I used to suffer from insomnia

Its 0600 and I've just been woken up, again, by Vilde who stubbornly and consistently refuses to settle down to a full night's sleep. As far as I can recollect, she has been waking up every twenty to thirty minutes and screaming hysterically until either Mette or I (usually me) goes in to comfort her. The end result of this for Mette and I is living with the effects of long term sleep deprivation in a way neither of us experienced with Magne, nor Freja. Effectively I have not slept eight straight hours in the last four months and this constantly being awoken each time I fall asleep means I now have a chronic headache and have been downing pain killers like cocktails every other day.

One two occaisions I have had the chance to catch up on my sleep. Sometimes Mette takes the kids and stays at her parents in Aalborg. When this has happened, I have swung like a pendulum to the opposite extreme and slept as many as eleven hours, awoken with back pains, a stiff neck and the inevitable head ache. Mette has likewise suffered when at her parents, for, as I experienced this christmas, Vilde abhors sleeping any where but at home, and she kept up a prolonged klaxon wail that made sleep impossible. Consequently I slept most of Christmas day and we decided to go home on Boxing day rather than face yet another such traumatic night.

With the children home all Christmas, and neither Mette or I inclined to punish ourselves further by arranging some distractions for them, sheer fatigue alone prohibits any such endeavour, the current holiday feels more like a Siberian prison sentence and my productivity feels equally as forced upon me as if I were one of Stalin's exhiles.

I used to suffer from insomnia so I'm used to unusual sleep patterns, but in those halcyon days I could sleep my mornings away and arise as midday as 'fresh as a sea eagle'. The tyranny of small children however means I get no sleep during the day either, so I survive on short cat naps until sudden catastrophic collapses leave me insensible for five or six hours.

The kids go back to their respective schools and institutues on January 2nd, and Vilde is due to begin day care too. I am fervently hoping that like her siblings before her, day care will eventually force Vilde to adapt to a daily routinue which results in a full night's sleep, both for her and for her parents, because frankly, I'm not sure how much more sleep deprevation I can handle before I malfunction.