I'm actually fine, just tired

In my quest to carve out my own happy little path through the minefield that is parenting, my attention has recently been grasped by the concept of spring cleaning the mind. That is, establishing which thoughts are negative, or which worries about the unchangeable are simply futile, and then focusing my energy on throwing them the hell out of there. One thing I have so far achieved from this is the realisation that I take a serious amount of happiness from absolute simplicity. Drinking a Sunday morning coffee in my dressing gown, hanging washing on the line in the summer, taking family walks along the river, receiving actual post rather than text messages or emails, talking absolute nonsense with my besties whilst drinking wine in our PJs...these are all such simple things that give me a true sense of quiet and comforting contentment.

Another thing that I would love to add to that list, as I'm pretty sure it would make me incredibly happy, is regularly having a full night’s sleep. Yes, I know, another parent moaning about the lack of sleep #boremelater but, over the last few [thousand] weeks, our little menace of a two-year-old has gone from a baby who slept like an absolute dream, to a toddler with an enormous attitude and a serious aversion to sleep. Having realised we needed to take action after constantly bickering in a confused sleep deprived state, Dan and I decided we would have to resort to the dreaded ‘sleep training’. Mils is now in her toddler bed, so gone are the days of the gently-does-it 'disappearing chair' method we nailed when she was a baby. This time, we were going full Super-Nanny style, silently returning her to her bed every time she [escapes] climbs out. Sounds simple enough, right?

Night one - Well, no, that was not a simple task. Sleep training when she was tiny was actually so much easier than this, as somehow her tears seem so much harder to deal with now. It took one horrific hour to settle her to sleep, with lots of relay races between her bedroom and ours in the process. Despite the initial struggle, she did sleep better than she has done in bloody ages. Let's just hope it wasn't a coincidence and this might actually work.

Low point - Emilia crying until she was sick. Who knew the meatballs we shared earlier in the evening would be the gift that kept on giving?

Personal highlight – Watching her drop to her knees and crawl through Dan’s legs at top speed to avoid capture.

Learning point - Cushions on the floor might be a good idea considering her rage induced execution of a back-flip off the bed.

Night two - Sleep training sucks. We all hated each other a little bit tonight, Mils wouldn’t settle, and we eventually gave in by patting her back until she slept.

Personal highlight - Thinking I could get away with sneaking her into our bed when she appeared next to me at 2am and having a few minutes of the best cuddles...

That bubble was burst when Dan caught me out and whisked her back to her own room... he was of course in the right and stayed true to the cause, but this was followed by another solid hour of crying. Her, not me. Okay, maybe a little bit me as well.

Low point - I can't decide between dozing off on my knees with my head on her bed and dribbling down my chin, or Emilia joining us at 5.30am and rewarding my efforts during the night by repeatedly kicking me in the head.

Night three - I'll keep this brief. Dan is out for the evening, and I have not succeeded with the 'silent return' tonight. Let's just say I embraced the 'feed her milk, then read her a story which you get so involved in you don't realise your child has fallen asleep in your arms having been given endless cuddles' method...followed by a lovely glass of adult grape juice.

This then turned out to be a truly horrific night, which involved Mils taking her regime of terror to extreme levels with constant crying during the hours of 12am and 3am. When we reached about 2am, and the screaming fits showed no signs of easing, Dan ended up outside in the garden rummaging around in the shed. That is not a euphemism guys, he was actually looking for tools so he could relocate one of the stair gates to Emilia's bedroom door in a bid to restrict the crazy to a smaller area. Prior to this, she did a fair amount of running to and from her bedroom, building up quite a sweat, which made her curls bigger than ever before and generally added to the demonic look she was trying out. Dan and I spent this whole time tagging each other in and out of attempts to settle her, while my eyes got so small I couldn't really see, and Dan seemed to have adopted an entirely new language altogether. She eventually crashed out after Super Dad took to sleeping on her bedroom floor, which she seemed satisfied with...and then she proceeded to have a lovely lay in when our alarm clocks went off 2 hours later.

Night four - Sleep training has well and truly failed, so in a bid for one night of peace Emilia is off for sleepover at Nanny and Grampy's! Thank goodness for the in-laws.

Well, that turned out to be a shorter sleep journal than I initially anticipated.

Although I'm making light of this whole process, in all seriousness the lack of sleep over the last few weeks has been really difficult. Parenting is hard at the best of times, but parenting on no sleep whilst trying to balance work, family and social time is absolutely brutal. In hindsight, I don't think I was ever going to succeed with a tough love sleep training approach this time around. I've put my absolute all into building up my relationship with Mils, and not a day has gone by in recent months where I've had any doubt about how much she needs me. That's an unbelievable achievement for me, and it’s constantly reinforced by the fact that one of her most overused phrases is 'I want to cuddle Mummy'.

Unless she has been seriously naughty (bite club anyone?), and I'm trying to convince myself I can be strict, I very rarely say no to cuddles. Then, we suddenly kicked off with sleep training again, and the haunting vision of Mils screaming that she wants me to cuddle her with tears streaming down her face keeps me awake at night more than anything else. I feel like I'm confusing her, and trying to work out what she's thinking during the awful process breaks my heart a little bit. We're besties in the day time, why won't Mummy cuddle me in the night anymore? Maybe she can't hear me, better scream a bit louder.

I feel like all I've achieved this week through trying to balance that guilt against being desperate for sleep, whilst fighting all my natural impulses as her mother, is horrendous brain-ache and feeling more tired than I was before. In conclusion, until I hear of any better options, I've decided to live in hope that the no sleeping phase will pass us by in no time... back to the cuddles and back-tapping it is.

S x