I’ve watched loads of boxsets… well, it depends what your definition of ‘watched’ is. If you class having a vague recollection of some plot and characters but gaping holes in the storyline from nodding off and other bits etched in your memory from rewinding the same 10 minutes over and over to try (unsuccessfully) to beat the Netflix narcolepsy…then, yes, I have watched loads of boxsets (don’t get me started on how much I hate the term ‘boxset’, but that’s another story…)

Anyway, I digress… the point of this latest blog post is to talk sleep, or lack of it, when children come along… that is until you’ve sat down to watch something and sleep’s all you can do. Sod’s law.

There are those mums who, despite enduring night after night of children who just don’t sleep, still look polished, eye bag free and can speak coherently and intelligently and can even laugh about it. I am not one of those mums.

I am the mum with the bloodshot, dry eyes, with a humour and personality bypass and everyone who speaks to me may as well be that teacher from Charlie Brown (whah whah) for all the sense it makes to my fuzzy brain.

I am lucky. Harriet is generally a good sleeper so that’s probably why it knocks me for six when she gets ill or teeths. I’ve not built up my sleep loss immunity.

The division of labour at night is automatically imbalanced. My husband sleeps like a log (even through my old man cough this past week) while I wake up if Harriet so much as turns over. He does his share, but usually it’s me waking him to tell him it’s his turn. Inevitably I can’t go back to sleep until he’s come back and given me a full report (Is she hot? Has she pooed? Did you give her some sippy cup?) or I’ve watched it all intently on the baby monitor anyway. Because of all that I sometimes I figure it’s just easier for me to get up while he’s fast asleep… with some level of passive agression going on (stomping, huffing etc.) that gets more intense when I realise he’ll never feel my closeted wrath.

What frustrates me most is that these episodes of sleep deprivation coincide with some latest research on the virtues of sleep. You don’t need to tell us; WE ALREADY KNOW! We know we’re shortening our lives, with greater risks of high blood pressure, strokes, dementia, obesity (as an aside the book I’ve hyperlinked, Why We Sleep: Matthew Walker is a great read by the way!) but how’s that going to help us when we can do absolutely nothing about it?! Tell the little person!

To be honest even if Harriet sleeps ok, I’m still knackered- the joys of being a working mum, navigating a brain-mess type of job and juggling the logistics and demands of a dependent human.

May be I just have to resign myself to the fact that I’ll never again see the end (or middle) of a film and to accept that the newest boxset ‘must watch’ will be lost on me as I battle in vain to resist the tiredness for pretty much the rest of my life…

Written by Liz Storey for her blog Mummy Musings!