I’m a bit broken this week. Lack of sleep (I thought we were past those days) and tediously long bedtime sequences have stretched me towards the end of my tether. Or stretched my tether? What even is a tether? Whatever (tether), I honestly think that on a bad night our familial “bedtime routine” could be enough to make the toughest person on the planet break down and cry. I don’t know who the most difficult person on earth is – I like to think it’s maybe Bane from Batman, only because Bad guy is inside him (cue innuendo onslaught) – but whoever it is, they would not cope with a particularly testing evening of kid-settling chez moi.
There’s something rather soul-destoying about thinking you’re going to have a small slice of the evening all to yourself and then having it repeatedly ripped out of your grasp. When you’re knackered following a full-on day of toddler-chasing, debris-clearing, dribble-wiping activity and you just want 10 mins to sit down on your own before it’s time for bed yourself, doing multiple trips in the stairs to quiet one screaming toddler and then a whole other set of journeys to make sure that the older one isn’t climbing the stuffed giraffe again sends you to the absolute limits of sanity.
And I’m not moaning: just telling it how it's. It seems to be like this for most of us, so I feel I can give you an honest portrayal. Those adverts where it’s all calm and peaceful, and there’s a curly-haired young girl lying in bed listening to a story, her eyes slowly closing, the parent gently pulling the duvet round the child as she falls asleep after which kissing her on the forehead and tiptoeing towards the bedroom door: it’s bollocks. A minimum of it is in my house. And in the houses of virtually everyone I know.
Bedtime is a sort of battle. If you win it and they are during sex on time (ha!) and nobody (adult) has cried and no-one else (child) has walked right into a door-frame/bedpost/wardrobe/wall or made you feel guilty for “being cross” then you feel absolutely on top of the world. Should you lose the battle, you will eat cereal for dinner, hunched within the table at 9.57pm, eyes half closed, scrolling through Instagram and snarling at people’s holiday snaps.
And then there’s the middle ground, which is what happens most nights, when there’s been a truce between warring armies – or, better, everyone is so knackered that they’ve eventually just gone to their own camps. The camp of Slumber (them) and also the camp of Kitchen (you). You'll have already spent an hour or so in the kitchen, with this point, trying to cook a meal at the same time as watching two different baby monitors, like some crazed gameshow contestant.
You may have ascended and descended the staircase approximately twelve times, carrying various items of cargo such as the water bottle, the infant wipes, the 1 tog baby sleeping bag, the two.5 tog baby sleeping bag, the remote control for the Dyson fan, the remote control for the Velux blind, the blanket with the maps printed on it, the blanket with Transylvania 3 characters printed on it, the pillow case for that doll’s pillow, the doll, the dolly’s pram, it about the postman.
This is all before you’ve eaten your dinner and begun your own bedtime routine, which – if it’s anything like mine – involves forgetting where situations are over and over again, trying to find them and becoming increasingly stressed out about how late it’s getting.
10pm: start get yourself ready for bed. 10.03pm: attempt to locate iPhone charger. 10.08pm: locate iPhone charger, plug iPhone directly into charge in kitchen. 10.10pm: start to run bath, go to take a seat on toilet, realise you can’t find iPhone. 10.24pm: silently scream since you still can’t find your iPhone. 10.28pm: mop up water that’s overflowed from the bath where you left the taps running. 10.32pm: return mop to utility, passing from your iPhone that is charging in the kitchen area. 10.32pm-11.36pm: repeat lost-and-found routine for items such as hairbrush, laptop, car keys, house keys, alarm fob, purse, knickers. 11.37pm: locate laptop, randomly choose to log onto Tesco Clubcard site to see how many points you have. 1.45am: finish looking at reviews of local safari park, including Bill from Teeside’s offering, that you learn that the “muffins within the breakfast place are underwhelming”, decide that you will cash in your points another day.
And Ted has decided to throw another component of chaos into the bedtime mix: an 1 . 5 years “sleep regression”. He wakes up randomly times, usually when your eyes are just getting heavy and you’re doing that delicious slide into unconsciousness, and he SCREAMS. Like something from a horror movie. Last night was a climax of misery after i was on my own and he cried for three hours – midnight until 3am – and would not be comforted by anything. Not really getting into bed with me, which I never allow as an absolute rule (can’t sleep with small people, I’m paranoid about rolling on them) and not even being fed an Ella’s Kitchen yoghurt pouch, that is like the gold standard of nighttime emergency measures. There was no temperature, no sign of illness – he actually laughed every time I went in to comfort him – and he was well fed and watered.
Today Personally i think as though I have a medium-strength hangover. My head hurts, I feel vaguely sick and I have that awful day-after guilt – what happened yesterday? What did I say? Why can’t I just be nice? Am I only a shitty person? Because it’s hard to retain a calming, loving voice when it’s the middle of the night and you can barely see for tiredness and the racking cries are echoing through the house like they’re on a loudspeaker. It feels like you’re being tortured!
Well. It was supposed to be a cute little post about bedtime routines and gorgeous sleepy bath and body products. But if I said that I spritzed Ted’s cot with a special pillow spray also it made him sleep I’d be deceiving you. If I said that I sprayed Angelica’s pillow and she immediately drifted off I’d be an absolute liar. In reality, I spritz her pillow after which she (variously, depending on what day it is) demands I sing Little Miss Muffet, asks me to inform her a “story from my head”, declares that they needs another wee-wee or a fresh bit of tissue “for her eyes” (she likes to dab at them in a worryingly dramatic way, I’m sure she’s likely to be an actress) or requests a sip water from her beaker.
Regardless, it has become a routine to spray Angelica’s pillow with the Dream Catcher’s Spray from the wonderful brand Bloom & Blossom and i believe that the association between sleep and the soothing smell has to be a useful one. It’s the very last thing I actually do before kissing her goodnight and leaving the room – three spritzes onto the pillow, Angelica kneeling away together with her hands covering her face in case the “spray gets her eyes” (told you, drama school!) and then head onto pillow, just a little exchange about how lovely the spray smells and it’s bonne nuit, I love you, don’t go running about upstairs tonight or there’s no zoo tomorrow!
I don’t understand what I love more about this sleep spray; the smell – which is less lavendery than the rest of the offerings on the market, more complex and deep – or the name. Dream Catcher’s Pillow Spray. It’s a part of a range that’s a collaboration between Bloom & Blossom (maker of wonderful body products) and the Roald Dahl Story Company and I have to say that it makes a blessed vary from all of the bloody Peppa Pig and PJ Masks licensing deals that have taken over the world.
And the idea behind Bloom & Blossom‘s collaboration is just utterly lovely too; Bath, Book & Bedtime promotes a positive night routine, with the emphasis on reading and having a daily storytime. These products in this particular range (pillow spray, body wash, conditioner and so forth) are all inspired by The BFG and the packaging carries the Quentin Blake illustrations in the original book.
I suppose I’m a little won over by this BFG connection; it had been one of my favourite books after i was growing up, along with Stig from the Dump* and The Indian in the Cupboard*. But mostly, I just like the magical spin that it puts on the bedtime routine – it can make me feel more relaxed about proceedings despite the fact that I know they’re not likely to be straightforward.
You can now find the lovely Bath, Book & Bedtime range at Waitrose here* – it’s lb9.99 for that sleep spray and lb4.99 for that tubes of body unguents. The bath products (shampoo, body wash, conditioner and so on) are very gentle and have a subtle scent and – importantly – don’t trigger Angelica’s eczema, so they’re safe for almost anyone, I’d like to think.
Right, off for any nap – I can’t function on four hours’ sleep! Has other people experienced the so-called “18 month sleep regression”? Any tips?
