. All that precious energy could be used to keep your own eyelids propped open.

It's time to take the focus off how much sleep baby needs, to how much sleep Mum needs.

Give Mum a good night's sleep and see how the makeup miraculously appears on her face the next morning. See how she abandons her trackies for nice jeans and booby top. Listen to her dulcet tones instead of the usual fishwife shrieks. Watch her move with purpose instead of wandering vaguely between the fridge and the washing machine with a piece of cardboard in hand muttering, 'Now - what was it I was going to do again...?' And marvel at how much nicer she is to everyone - including baby -  just because she managed to get a few solid zzzzz's.

Remember, babies will only sleep when they're good and goddamn ready. There's stuff all you can do about it. If you feel like you should be doing something (and Mums tend to want to be doing something - especially the newbies), here's a practical exercise. Sit down, close your eyes and imagine how it will be when they're teenagers, addicted to drugs or unemployed and never get out of bloody bed. How you will fondly recall those precious infanthood days with blurry, rose-tinted sleep-masks! (For rose-tinted sleep masks, click here)

Eyes still closed? Good. That's probably the first break you've had all day.

But in the meantime, when you're doing your umpteenth lap around the bedroom floor in the dead of night with a shrieking, writhing gargoyle who has quite clearly been sculling back pints of Red Bull when you weren't looking, remember the words a wise old midwife once said to me:

"Never look back on the sleep you didn't have - look forward to the sleep you're going to have."

Amen, and good night.
 


Sssshhhh...

'E moe, mama' is a New Zealand study on sleep and how it affects new Mums. Check it out here