Insomnia…

It started after Jonah was born. For six months after his birth, I was like a wild cat, twitchy and fretful; wired with baby anxiety, sleep deprivation and hormones. The hormones wore off and PND set in – at ten months and still not a decent night’s sleep, I fell down a rabbit hole and barely emerged until after Ava was born. I swear to god, I can barely remember those toddler years except that they were mired in screams and heavy lifting as I carried my tantruming toddler away from one disaster to the next.

But let’s face it, I’m foggy. It’s 4 am and I’ve been awake for an hour. A combination of work anxiety, nicotine deprivation – yes, I’m giving up with Tom in a show of rare wifely support – and my own stupid brain: the muse always seems to visit in the dead of night.

When I look back at pics of Jonah’s toddlerhood, they are bright and I’m smiley. It can’t all have been so traumatic, but when you’re wading through life on broken nights, it’s like wading through treacle dusted with broken glass. Life is pain.

Jonah was a bad sleeper. I blame feeding on demand, but there’s evidence to say aspies struggle, and I remember, once I’d implemented a routine and was trying to wrest control back, he’d get traumatised by overtiredness, fits of howls before finally succumbing to sleep – and by then, we regulated him. We had to, we’d worked out he wasn’t a coaster who you could take anywhere and do anything with. He needed structure and even then, he wasn’t always predictable.

He sleeps now, muttering and spiky, with the remains of the night terrors that would turn him into a two year old zombie fighting us in his sleep with his eyes open. But he is growing more comfortable in his skin, until he starts to outgrow it again in adolescence and for the most part, his nights are more restful than mine.

And on that note, I will try again to close my eyes and hope for 45 minutes of dreaming to get my feel good hormones going again.

Wish me luck.