Lately I feel like I have been taking a back seat in living my life. When I wake up in the morning I feel like I am scraping myself up off the ground, I drag myself out to the living room with my knuckles dragging along behind me. I manage to prop myself up on the lounge and feel like I have to hold my eyes open for the rest of the day. My company is poor, my speech is slurred, my brain is mush and my tolerance is low.
There is very minimal sleep in this household. For those of you who have followed me and my blog for quite some time you would know that I have struggled with Evelyn getting to sleep for two years now. She gave up her day naps two years ago. She pulled all her hair out of her head two years ago and we had to shave her head and remove her dummy at the same time. For two very long, very arduous, very straining years I have battled with her to go to sleep. We have tried each and every approach. I took her to tresillian a year ago where they sent me on my way with a wish of good luck. But the problem still remains. She will not go to sleep before 10pm at the very earliest. Some times she is awake until midnight. She is up multiple times throughout the night and she wakes early.
Evelyn is a beautiful, calm and timid child but her lack of sleep is beginning to strangle that girl. She has become clumsy, grumpy and very intolerant. She is suffering and we are suffering. In a months time I will be taking her to a paediatrician, finally, to have her prescribed melatonin and in the mean time I will hold my breath and clutch at every single ounce of hope I have left that the melatonin will be the answer to my very desperate prayers.
I have three children now and this of course means that there is more chances of being woken throughout the night. I don't think that I am awake any more than anyone else, but with my children, the chances obviously become much higher. Zalia tends to sleep quite well. I give her a bottle to go to sleep, this is not ideal at all, but for the meantime it is working. She mostly will drift off to sleep and she tends to be the one that will remain asleep. But if she is teething, which she unfortunately is quite badly at the moment, she does manage to wake up several times.
At this point in time, however, my biggest battle is my little man Asher. He and I managed to see every single hour of the night from 11pm onwards. He wakes every 40 minutes. He feeds back to sleep and then he wakes again. He doesn't scream as long as he is with me, not like Zalia used to as a bub, so I have always felt like I should be grateful. He is chilled out and easy and quiet. But he is awake and if I return him to his bed awake, he does scream. I don't feel so grateful anymore, I feel a wreck. However, in one weeks time I will be taking him for a week long stay at Tresillian (the NSW sleep and behavioural clinic) and I could just about back flip with excitement!
For two very solid years I have not been able to have a moment to myself within my own home. For two very solid years I have a child up with me until I go to sleep, sometimes she will even be awake after I fall asleep. I wake with the children. And now I have a child with me, awake, every single 40 minutes of the night. There isn't a moments break. Not a second to catch my breath. Or to sort my thoughts.
It is exhausting and challenging. I love all three of my children, to no end, but I would really like to have just an hour to myself before passing out in bed. I have been dealing with this situation on my own (with Anthony of course) and I believe that I manage to do it quite well. I have moments where the stress of it piles up on top of me and I can find myself so mad. But I ensure that Anthony and I get a night away to try and recharge every now and then. Without that, I think we would both snap.
We carry this family basically on our own, with no help from the outside. Within the last 12 months I have managed to surround myself with some beautiful friends who do step in and they take the girls for me when they see me beginning to drown (and I am ever so grateful). I am okay with carrying the responsibility of my children, but sometimes I do wish that I had that family to fall back on. Someone to turn up on my door and send me to bed. Sometimes I do find myself envious of the people I know who have that support that I so badly crave.
I am okay, I am resilient, I am capable of raising my children and my family solely on my own. But sometimes, as crazy as it sounds, I wish that I wasn't okay. Sometimes I wish that I could scream that I am not okay and know that I had that family to step in and take over, to help and support. To clean my house, or wash my clothes, or even make me a meal. Sometimes I crave that attention.
My situation is no worse, no harder, no easier or no better than the next Mummy, we all have our battles and it is always relevant to the lives we lead at the time. I am not competing with anyone, or trying to overshadow anyones situations. I am just a great big mess of no sleep and I really needed to scream from the rooftops that right now, this blows!
Good Night World!
No comments:
Post a Comment