5 Ways Bedtime Resembles Wrestling A Wild Animal (When You’re A Parent)

Anyone else just finish Bedtime? And now feel like they need to bathe in a vat of wine? I think I’m suffering from?permanent?PBSD (Post Bedtime Stress Disorder – it’s a thing, believe me).

The biggest shift your life undergoes when you become a parent is the cruel way that bedtime – formerly a relaxing moment of the day, one we used to look forward to – becomes Bedtime. A dreaded, capitalised noun that is mired in stress and (if you’re me) shouting.

Go the f*ck to sleep, I want to weep after the 14^th?trip back upstairs to chase the toddler back into his room, meanwhile the infant rages in the bed at the indignity of being bathed, dried with warmed towels and cuddled up to enjoy his slumber. ?What I wouldn’t GIVE to be put to bed like a baby,? I snarl at The Man, looking frazzled and wild-haired like a person who just lost in a bear fight. Which I basically did.

Here’re the 5 ways Bedtime is basically EXACTLY?like wrestling a wild animal:

Even extreme caution is futile if the beast is provoked

Provocation can come in the form of the most innocuous of things. Literally ?turning the page wrong? has been enough to cause my toddler to lash out. As much as you tread carefully when dealing with volatile infants at bedtime, the unpredictable and esoteric whims of a toddler are impossible to predict.

You could very realistically sustain an injury

Bedtime is the giddiest moment of the day. Fact. It’s like some kind of barbaric law of parenthood that as soon as you start to wind down the day’s fun, the children become wilder and more aggressive than a pack of hyenas. There might be some light biting too. (I’m a good mother, I swear.)

It’s like a high intensity workout

See above. Despite trying to physically restrain the hyena-child, lashing them to the bed in as humane a way as possible (I employ the old tightly tucked in bed sheets trick to minimise escape attempts) I still have to trudge back upstairs an average of forty times a night to corral them back into bed. It’s exhausting. Go the f*ck to sleep.

You might require a tetanus shot

Well, you never know where they’ve been. I mean, you should? in an ideal world, I suppose. I’m a good mother, I swear.

There will be screaming

Oh, there’s screaming, alright. Mainly me screaming ?Wine!!!?