Living this experience and people really don’t understand how hard it is unless they have lived it. 4 year old low sleep needs highly sensitive child and current 16 month old who it seems is also low sleep nights although seems less sensitive in terms of temperament. Going to bed as soon as the last one falls asleep is key for me. But there are so many advantages as well, I get to spent a quality 3 or 4 hours with my kids after I come home from work. The kids get involved with all the stuff that needs to be done because I try and do it while they are awake cooking, tidying etc (takes longer and it’s not always successful but it works a lot of the time). I think my main grief is that I would have loved more kids but I know that we (myself and my partner and our relationship) just don’t have the capacity to do it again and potentially get another low sleep need kid. It would just stretch us past our limit.
You hit the nail on the head with this one Anna! 🙌 I'm so glad I found the work of people like Dr Pam Douglas and Lyndsey Hookway early on in my parenting journey, but still, 3.5 years later, I still hear the occasional suggestion ("have you tried X?") and wonder to myself how sitting in a dark room with white noise would do anything but drive a parent mad (quite literally) when their child just doesn't need that much sleep. You calculating those parenting hours? Just SO validating.
Living this experience and people really don’t understand how hard it is unless they have lived it. 4 year old low sleep needs highly sensitive child and current 16 month old who it seems is also low sleep nights although seems less sensitive in terms of temperament. Going to bed as soon as the last one falls asleep is key for me. But there are so many advantages as well, I get to spent a quality 3 or 4 hours with my kids after I come home from work. The kids get involved with all the stuff that needs to be done because I try and do it while they are awake cooking, tidying etc (takes longer and it’s not always successful but it works a lot of the time). I think my main grief is that I would have loved more kids but I know that we (myself and my partner and our relationship) just don’t have the capacity to do it again and potentially get another low sleep need kid. It would just stretch us past our limit.
You hit the nail on the head with this one Anna! 🙌 I'm so glad I found the work of people like Dr Pam Douglas and Lyndsey Hookway early on in my parenting journey, but still, 3.5 years later, I still hear the occasional suggestion ("have you tried X?") and wonder to myself how sitting in a dark room with white noise would do anything but drive a parent mad (quite literally) when their child just doesn't need that much sleep. You calculating those parenting hours? Just SO validating.