Thoughts on Sleep

I've always been the type of person who loves their sleep. If I didn't have anywhere to be, I would easily sleep in nearly every day when I was younger. Although, living in sunny Cal-i-a it probably didn't help that it was scorching hot most of the time which made me very lethargic. My teenage self would easily sleep until noon and beyond on hot summer days.


When I moved to England, my sleep pattern changed to be a bit more sporadic. I used to wake up at least once during the night when rob and I lived in our first flat in Ross on Wye and I have no idea why in my mid twenties my sleep decided to go AWOL.

There's also the fact the my darling husband had night terrors so not only do I wake up in the middle of the night to pee, but occasionally in that flat I would get woken up by Rob smacking me in the chest or face as he flailed his arms to the side whisper yelling 'What was that?' I would be woken up panicking that we were being robbed or something.

Both me waking up randomly in the middle of the night and Rob's night terrors calmed down when we moved into the flat above the Kings Head hotel. Although, that's when my night terrors happened. The hotel flat had high vaulted ceilings and very blank white walls with massive old wooden double hung windows that make it look like a mental asylum. Even then, after a lick of paint to darken the top third of the walls so the ceiling doesn't look quite so far away, and a bit of decoration, even that passed.

But then there were other struggles at the hotel....like people being loud AF until midnight in the beer garden even though there is CLEARLY a sign that says 'After 10pm please QUIET DOWN MOTHERFUCKERS'. okay...that last part is embellished. but there is a sign saying noise levels need to remain low after 10pm because of residents...not to mention the neighboring houses opposite the beer garden.

I was never really happy living at the hotel when it came to sleep because our bedroom, with only single pane windows, was literally RIIIIIIIIIIIGHT above the beer garden. I would be more understanding of people being noisy on the weekends, when people do go out to the pub and stay out late even in a small town like Ross, but when the odd Wednesday piss up happened until 1am in the morning and I still had to get up at 6am the next morning I was not happy. A lot of times when the hotel wasn't at full capacity I would ask Rob to book me out a room in the hotel while he was finishing up work and I'd trod down the halls in my PJs to my new temporary housing.

The hardest part of that was when I was pregnant. My hormones made me sooooo much more aggravated over loosing sleep that when people had thier mid week piss up, or some residents decided to have a chat in the beer garden at 3am while having a smoke, I was FUMING. I had fantasies of going down to the beer garden and threatening the living shite out of whoever was causing me to loose sleep while I was pregnant.

When I wasn't being agro with noisy residents,  I learned to be zen and listen to my pregnant body for cues of when it needed more rest than the normal human being....which is how it felt alot of the time. Hey, can you blame me? I was exhausted from growing a human inside me for nine months! When we moved out of the hotel, even though I was getting more heavily preggo, I finally found more blissful sleep. By listening to my body I was able to store my energy and reboot by getting some solid rest.

Then birth happened! Haha! Goodbye blissful sleep, and hello crying baby! To be fair, as far as sleep deprived parents and crying babies go, we in the Vidler household had it pretty good. Henry started off in our room in the carrycot for the first month and a half to two months roughly. That was annoying after a while because we couldn't get any sleep having a rustling, wiggly little spawn right next to us making adorable (but not at 2am) cooing noises right next to us. Luckily, my mum stayed with us during the first few months, so we had a routine of 'Who's night is it to listen out for Henry'.

For the first 2 months, if Rob was on an opening shift (7am), then mom would have Henry in her room and let us get some sleep, If Rob was on later in the morning, Henry would sleep in our room, but I would get up to tend to him. If Rob was working a night shift, that was his turn to tend to Henry in the middle of the night cause he had the day to recuperate.


Just before Christmas we moved Henry to his big boy cot and started using a baby monitor, which was the best decision we've ever made. By that time, Henry had been in our room every night so that we started to ease off of relying on mum so much and in the end it forced us to move him into his own room so we could figure out the best thing that worked for us when mum was gone. Our quality of sleep started to improve immensely. They recommend the baby stay in the same room as parents for 3-6 months?...I don't think.

Henry sleeps better in his own room. We sleep better without all the little baby grumbles. The sleep pattern since has been up and down, but most nights now a days he sleeps from 7pm-7am. There is the occasional wake up to have a quick feed and change sometime between 3am-6am, and very rarely does he stay wide awake during 'the witching hour'. I had one of those this week actually....woke up at 3am...didn't go back down until 4:45am. Child, mama needs sleep too darling. Three in the morning is not playtime.

Now a days I've adopted the motherhood tip of 'Sleep when you can'/'Sleep when they sleep'. Unfortunately, as much of a superstar Henry is at nighttime sleeping, he's a crap napper. I'll be lucky if I put him down and go for a 30 min kip. This boy fights sleep like no other. He will kick, scream, headbutt us in protest of going to sleep and finally when he's exhausted himself so much that he falls peaceful asleep in our arms, limp as a noodle and we go to put him down--naw mate. His eyes shoot open wide and the crying commences.

Sometimes he stays asleep, and then I have to prepare myself for the miracle that I can sleep during the day-- I kick the cat out, shut the door to the garden, turn off the kettle/stove, etc and settle in for a nap. 10 minutes later after I finally drift off to REM sleep....nope, he's up again. My nap window has closed.  That's why every opportunity I get when Rob is home I will sleep... and then promptly enter a 3 and a half hour mini coma.

C'est la via....

EDIT:
After I posted this blog, I was woken up at 2am by the spawn, changed/fed him, manage to catch the vomit in my hair, after which I leaned over the sink to shampoo the bits out of my hair. Then proceeded to 'play' downstairs until 3am in an attempt to keep the screaming at bay so hubby could get some sleep.