Am I Cruel Mummy? Boy #1 thinks so.

I don't want to come across as Cruel Mummy but...

I don't let my children sleep in the marital bed.

Does that make me nasty?  Boy #1 thinks - sometimes - that it does.  Mainly he thinks this when his younger brother waves the fact in his face that twice in the last 4 months, he (Boy #2) has snuck in - unnoticed by me, I might add - in the small hours and managed to stay put until morning.  Smaller than his brother by 2 years, Boy #2 took advantage of my natural defense against the freight-train style snoring from the other side of the bed; namely that of shifting as far away as possible from the source of the noise and clinging there, albeit still asleep.  This of course leaves a Boy #2 sized-space down the middle of duvet, which he exploited on these two occasions before bounding back into his own bed at dawn and trumpeting his victory to his furious older brother.

Siblings.  Don't you just love them?

We've been had reasonable luck with the Boys' sleeping patterns so far.  Certainly whilst they were still tiny we suffered the 1 / 3/ 5am wake-ups for breast and bottle feeding, the pacing backwards and forwards rocking a seemingly inconsolable baby in our arms wondering if we were ever again going to get a full night's rest, and the rushing in at 2am to calm a child shouting in their sleep.  In fact, now I come to think of it, that last was almost a nightly fixture for 4 long years; Boy #1 did it from ages 2 - 4, and then just when he stopped, Boy #2 clocked in with his own version until he hit 4 himself.  But nowadays they are good; they go to bed when we ask them to, and they don't wake up much before 7am, which personally - needing my own sleep - I call a result.

Even from the first, when they were only tiny scraps, I was never any good at co-sleeping with them.  At the beginning it was quite simply that I was worried I - or Husband - would roll over and squash them.  And yes, I know instances of this are extremely rare, but try telling your exhausted hormone-buzzing just-given-birth psyche that at 3am.  It just didn't work for me; I would lie there, rigid with panic, unable to sleep myself, next to a gently snoring husband and baby.  So we put each of the boys in a cot next to our own bed - and then after a couple of months, moved them into their own room.  Then, when they were toddling around, they were just too restless when asleep, both of them capable of moving from one end of their cot and back again  between checks, to convince me it was a good idea to have them with us.

And so we settled into a routine where they slept in their beds, we slept in ours, and everyone had a good night's sleep.  I saw no reason to change that as they got older.  Sure, we have Sunday mornings when they bounce all over us and put toes cold from half an hour of playing with toys before we wake up onto our warm hands and legs, but as for spending the night in the same bed - well, I just don't encourage it.

Don't get me wrong, if they're ill I will get as close to them as I can, and if I'm not actually sleeping on their floor I might as well be for the amount of time I pop in and out of their room to check on them.  But aside from the fact that I operate much better when I've had a proper night's sleep myself, it's always seemed to me that Husband's and my bed is just that; for Husband and I.  There is one room in the house that belongs exclusively to us, and I want to keep it that way.

I don't think that makes me a bad mother.  Despite what my son might say...

Are you getting enough?

(This is a sponsored post).

Well, ARE you?  I have to say I’m definitely not.  Maybe it’s something to do with the time of year – a busy social calendar, dark mornings, early sunsets – but it seems to me that the entire Potski Familiski could with getting a bit more sleep at the moment. (Oh, sorry – did you think I was referring to something else?).

Both the Boys seem pale and wan at the moment and are never awake for more than 10 minutes after lights out.  They don’t wake before 7am – at the earliest – and they go to bed at around 8pm.  So that’s more or less 11 hours solid sleep every night – and yet I still fret that they could do with more.  I don’t know how the locals here do it, I really don’t.

We run a pretty tight ship on the bed-time front: the Boys usually get in the bath at around 7.30pm and at around 8pm I’m reminding them to brush their teeth and use the loo before they climb into bed.  Here’s a question; at what age does the necessity to issue such reminders stop, I wonder? I should probably just leave them to it but since the alternative is my younger son waking around 10.30pm and shouting ‘I need the LOO!” at the top of his voice, waking his brother in the process and occasionally resulting in the need for a wipe of the bathroom floor when his aim is off, I’m not prepared to forego it just yet...

I suspect that Russian friends regard me as a bit of a control freak on the subject of bedtimes, as their children seem not to go to bed before 10pm and still have to get up for a school day starting before 8.30.  I know that this is because otherwise many Russian children would not see very much of their parents, and I admire the commitment to spending family time together that this shows, but I’m not sure I would be prepared to sacrifice my peaceful evenings and my sons’ well-being (not in that order, obviously...) for the sake of it.

And when I do finally crawl into bed myself – invariably later than I should due to the siren call of the internet / the next episode of Downton Abbey or Homelands or whichever box-set I’m watching at the time / hanging up the laundry / tidying away the nest of shoes that seems to breed by the back door whenever my back is turned, you can bet that I won’t manage to drop off straight away.  Amazingly, it’s not about the bed – although I’m told that for many people it can be.  I was looking at this sleep study here (this is a sponsored post, after all), and it appears I’m in good company in finding other reasons for my wakefulness; lots of us lie there worrying or wondering about our lives before managing to switch off our brains, it seems.

But whilst it’s good to know that I’m not alone in struggling to fall asleep, that doesn’t really help me in my battle to beat the clock.  And by that, I mean the pressure to drop off before my husband climbs into bed himself.  If I don’t, then I have to face the real impediment to managing it which is, I’m afraid to say, the freight train snores coming from the other side of the bed...

This post is sponsored by Silent Night, but all words and opinions are my own... 

It's not you, it's me...

Dear Lie-In,

this is a hard letter to write, but I'm just going to come straight out and say it; I think it's over between us.  I know, I know; we had good times with each other.  Not regularly for the last while, it's true, but over the years we've notched up a lot of hours in bed together.  And they were good times, weren't they?  No, don't answer that.  I know they were.  Sure, there were Other Obligations often knocking at the door but we managed to ignore their siren call for many years and make sure that we got to spend quality time together often enough to keep our relationship still fresh.

But it's different now.  Yes, I told you after the kids arrived that I would still have time for you and I did manage to snatch a few hours here and there but let's be honest - it just hasn't been the same, has it?  Don't deny it - I know you felt it too. And now that the new school term has started along with the football season and who knows what other activities in the pipeline stealing me away from you at the weekends, well, I think it's time to face the music and just admit that we can never be what we once were to each other.  It just isn't going to happen this side of half term, and that's the truth.

Yes, sure, I know you would wait for me if I asked you to, but I just can't do that to you.  You need to be free; to go off and spend time with all those teenagers and students out there.  They won't appreciate you, of course.  They'll take you for granted but I think that in some way, that's what you want, really; to be such an integral part of someone's life that they can't imagine Saturday and Sunday mornings without you.

So, go.  Go with my blessing.  And as I stand at the side of that windy football pitch on a grey and chilly Saturday before 9am, I'll remember our relaxed times together and hope that someday - maybe on a November weekend, when it's dark outside, sleeting a storm, and the children are still recovering after a too-late viewing of 'Cars 2' the night before - our paths might cross again.

Thanks for the memories,

PMx