Guest Post: Miss Pink: Less Sleep Means More Cuddles

Sesame is here! A lovely bunch of bloggers have jumped in to help me out at this time so I don't have to worry about a newborn, a toddler AND blogging. Today, Miss Pink is here to talk about sleep or lack of it.

This was a post I wrote back in September of 2010 when I found myself with a preschooler and a toddler. Over a year later we are still playing the sleep game, only now there are less cuddles and more sneaky trips to the fridge.

Image credit.

Sleep. 
It plays such a huge role in our lives.
Essentially we spend a third of our lives asleep. Possibly more, it depends on the person.
In the last two year's I have had my sleep GREATLY reduced. I have always loved my sleep, settling in for an average of 10 hours a night (girl needs her beauty sleep after all!)
My one regret with my children's age gap is I got pregnant just after I got all that great freedom that having a 2 year old brings. Freedom? I hear you ask.
 Why yes. Namely a child who sleeps through the night, a child who is no longer in nappies, a child who is starting to grasp that actions have consequences, and a child who can use their words to tell me what they want so I'm not playing that never ending guessing game.
Enter pregnancy, the first few months spent feeling like I was dying, then the big move into a new place, getting settled into that new place during the summer from hell (we had a few weeks of 40'C + days, the nights were awful with the lowest being in the high 20'C range), and then I was at the end of my pregnancy before I knew it. Roll around the morning I wake up in labour. I didn't even have my hospital bag packed!
And so started not just the "not being able to sleep because of this ginormous belly and the baby that likes to tap tap tap away all night" but the actual having to get up out of bed and tend to a crying baby.
A year an a half on and it hasn't changed.
In the year and a half he has been with us, I have not had a single night off.
Do I get mad with him?
No.
I get bloody frustrated! At the whole situation, why is he waking, what could he possibly want? But mad?
Never.
The other night he woke and I called out a "Shhhhh" in the hopes I wouldn't have to actually leave my nice warm bed, and we hear back from the next room a sobbed yet defiant little "No". Mr Black and I laughed muffled little laughs.
Ahhh my defiant little one.
He may not sleep, but he definitely knows what he wants, and isn't afraid to speak up.
And you know what...in a year or so he is going to be far to busy and "too cool" to want to stop and cuddle his mama, so for now, even though I have days where I'd really like my space, I'm going to hold him close. Get all the cuddles I can, and put them into storage, because I know that I will one day wish I still had my little baby I could wrap up into my arms. Where my cuddles fixed everything. Where they were needed just as often as he needed to eat.

Miss Pink blogs over at The Mummy Autobiography. She's the mother to two; Bluey and Greeny, lover of all things pink and girly, believer in magic and all things that sparkle. She's kicking social anxiety in the butt. Check out her tweets and Facebook for more body love and humour.