It’s one thing to learn how to get a baby to sleep, but what about Mum? Renee Wilson battles ‘mummy insomnia’, while her family sleeps peacefully nearby.
It is 10.45pm. I am exhausted to the point of feeling sick. I know I should go to bed and yet I can’t. I just can’t switch off.
After trawling mindlessly through Facebook, I decide enough is enough and drag myself off to bed. As I pull down the sheets, I work out how many hours of sleep I will get before I wake. Five and a half hours. I would have liked six, but five and a half is not bad. Five and a half will do.
It seems as though my head has just touched the pillow when I wake up. I look toward the window, begging to see sunlight from behind the blinds, but all I see is the glow of the moon gloating at me. I reach for my phone, praying sunrise is imminent. It’s not. It is 2am and I am wide awake. Wide awake with loads of energy. Dave is sleeping soundly beside me. The kids aren’t making a peep. The house is quiet as a mouse and here I am, like the Engergizer Bunny ready to go.
It seems that somewhere in the last three and a half years, I have forgotten how to sleep. I used to be a brilliant sleeper. I would love and need my eight hours. Now I can manage with five or six.
It seems that since becoming a mum I have conditioned myself to function on much less sleep than I should be getting.
I guess the conditioning started when I was pregnant with my first. I had ‘morning’ sickness throughout the night, I could never get comfortable in bed and would be up and down like a yo-yo to the toilet. When our first little doll arrived, the sleepless nights were a major shock to the system. I would walk around like a zombie. When our second came along a couple of years later, the conditioning continued.
