It pretty much goes without saying that when you have kids your sleep quota will be stolen from you. So if you started out the whole parenting thing looking super young, good skin, good hair, generally close to or below your actual age… AC (after children) you’re going to look old AF.
I’ve got three pillagers of sleep so I’m pretty much swaying between The Crypt Keeper and the lead in Night of the Living Dead.
So, I’ve never had the type of kids who go down at 7pm sharp and wake again a whole 12 hours later and then nap on command during the day and … no. Bedtime in my house looks something like this.
Somewhere between 6.30-7pm: Use intense bribery, threats, promises (whatever the fuck works) to get the little shits upstairs to brush their teeth. This in itself is an ordeal, especially if Daddy’s at home because the 3yo thinks he’s crap and won’t let him do anything. So Mummy must turn octopus and brush 6yo’s teeth and 3yo’s teeth while stopping the screaming baby from soaking her pyjamas on the sopping wet bathroom floor courtesy of the fact that the bath was earlier used as a makeshift splash-pad.
Somewhere between 7-8pm: Get emotionally blackmailed into lying with one or both of them after several rounds of musical beds while Noah decides whether he wants to sleep (a) in his bed, (b) in my bed, (c) in his pop up tent in the middle of the room, (d) on the sofa downstairs, (e) he doesn’t want to sleep. Nurse the baby in my room while listening to the chuckle twins egg each other on to do naughty things like go in Mummy’s office and scan the packet of Messy Monkeys they sneaked downstairs to get and then use up the entire coloured ink cartridge by printing a million copies of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Try really hard not to scream at them because I just spent 40 minutes having my life force sucked out through my left nipple and I’ll be even more mad if that was for nothing.
Try internal meditation, some negotiation and attempt not to get sucked into my own frustration.
Lie on the floor of their room making up stories about the kids to get them to sleep. Then play audiobooks on my phone while scrolling Instagram. Convince myself the heavy breathing means they’re asleep and creep out of the room.
The baby wakes up. Of course. Stand in the hallway concertedly ignoring her in the hopes she’ll resettle even though I know she won’t. Give in after 5 minutes and take her downstairs. It’s now anywhere between 9-10pm. I haven’t even made dinner. This is when having a husband becomes super inconvenient ‘cause of course he expects a meal. So whip something up while he holds the screaming baby who is arching her entire body in my direction intending to suck the life force from my right nipple.
Somewhere between 10-10.30pm: Eat while watching some crap on Netflix. Nurse baby to sleep.
Somewhere around 11pm: Do some work if I’m not too tired and the baby’s asleep.
Midnight-ish: Go to bed.
5 past midnight: The baby wakes up. Bring her into bed and spend the rest of the night having what little life force I have left sucked out of me, making me a super sprightly and happy human come 6.30am the following day!!
Yeh, that’s why I look old AF at the age of 32. I used to get ID’d going to 18 movies people!! Now the frigging teenager at the box office doesn’t even bat an eye!!
What does bedtime look like in your house? Tell me at hadassah@threelittlehines.com