'My son is a terrible sleeper. Please stop telling me it's my fault.'

My toddler is the light of my life.

I'm telling you, that little boy is pure sunshine. If you run into us on any given day, chances are he'll be beaming. He's a good eater, he's absolutely fascinated by the world around him, and he has a wicked little sense of humour.

I don't say any of this to brag, I just feel I need to provide context before telling you he is an absolutely terrible sleeper.

Watch: A spoken word video staring Laura Bryne articulating the contradiction of pressures that mothers face in their daily lives. Post continues after video.

"It's his only fault," my zombie of a husband likes to say after a night with three or more wake ups. Of course, it's not his fault, it's no one's fault, but you might not get that impression after speaking to parents of children who go to bed with the intention of actually sleeping.

I don't begrudge my friends with kids who are "good sleepers". My sister is one of them, some of my best friends are on the other side of this threshold, and I absolutely love that for them - it's one less thing for them to worry about in these increasingly troubled times. But of course, I'm not that much of a Pollyanna, I sometimes fall into the "Why me?" sooks and dance close to insanity trying to work out what I could be doing wrong.

And look, I'm saying all of this after three or four nights of my kid cosplaying as an excellent sleeper. Over the past week, he's mostly gone to bed cheerfully and slept a good 11-12 hours. But at this advanced stage in our parenting (all two years of it), my husband and I are far too war-weary to fall for it.

The thing that drives us totally batty, is when people say things like, "Oh, we sleep trained our kids so they're good sleepers," as if one always leads to the other. "We did too!" we want to scream from the balcony of our sleepless prison. And some things we tried actually worked, for a while, then they stopped working, and then the same method proved useless the next time.

Just to give you an idea, here's some of what we've tried:

The 'Timed Crying' method.

For this technique, you allow your little one to cry for a certain number of minutes and then enter the room to provide reassurance. Once the child is calm, you leave and put the timer on again, this time for an extra two minutes, and so on until they fall asleep. This is only intended for use in the short term because the hope is that your child will gain independence in soothing themselves and eventually won't need you in there at all. 

LOL I'd love to see that.

Pickup put-down method.

This is pretty much what it sounds like. Any time your little one cries, you pick them up until they're calm, then pop them back down on repeat until they sleep. 

Again, LOL. 

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The fadeout method.

This is where you slowly fade out sleep aids such as bottles, patting to sleep, or whichever method of settling requires you in the room.

Again, we had some success with this method. But as soon as my son got sick and needed us in the room to check on him, the progress we made went out the window, and our next attempt yielded no fruit (and sadly, no sleep).

Cry it out (sort of).

We even tried our own version of "cry it out" and simply let my son cry one night (also known as the longest night of our lives). Funnily enough, this one actually bought us about three months of pretty decent sleep! Go figure.

The more we've tried 'fixing' my kiddo's sleep, the more I've wondered whether there really is a solution out there for every so called 'problem sleeper'. The reality is, there's huge variation when it comes to how humans sleep as adults, so it stands to reason that it could be the same way for babies and toddlers.

Listen to This Glorious Mess where we spoke to sleep consultant and founder of The Frae, Kylie Camps and we answer some of your questions about sustainable sleep practices. Post continues below.

And since my tired brain could use all the reassurance it can get, I asked an expert to weigh in on the question: 

Is this my fault? Am I doing something wrong? Or are some people, and by extension, some kids, just 'bad' sleepers?

"There is a huge range of normal when it comes to infant sleep," Claire Fair, Certified Holistic Sleep Coach explains. "Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream sleep advice doesn't take this into account which can lead to parents feeling like there's one thing 'wrong' with their baby or like they're failing when it comes to sleep."

"We know from the research that when it comes to overall sleep totals, the range of what's considered 'normal' can vary by up to seven hours. So you can have a child with low sleep needs sitting right at the bottom of this scale, and another sitting right at the top and BOTH be getting what they need, for their unique sleep needs but of course, you can imagine how the parent with the child at the bottom end of this average might feel like they have a 'bad' sleeper if they were to compare to the child at the top." 

She reassured me, "If you're feeling like you're in a sleep crisis there is help available that DOESN'T require any form of sleep training but remember, even if you do absolutely nothing, your child's sleep WILL naturally improve all on its own - you've got this!"

Well, there you have it folks, one less thing for my parental-guilt list. 

And the next time you're talking to a parent who lost the kid-sleep lottery, believe them when they tell you they've tried everything. 

Some kids are great eaters, and some aren't. Some kids are fast runners, and some aren't. And some kids, like mine, just figure there's too much cool stuff going on in the world to waste their time with sleep.

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Feature Image: Supplied.

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