My son didn't sleep for 5 years and I know how it ends

I have one of those kids.

The one that never sleeps.

I speak now from the other side (barely).

My sweet sleep-stealer

I am there.

It does exist: The Elusive Other Side.

I have spent HOURS on the fucking floor, at the end of beds, hovering at the doorway, waiting for the child to SLEEP.

I have read books on repeat, ad infinitum, hoping for that elusive moment where he is finally asleep...

Courtesy of www.crappypictures.com

I have tried sleep training, sleep cry-ing-it-out, sleep being-especially-nice and being entirely firm and shouting and crying and being so nice it hurts.
 Bribery, sticker charts, happy words, angry words, empathy.

I have been through the works.

I have had doctors, health visitors, friends, family, neighbours' opinions, hearing tests, sensitivity tests, blood tests...

Sometimes they Just. Don't. Fucking. Sleep.

I am speaking completely as a soldier from the other side of the war: in all honesty there is no secret 'thing', no tricks, no manipulation.

I'm so sorry.

The only bloody thing that has worked in the end, in the long run, at the end of the day, is TIME.

I've had all the books, the parenting manuals.

The bloody hypnotising rabbit.



I tried night lights and splitting the boys up and bunk beds and separate beds.

We had the family bed (my poor back), the floor bed (don't ask!) the sleepovers, the late nights, the early nights and the fairy lights.

Audio books. Done.

Sitting outside the door. Tick.

End of the bed.  Oh the endless hours.

Being a total bitch and telling him he HAS to go to sleep because we can't keep doing this, okay? You are a big boy now, you have to be able to go to sleep on your own...please...mummy has lots and lots to do and I'm just here, you can still see me, you can still hear me...while he sobs and pleads and begs and it all ends in tears from both of us...

Years.

Not days.

Not hours.

Not months.

Years.

Somehow...inexplicably...probably after one of those very very rare nights of sleep when Ethan was 4 years old and we had maybe had a holiday and some food and were genereally totally caught off guard, we decided a third child would be a magical addition to our brood.

Somehow.

Don't you judge me - being a parent is filled with the complete absurdity of spending a lot of time in absolute despair while also spending a lot of time in complete love and adoration for what you have made.

We had our third baby.

And LUCKILY, very very luckily, he is a dream to put to bed (much like the first).

Magically, Ethan has settled.

We have still had our problems.

It's not been perfect or smooth-sailing or completely a black-and-white progression, but somehow...it's good now (fingers crossed, touch wood etc etc)

He goes to bed alone.

In his own space,

He stays there all night.

Very occasionally. he gets into our bed and sleeps with us, but it's really not often (my back is a lot happier.)

Someone advised that I should write a piece to tell you all my secret of getting my son to sleep: I have no secrets.

There are no tricks.

He decided he was going to stay in his bed.

Some nights he still asks for s, but it's not half as bad as it was.


I know you came here on the promise that I was going to help you to get your kid to sleep.

I think what I really want to tell you is trope-y as fuck and a bit shit.

It will pass.

Your baby will stop being a baby.

He (or she) will consider himself (or herself) big enough to do it him (or her) self and they will do it.

And gradually, oh so slowly and surely, it will dissipate.

Suddenly it will be something that you used to do.

In the meantime, I suggest you do what you need to do.

I have regrets, sure , we all do as parents.

I DO NOT regret:

Putting him into nursery to get a break.

Buying more wine/beer to 'treat' myself after a particularly difficult session of getting him to sleep.

Trying absolutely everything with gusto.

Tapping out and letting my husband/mum/whoever else do it (so they can also realise I'm not making this shit up).

I DO regret:

The crying it out - it was fairly obvious he was never going to go to sleep this way and it made bedtime an absolutely awful process for both of us.

Not just letting him sleep in our bed when he requested it; there's an innate thing in a child to be nurtured - I don't know whose agenda I was playing to when I denied him that nurturing.

Not just going with my instincts and making a family bed. Or feeling judged for my feelings.   I was never FOR co-sleeping, but it sure as hell would have made or lives a helluva lot more easier if I'd simply just went with my gut feeling and let him go in the bed with us, if that was what it took to get a good night's sleep.

I'm sorry I have no magic cure.

I absolutley know what you were hoping for.

All I can say is, I have made it.

I am there.

There is an end.  It will come.

Hold on.  Be kind to yourself.  Be kind to your kid.

It will pass.

Sleep Disorders And Night Terrors - Our Five Year Battle (And Counting)

Night terrors are kind of crazy.

For my middle son they happen most nights, about an hour after he goes to sleep.

He always screams.

He's always inconsolable.

He always wakes the baby.

There's nothing we can do for him; there's no comfort we can give him, no amount of trying to cuddle him, no amount of kind words or asking him to stop.

They come right out of nowhere.  Some nights he can be absolutely fine.

But most nights he wakes in this howling, screaming, terrified mess.

Hard to believe it, but they are tougher on us than they are on him.

He wakes in the morning with absolutely zero recollection of what has happened.  No awareness.  Just a nice, peaceful night, sometimes with a funny dream.

Thankfully.

We put the three boys to bed each night within a routine which has never really changed within the annals of time.

Bath, Supper, Teeth, Story, Story-tape, Bed.

It's pretty much the same every night.

It can be time-consuming.

Difficult to put into motion at the end of a long day.  It's important to me boys always go to bed happy.  Always with a hug and a kiss.

However, for poor Ethan, however much we tried, this wasn't always the case.

He may well have no memory of his night terror as they are now, but he used to have other fears at bed time too.

He's still scared of the dark.  He still fears the silence and the darkness around him when he wakes alone in the night.

His wee imagination goes into over-drive.

It all started when he was about a year old; the sudden middle-of-the-night screaming, the 'temper tantrums' which we just put down to sheer bloody-mindedness of our 'difficult' child.

He was never easy to put to bed.  He was a handful when he was awake!

But we all dreaded bedtime.

Our eldest son had always gone to bed nicely, easily, quietly.  But not Ethan.

He was terrified of going to sleep; absolutely adamant that he wasn't going to do it.

Every. Single. Night.

We'd spend hours indulging his night-time whims, reading him to sleep, changing bedrooms, changing lightbulbs, putting up blackout blinds and curtains on top of blinds.

We tried staying in the room and holding his hand, letting him sleep in our bed, letting him sleep in a sleeping bag, letting him go to bed with a million cuddly toys, as he was convinced that 'this time, mum, this time they'll look after me'.

Yup, this has been in the bed too! It's a bloody dressing up costume!

We tried to convince him he was being silly, it was 'just a phase', that he was big and didn't need us.

We listened at his door as he cried and screamed and pleaded with us to come back in the room until he fell asleep and we tried toughing it out.

We let him fill his belly before bed, we tried only letting him have something small, we tried different diets.
Reward charts.
Incentives.
Books which supposedly hypnotize.

It felt like we tried absolutely everything.

What we didn't know at the beginning, was that Ethan had terrible glue-ear, which was so profound that the doctor at the ENT clinic told us that basically, Ethan spent the first two years of his life hearing as though he was submerged under deep water all the time.

It took until he was two years old to diagnose, and then another year before he would get the grommets inserted, which changed his life overnight.  Suddenly he became verbal, a lot less frustrated and a lot easier to deal with.

The grommets were certainly an improvement beyond everything else, but we still had to deal with the fear and behaviour which comes from not being able to hear properly in those first three formative years.

It's had a huge impact.

He's a great kid.  He is very funny, with a rapier wit way beyond his years.  He is very clever.  But he has struggled.

Hearing properly very much contributes to other functions:

• Social interaction: He's never struggled to make a friend, but there's been a lot of misunderstandings and a lot of upsets!
• Communication: We've dealt with a LOT of tantrums, a lot of frustrated screaming and a lot of shouting.  Gradually we are teaching him to tone it down, but yes, this is a very hard thing to explain to others, especially as they think he is being horrible.
• Reading and Writing: He started school this year and he has tried so very hard, and is getting their, but his failure to hear words as they are supposed to sound for a long time has mucked up his internal alphabet system.  He has fought very hard for every single letter.
• Sensitivity: The grommets are great, but whereas before he didn't hear much, now he can hear everything, and to him it is very very loud! He therefore gets upset in places where there's more than your average noise levels, like parties, concerts and gym halls.

As he gets older he is becoming more and more able. His ability to communicate gets better and he is becoming less frustrated with life, which is great.

He now goes to bed with a lot less hassle.  Well, there's still some, but compared to what we used to deal with, it's nothing really.

We are however, still dealing with the night terrors. The last bastion of sleep disorder hell.

Apparently he'll grow out of them.

Apparently.

I really hope it's soon!

How Did I Do Two Under Two?

Like anything horrific and traumatic and stressful, it's always best to speak about it long after it has happened.

And now that my boys are finally old enough to feed themselves, play by themselves for a degree of time and are actually sleeping for most of the night (albeit in our bed - I don't care, I'm just very grateful for those extra hours of sleep) I can finally, quite safely admit that we are out of that crazy, crazy time (touch wood.  Oh sweet gods of toddler/small child behaviour, please don't think I am being flippant or horrible...I love you, thank you for the gift of good boys you have bestowed upon us).

I had no idea how much I could do on so little an amount of sleep.

I had no idea how much pee, shit, puke and off milk I would be dealing with in one day.

I had no idea how much milk two small children could drink.

I have no idea how I moved house with a two year old and a six month old.

I have no idea how I managed to learn to drive at this time.

I have no idea how I managed to do an online course at Open University in this time.

I have no idea how I also then took on a full-time job in a bar at this time.

I have no idea how I did it.

Post-natal hormones clearly make me crazy enough to take on the world.

Ethan was born 3 weeks early.  Admitted to SCBU on birth, I didn't actually meet him until he was 8 hours old and the spinal tap had worn off enough for me to get into a wheelchair.  I met him at 4a.m.  The lights in the SCBU unit were dim and there were lots of babies in little plastic caves, naked and nappied, but warm and comfortable.

Off the CPAP and still on the feeding tube

My son stood out like a sore thumb on that ward - when Thomas was born he was 10lb 9oz, so my second son was always going to be big too.  And at 7lb 9oz and a half, he had been shaping up to challenge his brother in the weight category before his premature arrival.

Born breech (despite apparently being the right way round when the surgeon prepped for the C-Section - talk about bloody-minded.  I should have read the signs!  What kind of baby tries to escape his own birth by swimming back into his mother's rib cage?)

Ethan had difficulty breathing at birth, so was put on a CPAP machine to help him with his oxygen levels.

I didn't get to hold him until the next day and he was off the CPAP completely, but even then he still had to be tube-fed for a couple of days and was plastered with various monitors.

Joining me in my hospital room!

Thankfully his stay in SCBU was short, and second time around I was feeling fairly confident.  I established a good feeding routine in hospital when he finally came to join me in my little side-room and I was adept at getting up in the night to feed him at routine times.  All was going swimmingly, despite us having to stay in hospital for a few more days than planned due to me contracting an infection. 

Battered, bruised, anaemic and on hard antibiotics!  Happy days!

I think his stay in SCBU was actually beneficial - instead of the painful first couple of nights in hospital, in agony, trying to get to a screaming baby while my hormones made me sick with panic and fear because my stomach muscles didn't allow me to lean over to get him, I got some much needed recovery time.

Finally out of SCBU and nearly ready for home!

The first time Dave came to visit us with our eldest, I was shocked at how much Thomas had grown.  How had he grown so big?  So noisy?  So clumsy?  How the hell was I supposed to stop this huge, excited child from hurting my tiny little baby?  It was a funny feeling - overwhelming, and one that I'm almost ashamed to admit now.  Thomas had just turned 2 years old 2 weeks previously, but already I saw him as nothing but a huge destructive force.

It was so hard to see him as a baby too - especially as Ethan had been in SCBU.  Because he was.  It's something I hope he'll forgive me for.

At home, it was harder.

Settling into a routine at home was a lot harder with two extra people and a dog to deal with, never mind the excess of curious visitors.  I found it quite hard to cope.  My C-Section wound was still very fresh and I was wiped out by a long hospital stay, some pretty hard antibiotics that I was sent home with and some pretty persistent anaemia, not to mention the demanding breastfeeding/expressing routine that I'd set for myself.

My boobs were massive, and I went into production of milk like a well-established heffer - the freezer was full within weeks and I had extra to go around.  Which was just as well - as Dave had to go back to work just 4 days after I got home. Expressing with a screaming baby, a manic, unsettled toddler and a dog who needed to go out every few hours was a tough gig.

So how did I manage?

 What were my...

Top Ten Tips For Coping With Two Under 2?

Best day ever!

1. This isn't only the first thing on my list, it's the most important.  BE KIND TO YOURSELF.  Yes, you've had a baby.  A BABY.  Which is a pretty damn big thing to have had come out of your body at one time, whichever way you achieved it.  So, I'm going to say it again: Be Kind To Yourself.  You might have the evening to yourself, you might have an hour when both kids are napping, you might get half an hour once a week, but make it YOURS.  It is for YOU.  It is not for washing bottles or cleaning or hanging out bed sheets, it is for you to relax, rejuvenate and to recover - which besides feeding the kids and making sure they don't open the front door is all you should be worrying about.  Because, Mama, if you are not right, your kids are not right.  They need a well-rested and happy Mama to look after them.  Me?  When Dave got in, or my mum popped round, or an auntie or uncle was around I always slept, shopped for clothes, went in the bath, went for a walk...anything to feel a bit more human.  Little things like this really help.
   
2. IF YOU NEED HELP, ASK FOR IT.  Don't do what I did and soldier on.  This links in with my first point quite nicely.  I struggled.  It was tough.  And my hard-lady, hormone infested, macho self would not let me darken the door of anyone else. I have to admit, there were a few times where I presented myself on-line anonymously on a parenting forum, or phoned a parenting helpline to speak to someone. To lighten my load. .  If you don't feel like asking a real life person for help or even just a friendly ear, then please seek it out elsewhere and don't bottle it up.  This can lead to post-natal depression and basically a hard, horrible time for everyone involved.  Try posting on Mumsnet for some friendly moral support, ParentLine or PANDAS for some totally awesome and non-judgemetal support and advice.  If you feel really horrible, alert your health visitor, closest relative or friend or even doctor.  And don't panic! There's loads of help available, and none of it is to be ashamed or worried about.  Everyone falls down sometimes.  And everyone is entitled to a hand up.

   

   Two of the best things ever - a great husband and an awesome double pram!

3. INVEST IN A DOUBLE PRAM.  I cannot iterate how much, as a non-driver at the time, one of these contraptions saved my life.  My double buggy, although quite hefty, allowed me freedom from the four walls of my house on dark days.  It let me take two, sometimes grouchy children, out of the house for some fresh air and exercise to lift and change their moods,  It allowed me to go to the shops for milk when we ran out.  It was the basis of any good day out and allowed Thomas freedom to walk and rest as he needed, while letting Ethan sleep.  I recently tried to sell my doubler at a second-hand market and couldn't do it.  I wasn't quite ready to let go of such a huge coping strategy.  I even used it as recently as about 8 months ago.  Initially I thought that i wasn't going to need it, but I have never been so glad of human invention in my whole life.
   
4. SPEND QUALITY TIME WITH THE ELDEST CHILD.  The biggest thing for me was the shift in my relationship with Thomas.  Although we still had a very close mother/son relationship and we still had a tight bond, I felt as though 2 year old Tom really struggled with mummy having a new baby. Equally, I struggled to deal with his consequent reaction and behaviour to it. He went from super-excited to really defiant, combined with prolonged tantrums very quickly.  Looking back on it, the best thing we did together was to get a babysitter for Ethan and go swimming once a week, just me and Tom.  It was quality time well spent and something that really helped Tom to feel more comfortable in his new role as big brother while allowing me to spend some much-needed time with him one-on-one, affirming our relationship while doing something we both loved.
   
5. TAKE TIME TO EAT.  This seems like such a basic thing, doesn't it?  It is and it isn't.  Eating comes last in the grand scheme of things for a lot of mothers a lot of the time.  They get tied up in milk feeding, coping with the demands of a fussy toddler, potty-training, washing and just general life...and eating?  Eating doesn't seem so important.  Eating gets de-classified along with showering and wearing clean clothes; namely, you are just intent on keeping your head down and getting on with it.  DON'T.  Eating is fuel for your fire, the thing that settles your mood, the one thing that gives you the energy to carry on.  Especially if you are breastfeeding.  Eating well must be a priority.  Don't skimp on food or you'll soon know all about it.

   

   For me, an Open University course helped my confidence and stimulated my baby brain

6. FIND WAYS TO BE YOURSELF.  Why did I take on driving lessons and university courses in the first six months of being a mother of two?  Well, it wasn't because I was bored!  Rather, it was because the hour that I got in the car with my driving instructor gave me a break from the bedtime routine while chatting to another adult for the first time that day, or the studying time I had for my course gave me something to challenge my grey matter, which for me was a huge thing.  I'm not saying you should go out and do something crazy or as time-consuming as this, but seriously consider an exercise class if you feel like you need a bit of active therapy (I did Zumba -there was something about moving hard and fast that did it for me), or even head to the library and pick a book.  Just do something for you.  Two small children is a time-consuming, arduous job.  You need to surface from time to time.

   

   We got off our butts and headed to toddler group two mornings a week

7. JOIN A TODDLER GROUP. Trust me, nobody hated toddler groups more then I did.  Initially, I only went because I needed a reason to get out of our house (we were living with my FIL at the time).  But as time went on and I started to get to know everyone, everything got better and I even made a good friend.  Two months after I had Ethan I even went to the annual Xmas party and got really drunk and had a great time, which was totally what I needed.  Just the basic fact that I was meeting up with other women who had kids the same age, Thomas could play pretty much unsupervised and I could sit in a space with a cup of tea for ten minutes made a world of difference.  I think it's important to try more than one group until you find one that fits - not all are the same, some are run by crazy over-organised people, which is fine if that's your thing, but all I wanted was a casual meet-up, not a dishes rota.  We went to another toddler group when we moved house and it was awful.  If I'd gone to that one first it would have put me off for  life.  Thankfully, by then, it wasn't so much of a lifeline.
   
8. BE KIND TO YOUR FUTURE SELF.  This is a message not only for having two kids under 2, but one for your whole life.  Being kind to your Future self is something you will constantly high five yourself for if you keep at it.  Past self is awesome, because Past self always keeps an umbrella in the car so that future self doesn't get soaked on a trip to the doctors.  Past self remembers to stick all of the school shirts in the washing on Friday night instead of panicking on Sunday night.  Past self sticks a collection of birthday cards in the cupboard for Future self to dip into when caught short on someone's birthday.  Past self isn't ridiculously organised, she's not always the best and she struggles too, but she's always thinking of Future self.  Future self is very grateful that Past self was so thoughtful.  It's like having a best mate who you never meet.

   

   Hot Wheels attached to a table?  If it works, do it!

9. UTILISE ANYTHING THAT WILL GET YOU THROUGH.  Anything.  If your kid wants to watch Finding Nemo for the 3rd time that day, letting you catch up with yourself a bit, that's fine.  If you have a particular penchant for dark chocolate on a sandwich, eat it.  If your baby settles better with a dummy than without, let him have it.  This is not a time for guilt.  Soon you will get more sleep,soon they will be in more of a routine and soon one of them will be able to play independently. Now is not the time to beat yourself up for being a 'bad parent'.  Bad parenting is not this. Those who have not walked a mile in your shoes will not understand.  Those who have will give you a high five on the way past.

   

   Funny face, make you smile!

10. HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR.  It really really  helps if you can laugh when you get pooped on by not one, but both kids before you are due to leave the house (tick!).  It helps if you can see the bright side when the wheel falls off your three-wheeled pram (this actually happened to me) meaning some kind soul volunteers to help you home with a baby, a toddler who won't walk and a broken pram.  It very much helps if you can giggle just a wee bit when your toddler decides to post your money and driving licence out of the letterbox just as the postman arrives and also while you are hooked up to the milk pump (again, this actually happened to me.  I just screamed 'post it back!' when the postman shouted through the letterbox at me and hoped to love he couldn't see too much through the fancy glass door.) Keep in mind that if any possible scenario exists  in your head, it the potential to happen.  Sod's law dictates that if you have to be at baby massage for 12p.m, your baby will make 12p.m the new nap time.  Ride with it all.  It's just another moment in time.  Let it go and move on - it'll all make a funny story one day.

Not such a baby now!  Though he'd like to be...

There is no magical time for when life gets easier.  For me, everything fell into place a bit more when Tom started to go to nursery and I started work.  Even then, Ethan didn't start sleeping through the night until he was just over 3 years old.

But I'm looking back on my days with two babies and I think, yes, it was damn hard.  But by gawd, it was worth it.

Growing up far too quickly