Member-only story
Perfect Morning Routines Don’t Exist for Parents
We’ve got to let them go
My typical morning begins anytime from 1–5 am when my daughter scares the bejeezers out of me by standing next to my face in the dark saying “I had a nightmare mum”.
At that point we have 2 choices: let her stay. Or walk her down the hallway back to her room.
The first choice means we don’t sleep all night. Because when she clambers into our bed, she splays herself out as if she’s the Queen of England on her own king-sized bed — our bed is a queen and at that point, there are 3 of us sardined in it.
I try desperately for the next 3–4 hours to get back to a light sleep (deep sleep, what’s that?) — while she kicks me painfully in the kidneys and sleeps on top of me, breathing heavily in my face.
The other choice is to reluctantly drag ourselves out of a half decent sleep in our deliciously toasty bed, to walk out in the cold, dark, long hallway to her room. And stay with her until she falls asleep. Then creep out half an hour later, wide awake and with no damn hope of falling asleep for the rest of the night.
