4am

4am is not a good time for me.

My brain is not designed to function at that time and the only acceptable thing to be doing is to be snuggled up in bed with my bolster and my blanket.

Back in university, I’d pull all-nighters the night before an exam and I usually last till about 4am, which is the point my brain shuts down. I’ll spend the next hour reading the same page 10 times and not register a single word.

When we were dating, we’d talk on the phone late into the night because it’s what romantic couples do right? By 4am, the husband says I’ll start talking gibberish. Words will be coming out of my mouth but they’ll make no sense whatsoever.

One time, I was up expressing milk for Kirsten at 4am. After 20 minutes and 160ml of milk, I dozed off and dropped the bottle. My 160ml ended all over the floor and I ended up literally crying over spilt milk.

So yeah, 4am is not a good time for me at all.

Thankfully, we haven’t had to do the 4am waking thing since the kids started sleeping in our room.

You want milk? You’re not dying of hunger, you’ll get it when the sun is up.

You want a story/song/interpretive dance to help you sleep? Hell to the N and the O.

Basically, if you’re not vomiting out the contents of your dinner or shitting your diaper, close your eyes and go back to sleep.

Yesterday, that sleeping arrangement came to an end. My mom bought us a new and very plush king-sized bed (thanks mom!), which meant that there’s no more space to put the mattresses for the kids on the floor. So it was finally time to pick up where we left off a year ago – the rambo sleep training program. To make their transition easier, we figured we’d shift our previous queen bed to their room to provide a sense of familiarity and all that. Of course, the back up plan is that if we ever caved and let them invade our new bed, we could always crash out on our old bed in their room.

At 1.15am, Kirsten started wailing. “Momma, I need momma, BWAHHHHH!!!” I went in to calm her down, tuck her back in and left the room after she fell asleep.

20 minutes later, it started again, this time even louder. Round 2 of tucking in and patting and sneaking out of the room like a ninja.

At about 2am, the third time. I decided to leave them be and see how it pans out. Truett came shuffling into our room and he muttered “Kirsten wants you.” My plan to sneak in and out clearly wasn’t working so I had to switch tactics. “Tru, go tell mei mei that she needs to sleep in her own room. Just give her a hug and tell her to go to sleep.”

He must have delivered his message because the shrieking stopped. Instead, I heard them wandering the rest of the house in pitch darkness. Which was actually fine by me so I went right back to sleep.

4am, more shrieking. Truett had become sufficiently crabby by now and joined in the wailing. At this point, I decided that things couldn’t get any worse so I played my trump card. I brought them back to their room, gave them a hug, tucked them both in and said “Mommy’s going back to sleep but I’m not going to lock the door so you can come hug me if you miss me. But if you guys scream and wail, I’m going to lock the door. No more crying, just go to sleep, understand?”

I wasn’t really expecting it to work but somehow, it did and we all finally got to sleep.

Tonight, the melee will begin again. Wish me luck.