They’re happy kids, and I attribute a great deal of that to solid sleep. Life is not perfect - nothing is, so I aim for solid sleep 95% of the time. I can’t do anything about the odd nightmare, noisy storm, or illnesses. But almost every night, I walk downstairs having put the children happily to bed, and know I won’t hear a peep until morning. This kind of sleep is within your reach, too!
The Struggles of Sleep Deprivation
I remember when I was so desperately tired that I felt as if I couldn’t get through another hour, let alone another day or week. I felt sure I was not depressed; I could still see joy and beauty in things, at times, but I was half of myself, a mere shadow. I felt almost on a daily basis that I wasn’t coping too well and was getting this parenting lark wrong. I was growing apart from my husband at a rate of knots as we slept in separate beds to cope. I was at times painfully unkind to him and to myself, and my children were getting the worst of me. Frankly, I was an utter wreck.
The Impact on Daily Life
Back then, I was super short on patience and super quick on mistake-making. I would forget important events and appointments, forget that I had to take the dinner out of the freezer in order to have a meal for the children that day and forget that it was my son’s Show and Tell turn that particular Monday (and that he’d be the only child without something to discuss as a result). I felt like I was just about surviving through those early years, when all of the time older people would take any opportunity to tell me that “these were the golden years” and that I’d better hurry up and “enjoy them before the kids left home and it was all over."
The Turning Point
I used to despise those comments, but I know now they are right (although you can’t enjoy EVERY moment, there are daily opportunities!) The tiredness was slowly destroying my family, and I needed to do something about it. To fight to enjoy those golden years. To be present in them not a passer-by going through the motions. My children and I had one shot at it. Thank goodness I made that change, I hate to think where I’d be if I hadn’t.
The Journey to Better Sleep
Fast forward five years, and now I run Calm & Bright - a sleep support business that helps families all over the world to enable their children to sleep better, happier and longer! You can read a bit more about me on my website www.calmandbright.co.uk, where you can also find the stories of people just like you who have had their lives forever changed by the positive power of solid sleep.
Collaboration for Better Sleep
Slumbersac and I have teamed together to help put a stop to sleep devastation like this. The Sleep Centre is a place especially designed to equip parents with easy to follow, loving steps to enable your children to sleep happily through the night. Amongst the resources on the Sleep Centre, you will find a series of videos which we have recorded. We chose the video format because we believe that tired parents need easy, clear, supportive information, not a barrage of highlighted text and thousands of words to get through!
