holy 5am batman!

yes, my kids were awake at 5am this morning, technically before 5am but 5 is when we gave in and got them up - hubby stayed up with them, I attempted to go back to sleep but the screaming, fighting, crying and shouting from 3x cranky and tired kids made that impossible.

Yesterday was much the same and truth be told, I'm pissed off. Yesterday a cold snap rolled in seemingly overnight and they woke due to being cold, so annoying as it was, I could understand it. Both toddlers went for a nap at 12 without a peep and slept for a good couple of hours. Thank the stars! I was determined the same thing wouldn't happen this morning and we would at least get a 6am start, business as usual. I stripped their beds yesterday and put flannel sheets and a blanket on each as well as a doona. I replaced Little Miss' sleeping bag with a winter weight one and all 3 were bundled into warm PJ's after their bath last night. We even got the heater out and I put the timer on so it came on at 3am, it heats the whole house in a short time - the joys of gas heating - so I thought we had all bases covered. I thought wrong and at stupid AM this morning Missy Moo started crying, which set everyone else off within seconds. If you were awake at that time of day you would most likely have heard me swearing, loudly, from here. LOUDLY. Far out, why on earth would you want to be awake at that time of day? It hurts! It's cold and dark and silent and makes the day ahead oh so long, and surely unless you had to be up then for work or a holiday departure or feeding a newborn baby, then surely you wouldn't be awake? Surely?

When do kids learn to go back to sleep if they wake too early? On their own, without mum or dad helping them, without a drink or going to the loo? Do they actually ever learn? Am I destined to years of early waking until teenage years when I will undoubtably be begging/dragging/screaming at them to get out of bed. I read facebook status updates from other mum friends, things like

• 'thanks for the 9am sleep in baby, I needed that',
• 'wow, bob is still sleeping 13 hours later',
• '8am: kids still sleeping, oh well guess we'll be late to playgroup' 

and honestly, really truly honestly, I want to kill someone. Them, their kids, their status updates, anyone! Why do all 3 of my kids seem to be missing the sleep chromosome??? What did I do so wrong? My 3 go to bed without much fuss, most nights and yes all 3 sleep from 7pm, sleeping through the night without a peep (generally). I'm happy about this part and I know alot of kids struggle with this so I'm grateful we don't have issues here. They go down and sleep as they're exhausted after waking at stupid fcuking o'clock. However none seem to be able to sleep past 6am. 6 is the average, occasionally later (rarely) but more often than not we are woken before 6am.

Monkey Man will be 3 in July so if you add in pregnancy insomnia/discomfort due to a kicking, partying baby on board and getting up to pee, its already been 3 years that this whole lack of sleep thing has been going on. A part of me curses having 3 so close together as one wakes, generally they all wake. The other part of me thinks praise the heavens, this should all be over and done with promptly and at once but its been 3 years already... how much longer?? A lot longer I suspect. Can you see my sad face from there?


xx