sleep Archives : Me, Annie Bee. https://meanniebee.com/tag/sleep/ A not so serious blog about family, life & wine. Wed, 23 Oct 2019 12:34:42 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.3 https://meanniebee.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/cropped-MABFav-32x32.png sleep Archives : Me, Annie Bee. https://meanniebee.com/tag/sleep/ 32 32 125685776 Too tired to human today. https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/14/too-tired-to-human/ https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/14/too-tired-to-human/#respond Mon, 14 Aug 2017 05:30:52 +0000 http://meanniebee.com/?p=4924 I’m tired. I know we’re all tired. We’re all parents and it’s our default position but I’m REALLY tired, almost at exhausted. I’m too tired to human. I’m so tired that resting bitch face is my default and I can’t change that. It’s as if my brain has gone into energy save mode and my facial movements are low priority. I’m left with this sagging, grumpy looking, jowly thing where my normal face should be. I’m so tired that my blinks get longer and longer until Seth screeches “WAKE UP MUMMY” or cockadoodledoos in my face. Most annoying. I’m so tired that even coffee isn’t taking the edge off. I’m so tired that I don’t know if I’ve said something or just thought it. I almost certainly haven’t done it though. So yeah, I’m tired. I know I shouldn’t complain because some of you are more tired than me and are up more times in the night than me. In fact, last year I was up more times in the night than I am now but it passed and I became used to sleep again. But I am complaining. Don’t get me wrong, I knew when I had babies I would suffer a lot of sleep deprivation, not cool but part and parcel of this parenting in lark. But I’ve done my time! When I could barely function with an 8 week old I was reassured it would pass. “By the time they’re 3 or 4 you’ll have forgotten all about it” THEY WON’T LET ME FORGET. I’m now the proud owner of a 3 and a 6 year old and I’m still remembering. Granted, I’m not the most tired I’ve ever been but I’m slowly getting there. I shouldn’t be up in the night then awake before dawn has even cracked. You’re probably thinking it’s the toddler right? Wrong. Well partly wrong. He is the reason that we are roused from 4.20am when he’s had enough sleep. He is the reason we saw many a glorious sunrise whilst on holiday. During the night Aoife is our main protagonist. The one who should be gradually heading toward sleeping in until noon is the worst sleeper in the house. Nightly, one of us has to make our way to her room to stop her shouting. The level of shouting indicates emergency. What could possibly be wrong? Well, there’s the classic “My covers need tucking in the bottom of my bed” Yes, she manages to untuck her covers and so she shouts one of us to come and fix them for her. Obviously. It’s not like she’s even the length of the bed, her feet are nowhere near the bottom! Another regular is “I need a drink” She wakes us from our slumber requesting a drink. I’m not a bad person, I don’t begrudge my children a drink day or night. In fact, I enable the drinking by putting a bottle of water in her room. Not just in her room but RIGHT NEXT TO HER HEAD. She has a top bunk so there’s a corner to put the water to save her getting out of bed OR WAKING THE WHOLE HOUSE. My current favourite is this beauty though “I’ve woken up” Really. “You’ve woken up so you shouted and woke ME up to tell me you woke up. At 2.40 am. You could have woken up and thought to yourself ‘I’ve woken up’ then gone back to sleep. You really didn’t need to shout me to tell me you’d woken up, especially when there’s nothing else to the conversation other than alerting me to the fact you’re awake. I’m now awake, who am I going to tell?”   I’m tired.

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]]> https://meanniebee.com/2017/08/14/too-tired-to-human/feed/ 0 4924 The lives of others. https://meanniebee.com/2016/10/31/the-lives-of-others/ https://meanniebee.com/2016/10/31/the-lives-of-others/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2016 12:33:16 +0000 http://meanniebee.com/?p=791 At a recent, child free wedding (not ours) we found ourselves sat at the grown up equivalent of the children’s table. That is the table of people who all have small children/are pregnant. Obviously, as happens when you have freedom from children, the conversation quickly turned to children (including a lengthy section on ‘pooey nappies’) all of us regaling the soon to be parents with the humorous tales of parenting. Yes, reusable nappies and cleaning with cotton wool alone are lovely ideas but once you’ve cut baby out of a shitty vest thrice, the idea of scraping out poo, soaking and putting said item in your washing machine loses its appeal pretty quickly. Respect to those who persist! Interestingly it is Dad to be who wants the reusable nappies, the one who will be out at work and not having to include washing nappies in his daily, baby looking after routine! Talk then moved on to bedtime and the first few months of sleepless nights. Now, THIS was an eye opener. One of the dads spent six months sleeping in the spare room so that his sleep wasn’t disturbed in the night. One dad only does night-time bum changes on a weekend but sleeps with ear plugs in on weekdays. Another dad pops his eye mask on, drips some essential oils on his pillow and sticks his ear plugs in so as to enjoy a full nights sleep… I was stunned. I felt awful and I said to Rory “Wow, you had it tough. Sorry” See, Rory did every alternate night feed or nappy change no matter what the day. Sometimes, if I was exhausted he would do a whole night. Even if he had work the next day. We just thought this was how parenting worked. As a couple we decided to have a baby and so as a couple we did the parenting as equally as possible. Rory believed I needed to be as well rested for my day in order to look after baby properly as much as he needed to be refreshed to go to work. He knew that if I was exhausted my day would be difficult, baby would pick up on it and no one would have a good day. We didn’t realise that we were an anomaly. All of the other women around that table are strong, independent, career women – lawyers, social workers, accountants. Of all the women around that table I was the only one without a career, the only one who doesn’t work so arguably I should be the one living the more ‘traditional’ set up of woman looks after baby while man sleeps. Luckily, Rory doesn’t feel like he’s been done over. He doesn’t feel like he’s been conned into sleepless nights and brain meltingly tired days when he could have had bubble baths, eye masks and peaceful slumber. Even if he does it’s a bit late now. I’d quite like a bubblebath and a full nights sleep though. Disclaimer, this isn’t intended to be a ‘we do it right, they do it wrong’ type post. It’s a ‘everyone does it differently and sometimes I don’t get it (especially the no snacks thing) but that’s OK’ type of post.  Though clearly I’m the most right…..

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