I'm too tired to think of a title...

There is nothing that can prepare you for deepest darkness of sleep deprivation.

I wanna talk about sleep deprivation for a second here... The kind of sleep deprivation that hits you like a tonne of bricks the moment that the adrenalin and hormones are no longer hiding the fact that you have a sleep demon on your hands. I thought we'd have said goodbye to that by now, but for 3 long years we have been living in that constant headachey, fog that comes with complete and utter sleep deprivation. I can't count the amount of nights that I've cried to Nathan, or said the words "I can't do this anymore". It's completely debilitating some days. The affects of severe sleep deprivation are fairly similar to many of the symptoms of Post Natal Depression... Need I say more?

Living with sleep deprivation is like having to get up and get on with life (because lets face it, the baby doesn't give a flying poo if you're tired... they still need to you to be their everything) after getting run over by a road train, slapped in the face a good half a dozen times with a double plugger and then shat on. You think I'm joking. Unless you're the proud owner of a teeny tiny sleep terrorist, you have no idea what tired really is.

The most frustrating thing about the whole situation is the unsolicited advice...

"Well, you need to do controlled crying"
"Oh, it's because she's breastfed"
"She needs a comforter"
"You need to teach her to self settle"

That's just a few examples.

I swear, if someone dishes out another piece of useless advice to me, my head is gonna explode... or in the very least, I'll channel Linda Blair and rotate 360 exorcist style.

You see, the first time around we did most things (mostly) by the book. Oh the fucking book... We fought and fought until we reached breaking point thinking that we'd be creating so many bad habits if we didn't! I was so sick and tired of people assuming all of the 'mistakes' we must have been making for this to be happening to us. By the time number two came around, we were too damn tired to fight it all. We bed shared when we needed to, I breastfed to sleep because it was the quickest and easiest way to get it done sometimes, I used a dummy, I didn't bother fighting the 40 min nap, instead I just waited until she worked it out herself. Not only has it made for a much more enjoyable experience, but SHE'S MY BETTER SLEEPER! I don't mean at the same age... I mean now! My 15 month old sleeps 12 hours a night (mostly), where as my 3 year old is up constantly throughout the night.

I spent so much time wondering and worrying about where I went wrong. You know what though? I didn't do anything wrong. Every. Single. Child. Is. DIFFERENT! I personally don't care anymore if your child was sleeping through the night from 6 minutes old, but if you keep regaling me with tales of a perfect nights sleep, you're gonna cop a swift fly kick to the baby-maker.