Sleepless in Sleep School

Bedlam is a word that comes from the name of Europe’s oldest psychiatric hospital. But if you want a new definition of the word, you should visit a Melbourne sleep school at 7pm. Our baby is not sleeping too well and we decided it was time to learn a few settling techniques. The truth is that she’s probably getting enough sleep and just enjoys waking her parents up every two hours for a chat. She’s a happy little kid and developing well. She’s only ten months old but took her first steps this week and has learned to put her arms around her Dad’s neck and give him a hug. And that means I’d be willing to get up every hour if I had to.

I don’t know if they have sleep schools outside Australia. They are run by the health service and offer a four day program to parents with sleeping problems (because to be honest it’s them that have the problem and not their kids). We checked in on a Monday evening and were put on a wing with three other families. Everyone was polite to each other until about 7pm when the first kid was put to bed. She screamed her head off in a scene that wouldn’t have been out of place in the Exorcist.

Sleep schools are designed to give parents help in teaching their kids to sleep better and to therefore get more sleep themselves. You have to wonder then why they put you on a wing with three other kids. I reckon the four babies got together each day and worked out a crying schedule. Because none of them ever cried at the same time. They didn’t wake each other up but through a coordinated effort kept the parents awake all night.

In addition to keeping everyone awake, the school also ran a number of ‘Educational’ classes including one just for Dads. Four of us went to it and after a nice little chat from the facilitator about how we need to ensure that we hold on to the interests we had before we became Dads, he put up a few talking points on the board “what was it like before we were Dads”, “what were our Dads like” and that sort of thing. I was sitting on the right hand side and presumed he would come to me first, so I started rehearsing a story in my head about going to football matches with my old man and the acting life I had before I became a Father.

But he went to the guy on the left hand side first which meant I would have to go last and could relax. Richard proceeded to tell the group how he didn’t know his Father and therefore couldn’t speak to the first point. He told us he spent his youth in foster homes, started taking drugs when he was twelve and was generally a mess before he became a Dad. He was crazy about his kid but couldn’t live with the child’s mother due to ‘anger’ issues. But nevertheless they were still hoping to get married and have another baby.

We were all busy checking out the laces on our shoes at this point but he wasn’t finished. “Oh I have another kid” he said. “He’s nine and lives in America but I’d not allowed to see him”. The facilitator leaned in and placed a comforting hand on Richard’s knee. “Is his Mother being difficult?” he asked. Richard looked at him blankly and replied “You can’t get a visa to go to America if you have a criminal conviction”.

We finally moved onto Eddie and breathed a sigh of relief. However, it was almost as though Eddie wanted to trump Richard. He started off by telling us about his thirteen year amphetamine addiction before moving on to colourful tales about bi-polorism. In the midst of this, his phone beeped. He apologised and said that it was a reminder to take his mood suppression tablets. As the facilitator and myself exchanged nervous glances, Richard interjected to mention that he had been a heroin addict for seven years and for the next ten minutes he shared stories with Eddie about where to source the best grade A drugs in East Melbourne.

The third guy was a twenty one year old with the mental age of a young dog. He had stumbled into parenthood and his only real contribution was on the subject of bed sharing. His only complaint about being a Dad was that his girlfriend took up 90% of the bed. He reckoned the best thing about being a gay man is that you would get half the bed to sleep in. He also reckoned that this was why lesbians always looked miserable, because two women expecting 90% of the bed wouldn’t work.

He finished by mentioning how he had just joined the army and was looking forward to a posting to Iraq so that he could shoot people.

When it came to my turn to speak, I felt like making up a story about being raised by wolves in the amazon before spending years on the streets of Rio with a gang of seven year old cocaine addicts. My life seemed very dull in comparison to the other guys in the room but I felt very relieved about that.

We ended up by exchanging handshakes and nobody asked for anyone else's mobile numbers. It wasn’t that sort of meeting.

I shuffled back to the wing to listen to the coordinated attempt of four babies to keep a group of parents awake and they succeeded magnificently. I never knew how much I loved sleep until our daughter came along. No doubt in time, she will develop the same love. Probably when I’m trying to get her up for school. Till then I’d be happy if she could just stretch things out a little. 5am was a time of day unknown to me 10 months ago. Now I’m on first name terms and thinking of contacting Richard or Eddie to see if their dealers had any sleeping tablets for babies.