BENGALURU: Sleep. Such a simple thing. Feel tired. Lie down. Close your eyes. Et voila. But what if you have a screaming Valkyrie in the next room or someone who won’t stop bouncing in their crib or an adventurous explorer in search of your nipple at 3am, what then? (Just to be clear: I am talking about a small child here.) Thirsty kids, scared kids, bored kids, sleeping-is-boring kids, I-know-it’s-8pm-but-the-day-has-just-started-for-me kids.
There are thousands of books out there written by experts on sleep training your child. I am not on an expert. I am a mother. And I want to tell you a few things that will make you feel better.
Parents lie. All those smug parents who tell you their darling child was sleeping through the night from day one in the hospital are lying.
“The nurses said they had never seen a baby like our little Tofu” is a lie. (Tip: Tofu is going to be the name of choice for boys, girls and meat substitute products in 2017. Not a lie.). No child has ever in the history of Tofu-kind slept through the night, every night. In fact, take it from me that all parents lie about a whole bunch of things: how much their kids adore kale juice, can’t get enough of Mandarin enrichment classes and can’t stand the sight of candy.
Your child doesn’t secretly hate you and isn’t using sleep deprivation tactics perfected by secret service agents to break you down. It can feel that way. But that’s not why they’re doing this. You can extract revenge by changing the wi-fi password every day when they’re older.
Yes! All men can sleep through the wailing of a child. I am funding research to find the gene that makes this possible. I will then exterminate said gene.
Co-sleeping, ferberising, sleep whispering, jungle sounds, white noise machines, singing row, row row your boat in Mandarin (well at least someone is learning the language) - whatever floats your baby’s boat, go for it. If it works, stick to it. Don’t tell other people though. They will judge you.
You can read your children all sorts of things to make them go to sleep. We have realised that listening to podcasts in plummy British accents about the economy work wonders. It’s like having Dame Helen Mirren read you a bed time story about falling river shrimp prices in Ho Chi Minh and its effect on the global economy. Actually, it puts all of us to sleep.
My kids are almost 9 and 6. They sleep through most nights, in their own bed. On the occasions they come to our room, I do not attempt to settle them back in their own room.
You know why? Because then I have to wake up. I don’t want to wake up. I just want to sleep so I can be a functioning human the next day.
Also, in a few years time, there will be no small person who smells of soap and sweet child sweat next to me. Just another old wrinkly person who fights me over who gets the last squirt of Bengay.