Dear Sleep
Remember those good old days when we used to spend hours together, dreaming beautiful dreams, night after night? After a busy day, you were always there waiting with your big warm open arms ready to enfold me. I felt so snuggly and safe in your embrace and those hours we spent together were nearly always blissful ones.
Granted as I grew up, there were times when life got busy and I didn’t spend quite as much time with you as I perhaps should have, not to mention those moments here and there when you seemed more distant and elusive than you once were. Spending less time in your company often made me grumpy – I knew that you were good for me but it didn’t always stop me resisting your call to spend time together. But despite those blips here and there, on the whole you and I still were good together.
It all changed though when I was expecting my first baby. All of sudden there were moments when I sought you and you were no longer there. Despite my pleas that now I needed you more than ever, it seemed more and more frequently you were turning your back on me. Time spent with you became brief and intermittent, so many little things coming between us and disrupting the beautiful relationship we had once shared. Once my baby arrived, things got even worse between us. There never seemed any time for those beautiful dreams and any time we did spend together seemed to always come to an abrupt end.
Now, two children on, our relationship seems to have reached breaking point. You tease me, mock me – holding out your arms to me one minute and then pushing me away the next. When you’re with others, you often taunt me by embracing them whilst simultaneously turning your back on me, leaving me on the outside, looking inwards and feeling envious. Wanting to be the one you focus on and instead feeling envious of those that are enjoying your presence. There are times when I could cry for sheer frustration at this shift in our affairs. Why do you have to torture me in this way?
We used to be such good friends, you and I. Now we seem so distant. I know you blame my children for this change but I am sure that they would love you too if only you gave them more of a chance. Can’t we start by spending some more time together and see if we can close once again. I miss you, I need you. Let’s get together and see if we can work things out.
Yours hopefully
A very tired Mummy xxx
Oh my lovely, all I can do is send virtial hugs and sympathy! I was doing well yesterday, F was only up once in the night on Monday and when he wanted milk at 5am it gave me a chance to catch up on blog stuff. Last night? Up four times wanting milk! I don’t even think I got a full hours sleep before the onslaught started 🙁 you’re a saint doing this without coffee!! xx
Thank you Reneé – sounds like your night last night was very much like my one the previous night – thankfully last night was a better one. I’m not sure about being a saint doing it without coffee – insane is probably a better description – I’m very stubborn once I’ve decided to give something up and will keep going even if it’s driving me mad! Thank goodness that I only gave up coffee so I could still resort to tea (although it’s not quite the same) x
Oh yes I can certainly relate to this post. After years of no sleep, I can assure you it does get better eventually …honest
Thank you – I’m holding on to that thought! 🙂
Haha good luck, let me know if you get a reply, and then pass ‘sleep’ on my way … #ShareWithMe
Lol, will do! 🙂
Sleep is a fickle bedfellow- I’m pretty sure our relationship is unsalvageable. I’ve taken up with caffeine instead!
Sleep is indeed an fickle bedfellow but I miss it nonetheless! I’ve given up coffee for Lent so finding the lack of sleep more of a struggle at the moment!
Oh this is so true!!! And so beautifully written as always, I hope the girls and sleep make friends soon so you can get back together 🙂 x
Thank you Laura 🙂
Oh sleep is a wonderful thing! I can relate to this. Good luck, I hope you find some again soon. x
Thanks Karen – me too! 🙂
Love this post and so so so true. I love my bed, and I love my sleep but these days I don’t get enough of it with a little one or have to share it ha. #ShareWithMe
Thank you – as lovely as it is to have a little one snuggle up to you, I do wish I had my bed to myself more often! 🙂
So that is where he has been cheating so and so – toying with your affections too. Why do we need him so much when he treats us so badly haha. Great post (hope you become friends again). xx #sharewithme
Thank you – lol, yes agree he is a cheating so and so! 🙂
Oh hun, I hope you and sleep get reunited again soon! I have definitely been there and the worst is if we have a bad night and I then have to try and function at work without falling asleep at my desk. Thanksfully it hasn’t happened for a while but he can so easily mix things up! #sharewithme
Thanks Lisa – it must be hard to have to function at work with very little sleep.
Oh Louise, I feel you honey! How I miss sleep too, one day we will get oodles of it but until then it’s strong coffee for me! xx
Strong coffee helps a lot! Unfortunately I’ve given up coffee for Lent… :-S
Oh yes, sleep. Something that eludes us all during parenthood and beyond. I have the same sentiment. I wish I spent more time with sleep and realized its value before I became a mother. A an uninterrupted lie in for a day or two would’ve suffice. But alas, they’re just wishful thinking now. Thanks for sharing this! Hope all is well and you and sleep are slowly getting re-acclimated with each other.
Thank you – an uninterrupted lie in sounds utterly blissful! 🙂
Ugh, I’m so annoyed with myself! Hadn’t realised that your blog isn’t that old… I was actually racking my brains who to vote for with the category Fresh voice (BiB). I would’ve voted for you! I’ve always thought that your blog was more than a year old and that I’ve been following you longer than that! … Hope you and sleep have a good ol’ reconciliation soon! #sharewithme.
Thank you so much – that’s just made my day to know that you like my blog enough that you would have considered nominating me and nice too to know that I’m settled enough in the blogging world now for it to feel like I’ve been around a while! 🙂
Love this post Louise, very well written, hugs and hope yu get more sleep soon! xx
Thank you Caroline – fingers crossed! 🙂
Ah bless you – sleep is a distant memory but I will catch up when all the children are older 🙂 #sharewithme
Ah yes – that’s my plan too! 🙂
tehe I always thought I had to survive on 8-9 hrs a night before my monster came along…now it’s possible on 6-7!! Poor you. I do really feel for you. Sleep is so precious. Lets hope you can rekindle your relationship soon!! xx #sharewithmex
Thanks Sarah – amazing how little sleep we get used to running on though, isn’t it?
Oh I love sleep and I miss sleep. Such a great post Louise, I hope you get some well deserved sleep soon, it’s amazing how little sleep we can survive on, but it’s also amazing how long it takes to catch up. Things are better here with us since we stopped night feeds with Boo (I hope I don’t jinx anything by writing this!!) but she still gets up early and I still don’t feel like I have caught up on my sleep!! I wish some days I could just drink lots of coffee, I try to limit caffeine whilst I am breastfeeding so have a morning cup of tea and everything else is decaff except for the odd cola for a treat…
Since becoming a mummy I have also found that it takes me forever to actually nod off, over an hour some nights, I just have so much to think about and I can’t get my mind to switch off!!
Thanks Jenni – glad that things are better for you. Sophie has had a cold recently so has been waking overnight and whilst I try not to feed her back to sleep, it still means lots of leaning over the cot patting. I also try to limit my caffeine but am definitely missing coffee having given it up for Lent. Switching my mind off can be difficult for me sometimes too.
Ahh sleep. I’ve heard so much about it and yet I’ve never really had a very good relationship with it myself! I’ve always managed on less than 6 hours a night really, and after having Elsa I’m down to about 3 I think! It’s exhausting trying to keep up with her in the daytime when I still need to be in bed!
Oh 3 hours is tough to exist on – hope you start getting some more soon!
Ahh bless you and your sleep relationship. I hope it goes back to the way it once was for you and sleep. It’s hard to get on with things when you have little sleep. Bless you. Thanks for linking up to Share With Me. #sharewithme
Thanks Jenny, lovely to link up again 🙂
I think like all mums I can empathise with how you’re feeling. When you have a newborn everybody is so quick to tell you to wave goodbye to sleep and I think we all associate the early days with being tired. But what nobody mentions is that the lack of sleep goes on and on and on. Gwenn is nearly two and I can’t see us being out of the woods for a good while yet! x
#sharewithme
So true – it definitely goes on longer than you were expecting although I’m not sure I would have thanked anyone for telling me so whilst I was in the exhausted fog of the newborn days. It does get a little better but you do find yourself surviving on broken nights for quite some time!
I had a friend like that too once upon a time… haven’t seen her for years… since around the time my daughter was born in fact.
Ah yes – these fickle friends that just disappear…
Having two small children myself i also miss sleep so much, i have not had a full nights sleep in two years. Coffee is now my best friend. Sometimes i dream i am a carefree teenager again who can have lie ins and lazy mornings in bed watching hollyoaks on a sunday morning xx
Ah those days of lie ins and lazy mornings watching Hollyoaks… bliss 🙂
I love, love, love this! Just brilliant. I really hope you and sleep can work things out. Some relationships are worth fighting for…
Thank you Yvette – definitely doing my best to salvage it! 🙂
Sleep and I fell out a long time ago. We really don’t get on well any more. I’m hoping we’ll make it up in 18 years time.. x x
Fingers crossed you get to make up a bit sooner than that!
Hahahaa Love this post!! I hope that sleep will soon forgive you and you can be reunited once more x
Thank you – me too! 🙂
I feel your pain, I have between 5-6 hours per night, but I NEED 8 🙂 x
8 would be blissful! Fingers crossed you get some more sleep soon!
I love this immensely.
Thank you 🙂
Hi Louise, many a true word said in jest! I remember the days when sleep was my elusive friend too,; the good news is that you will get together again and it will be a lot like old times. True friends are never far away and when you do get together it will be like nothing changed.
Thank you for the smile…xx
Ah I like that thought! 🙂
Aww! It made me smile but it’s not funny! I hope it gets sorted soon because there really is nothing worse! X
Thank you Lisa 🙂
Awww sleep. A luxury since I became a mother as well =P #ShareWithMe
It certainly feels that way, doesn’t it!
Oh, you have described it so eloquently! First the baby, and then blogging, means I am hardly on talking terms with sleep 🙂
Ah yes, the combination does mean that sleep is even more elusive!
*fistbump* my son slept through 5 times before he was 2. It does get better! x #pocolo
Thank you – glad to know it gets better!
Such a beautifully written post, my lovely. I can really relate to every single word you have written. Spot on! xxx
Thanks Mel – hopefully one day we will have a better relationship with Sleep! 🙂
I have never been a good sleeper – and it got worse when I was expecting Grace, then again when she came along, and I have never really done that well at getting back to what I was like before I had her! Thank you for linking to #PoCoLo x
Ah hopefully one day it will come back a bit. Lovely to link up again.
Brilliant post and one I can certainly relate to! I hope you and sleep can mend your broken relationship very soon xx #PoCoLo
Thanks Hannah 🙂
Oh Louise I feel your pain. My son started sleeping through at the age of two but he was awful before then. I remember the relentless broken nights. Just when you dropped off back to sleep, they wake again. I remember going to the toilet to nap in work! It will get easier and one day you’ll be reunited with your old friend sleep. xx
Thank you Toria – fingers crossed for more sleep soon!
I love the way you’ve written this Louise! What a tease that sleep is! I think I need some more time with sleep myself actually – what mum doesn’t? 🙂 I hope you rekindle your relationship very soon! Thanks for joining up with #thetruthabout Xx
Thanks Sam, lovely to link up again 🙂