Conventional, undisturbed sleep becomes a distant memory after kids.
When my son was born, after a few weeks of expecting the sleep thing to calm down (futile) I came to realise that if I wanted sleep I was going to have to get out there and grab sleep by the balls and take it any which way I could. After my transformation into high functioning narcoleptic, I realised that my definition of appropriate sleep-destinations had been far too regimented and rigid. Once I got on board with sleeping anywhere/everywhere I found I got a LOT more sleep (and weird looks).
10 Weird places I have slept since becoming a parent:
1. In a dining room chair
I have a plastic Ikea variety of dining chair that perfectly lends itself to rhythmic bouncing (something my infant son greatly enjoyed in the early days) and sleep. In the depths of the night I could be found, baby attached to me in a sling, bouncing and drifting off to the dulcet tones of a 6 hour YouTube white noise compilation. You gotta do what you gotta do.
2. In my son's cot
Just climbed on in there one night. It's quite a sturdy cot, thankfully. Though I did sleep the slightly unnerved sleep of a person, who had been eating chocolate biscuits solidly for two years and was now supine in a wooden bed designed for a 30-pound baby. Still though sleep, even unnerved sleep, is still sleep.
3. In the car (parked while my son was napping, onlookers be damned)
I spotted The Child drifting off, I pulled over, set my alarm and joined him. BOOM. The first time this thought occurred to me I was so proud I texted The Man to announce my ingenuity. As The Man was at work and NOT napping on maternity leave, he was less jubilant about my breakthrough.
4. On a mattress beside my son's cot with one hand stuck through the side
I intended to just lie there petting him to help him drift off to sleep, but then he snatched my hand and rolled on top of it, effectively pinning me. At some point after he was apparently asleep I attempted to extract myself but at the slightest rustling The Child shouted "MUMA, NO!" and I obediently lay back down to sleep.
5. In the bath
I just drifted off in there one day...
6. On a blanket beside my own bed when The Child kicked me out one night
My god I am a pushover when I'm tired. The Child announced "Muma, GO!" and did that weird little commanding salute he does that is unnervingly reminiscent of Adolf Hitler and I obediently curled up on the floor like a dog.
7. On a bed in my friend's house when I went there for dinner
I was going to the loo when I passed the most inviting looking bed of all time (her bed) and weighed up the rebelling against social convention that demands that we don't go for unscheduled naps in the beds of our friends versus missing dessert versus just how tired I was and the exhaustion won out. I was awoken 10 minutes later by The Man's voice gleefully saying: "I KNEW IT!".
8. In The Child's arms
He may have been very small indeed but when we were still co-sleeping in the early months, The Child had a way of latching on to me at night that felt more like he was holding me than I him. It was adorable. *Sigh*
9. On a sofa in a changing room
My friend was trying on wedding dresses, I was snoozing and my boobs were leaking. We were in two very different places in our lives.
10. IN MY OWN BED (post-kids sleeping in one's own bed becomes the strangest place of all)
Yippee, the first time I went to sleep back in my own bed after having a child felt so foreign and exotic after months of playing musical beds.
Where's the weirdest places you've slept post-babies? Let us know in the comments...
