Parenting, babies and sleep deprivation: what parenting is really like

A very good friend is going to be the proud father of a bouncing baby…  Very soon now.

However, none of us are too sure if he’s up for baby sleep deprivation.  He posted recently that “baby has nothing on this post-operation insomnia – I keep waking up at freaking 3am.”

As a helpful and supportive mate, I felt I should tell him what it’s going to be like.

“Mate, baby will have everything on this. It will be 2am, the baby has been crying for two hours, mum will be vomiting in the hallway having caught gastro from a kid in mother’s group. You will learn the precise number of seconds it takes to microwave a bottle to the right temperature. You will learn to distinguish vomit stains from strained pumpkin, which is quite a feat as strained pumpkin basically is vomit. You will become a master in the art of nappy-changing avoidance.

You will wake at 11pm, 1am, 3am and then 5am. You will want to stab friends who tell you that their child slept through the night. You will marvel at doctors who say that waking up at 5am is in fact “sleeping through”. Actually you will tell them to go f@#$ themselves.

And then you will realise that this is your life until about, say, 2014. You will scream and yell, but you will do this, you will love it. Well, except for the strained pumpkin part.

But frankly, I have to say, the baby has game when it comes to sleep deprivation. Baby has everything on this.”

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