“Good morning sunshine!!”

This was my own father teasing me, as a teenager in the morning, when I would get up. And by morning, I mean around 11 am or so. This was, of course, on weekends or holidays. See before kids came into play, I loved sleep and even joked that I could make a sport or a career out of it. I also can clearly recall how annoyed I would get if someone or something interrupted my precious sleep.

That was then and this though is now...

As a mom though, sleep is truly a rare and precious commodity.

I still love sleep, but unfortunately being a mother has changed all that for me. If you are a mother, then you probably have some idea what I am talking about.

There are ways I would love to be awoken when sleeping and then are are ways I wouldn’t. Most of the ways I wouldn’t want to be awoken sadly come in the form of my kids and even my husband in the past few years of being a mom.

Here are the Top 5 Sleep Struggles This Mom Has Faced:

1. A Screaming Colicky Baby–Nothing is worse then a baby who has colic, that wakes up screaming and crying. Chances are nothing you can say or do will calm this baby enough to stop for hours on end. And when the baby finally passes out, so may you right where you are standing. Trust me, when I say I mastered sleeping in the strangest positions during this time of my life.
2. A Sick Baby/Child–Here comes the next worst wakeup call and that is a sick child. Whether it is a fever, congestion or vomiting, this will also probably be a long night. I would say vomiting is up there as possibly being the worst, because not only do you have to comfort said child, but now you have to clean up smelly puke before you can even dare dream about sleep again in the not so near future. Definitely not fun at all for anyone, especially mom. God help us as flu season is almost upon us once again.
3. A Potty Training Child Having An Accident--Another not so fun time is when your child wakes you up crying to tell you that they have a wet bed. More cleanup duty for mom and this time it is urine soaked linens. Seriously, when did I become the maid and laundress at 2 am! The spin cycle did wonders for lulling this tired mom back to dream land during the potty training years.
4. Husband Snoring–I used to dream of the day that I would share a bed with another that I was head over heels in love with, but then came reality folks. My husband snores and it sounds like a freight train is going through our room some nights and almost feel like that scene from My Cousin Vinny where he keeps getting awoken by a loud train at the same time every night. Don’t get me wrong, I love him, but not the snoring so much!! A sharp ninja-like nudge to the side comes in handy before any more snoozing can indeed commence.
5. Husband Loudly Alerting You To An Awake Child–As if the child waking you up isn’t bad enough, now your husband needs to tell you that the child is awake and you need to move ASAP to do something about it. Seriously, this one burns my bridges, but still I sleep walk myself into check on said child, try my best not to break a toe walking into something and if I am at all lucky can be back in my bed before it is light out once again.

Seriously just once, I would like to once again be able to sleep through the night, sleep in and be awoken with breakfast in bed. Ok, a mom can dream, but then again I am sure if this did happen I would still have to clean up the mess of dirty dishes in the kitchen, once I did wake up!

This article originally ran on Confessions of A Mommyaholic.