Sleepless Night

Being a parent is tough. Most people assume that being a parent of twins is twice as tough but that can be understating it, especially in the early days when they are completely dependent on you. I have to admit that now they are toddlers, there are “economies of scale” and sometimes they even amuse each other and give you a break. This is mostly balanced out by the time that you spend breaking up fights and ensuring that all their hair remains attached to their heads.

Being a parent is also the most rewarding thing that I have ever done so to me, all of the effort, the restrictions on your lifestyle and the impact on your wallet are a reasonable trade off. What I can’t get used to is those times when the boys don’t feel like sleeping through the night.

Last night was one of those nights. Fat Chops has been carrying a bit of a head cold and was snoring like a septuagenarian with a sinus infection last night. Monkey Boy was not a bit happy with it and wasn’t shy about letting us know. Hannah tried to settle him a couple of times to no avail before she not-so-gently kicked me to let me know it was my turn to try and coax him back to sleep.

I have to come clean here and admit that I am a very heavy sleeper and my wife is not. Most of the time she finds it easier to get up to them herself than to get a sensible response from me. I don’t expect a lot of sympathy from other parents who all deal with it and I don’t deserve it because I have slept through most of the night time disturbances. Mainly, I’m coming clean because she will make me suffer if I as much as imply that I have lost out on a lot of sleep since the boys were born and I will again be forced to look at the photograph where I am ”resting my eyes” while I was supposed to be changing nappies when the boys first came home from hospital.

I think it was about half past three when myself and Hannah started doing relays to try and settle Monkey Boy down. It was probably about four when we gave up and took him into the bed with us. I know we broke a cardinal rule of parenting but I never claimed to be good at this fatherhood lark. We probably could have survived the half hour interruption and been able to function at a reasonable level today but Monkey Boy had other ideas. He had about seven hours sleep under his belt at this stage and the batteries were almost fully charged. In his mind it was playtime.

I love getting down on the floor with the boys and having a laugh but the sky was starting to brighten and I was conscious of an important meeting that was starting at 8am. We tried to play possum but Monkey Boy is nothing if not persistent and he went from one of us to the other for the guts of an hour being told to lie down and go asleep with increasing levels of grumpiness and frustration.

It is these moments that you wonder about the wisdom of teaching them “wakey wakey” game, whereby you pretend to be asleep and the boys slap you about the face until you jump up with mock surprise. You regret laughing so heartily and encouraging them to throw themselves around the bed. He tried every cute trick in the book to get our attention from tickling to hair pulling and on one occasion, launching himself head first into my stomach with a panache that would make any WWE wrestler proud.

Eventually, I “hugged” him - I can’t lie, I pretty much lay on top of him until he gave up so that we could at least get a couple of hours sleep before facing the already dawning day. Shortly after this, Fat Chops somehow sensed he was alone in his room and insisted on joining our little pyjama party.

Connected with me being a heavy sleeper is fact that I am a horrible morning person. My colleagues know not to approach me until I have had my coffee, even the part timers who start at 1pm. One of the many ways that being a parent changes you is that no matter how bad a night you have had or how tired you are, you just can’t sustain that grumpiness when your son looks at you and grins a good morning greeting.