What a difference a night makes

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about a night of dream-like wonder during which Kai woke up only twice, closely followed by a night of hell-like torture that made me feel like my face was melting. Remember?

Well I think we were all hoping that maybe the ‘good’ night was a hint at possible sleep-filled nights to come with the ‘bad’ night just a brief blip on the radar.

Err, no.

Actually, since that one good night Kai has broken all recent records for awful, torturous, mummy-breaking sleeping habits, deciding to make a habit of waking up two hourly after 11 and then waking UP up at about 3am and not.going.back.to.sleep. Bless him, he tries. He lies in his cot, with poor mummy passed out comatose on the single bed next to him with her hand hanging limply through the bars making half-hearted patting and soothing attempts. He tosses, he turns, he sits up, he lies back down again. The little sighs and  sobs begin to get more and more desperate until they reach air-raid siren like proportions and he works himself up into hysterical frustrated rage. Nothing helps. Not milk, not cuddles, not patting with increased force and frequency (PAT FECKIN PAT!!!) After about two hours I give up and we go down stairs for me to slump on the sofa while my poor tired boy cuddles close to watch the weird psychedelic Baby TV shows that are all we have the energy for in the pre-Ceebies dawn.

Anyway. After two weeks of this I was reduced to the wispy ghost form of my former (already rather haggard) self. But I pushed on, as usual.

I don’t think I’d quite appreciated what a hole I’d fallen into though till today. Because last night, dear reader, another one of those randomly good nights (and they are completely random) happened to grace our household. We still had the early morning wake up, but before that I got 5 hours of blissful, deep, uninterrupted sleep. And after a crawling round his room and singing session between the hours of 4.30 and 6, Kai then went BACK TO SLEEP and slept in until 8.20am, possibly the latest he has slept in his entire little life.

I got 7 glorious hours. I feel like a new woman.

I awoke with a smile on my face and a song on my lips. Temper tantrums were taken in my stride with unflappable patience and good humour. I found time to type up a huge pile of toy reviews AND play with Kai, unresentfully and committing fully to the moment. I cleaned, I made lunch, I cleared out the pile of old baby clothes under our bed and sorted them in bags for friends. And I still found the energy to get us all out of the door for an hour getting sandy in the park and back in time for tea.

In short, I was frickin awesome.

And it dawned on me. I’m not the awful, failing, incompetent excuse for a human being that I convinced myself I was this last couple of weeks. I’m just TIRED!

I know this sounds stupid but it was quite a revelation to me. I had no idea how much my state of mind, my emotions, my outlook, my motivation and my general self-perception was affected by the amount of sleep I got. I thought this was just the way I was, just the way my life was.

I’ve decided. I need to give myself a break. Because I AM the motivated, positive, organised, emotionally together person I always thought I was but feared I’d lost forever. It’s just hidden beneath a huge great big layer of months of sleep deprevation. Ever so often I get to catch a glimpse of it when the odd good night gets thrown my way, tantalising and brief. But it IS there, that IS me. And the best thing? This zombie, fragile, insecure not-Josie is only temporary. The no sleep is only temporary.

It will pass. I will get to be ‘me’ again.

And then watch out world…

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