Sleep, glorious sleep

I don't think I ever really thought that I would write this post, but I have finally reached the point, in over three and a half years of being a parent, that I am actually getting enough sleep at night to not leave me feeling exhausted during the day.

We suffered with Harry, I really think we did. I've blogged about it before, and about all the things that we tried, but I didn't really realise how bad it was until we had Mia. She didn't sleep through until she was well over a year, but that was nothing compared to what we went through first time round. If Harry had been the second I would have taken him to the health visitor or doctor to check that nothing was wrong, but at the time we just thought it was normal and put up with it.

I've spent much of the past few years surviving on very little sleep. I remember a lovely holiday to Cornwall when Harry was an older baby, which passed in a sleep deprived haze. On two of our wonderful holidays to Center Parcs, at least six months apart, I was up and awake in the living room with Harry at 4.45am each day, waiting in desperation for CBeebies to start. Fortunately on those holiday occasions I was able to catch up on sleep later in the day!

We'd just got Harry to the stage where he was sleeping through regularly and going to bed without a fuss, when Mia came along and it all started over again! But in the last few weeks I've noticed that more often than not, both children are sleeping through. And until a reasonable hour - Harry's clock tells him that it's morning at 6.45am, and Mia is rarely awake before that. Sometimes we are awake earlier - this morning Harry needed the toilet at 6.15am and didn't go back to sleep - but I can cope with anything after 6am easily if I've not been disturbed in the night.

I'm fully aware that we're just going through a good patch, and children like to keep you on your toes with frequent changes to their routines. I'm sure that we've got many bedtime battles to go through yet. But, with fingers firmly crossed, for the first time in a good long while I'm experiencing what it feels like when you are actually getting enough sleep!