Is anybody awake?

Emily-Jane Clark, knobbly bottom, Children's author
Me, with my knobbly bottom.

I managed to get back on to this very old website that I thought had died and gone to blog heaven. It reminded me of what a sleep-deprived mess I was! In fact, if you have got any sense at all, reader, you will be having a delicious nap because you CAN, and not reading an email from an ancient blog site.

BUT on the offchance, you’re awake, I thought i would say hi. It feels like another life when I wrote this! It isn’t even the newer version I set up when I wrote my book SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK, but the old free blog site I started writing in the middle of the night, usually from underneath a baby.

I met so many amazing fellow sleep-deprived parents through this blog and I am actually in touch with some of them today! Anyway, I thought I would let you all know that I am still here and did NOT die of sleep deprivation.

My life looks very different these days. I no longer have babies keeping me awake at night (I have hormones for that now), I got divorced, wrote comedy for television and now I am writing children’s books. I also learnt how to make awesome roast potatoes.

But enough about me, I really just wanted to invite you to come and join me over at Substack Because that is where the cool kids (and ex wordpress parent bloggers) are.

I will probably talk about books, writing, life, single motherhood and knobbly bottoms, so how can you resist that! So hopefully I will see you there!

MY latest form of procrastination can be found here.

Why I am not buying my kids ANY toys next Christmas

chirstmasSo this Christmas I have built magnificent castles out of Duplo, coloured in the entire cast of Frozen, pushed baby dolls around the house in their new pram, shouted “you have to press the button to talk” into Spongebob Walkie Talkies sixteen times, spoken to a horse and Grandad on a toy phone, played the drums and completed three jigsaws…

All by myself.

Not because I enjoy playing with toddler toys on my own, (ok, maybe a bit) but in an attempt to get my young daughters to show an interest in something other than chocolate.

Continue reading

Survivor Story: How Changing My Baby’s Diet Changed My Life…

The latest Sleep Thief Survivor Story is by nutritionist and herbalist Caroline Mentzer.  On discovering that her daughter’s very poor sleep was due to food allergies, the 37-year-old turned her life around and went from rock bottom to a radio gig!  

Caroline & Melissa selfieCaroline’s story:

Early motherhood was a strange phenomenon for me. I’d been used to filling my time working two jobs whilst studying for a degree. I was blissfully and ignorantly looking forward to Melissa’s arrival so that I could slow down and spend some quality time as a family. After all, how difficult could it be? I was used to working hard, and I was aware that the first few months were tough when your baby needed feeding through the night. But nothing prepared me for the total upheaval I would experience when parenting a child that just won’t sleep. Continue reading