A local mum has reached her destination, only to find that her two typically sleep-resistant children are snoozing soundly in the back.
Local mum of two (Zoe, 3 and Aidan, 9 months), Rachel Matthews, had spent an exhausting morning attempting “Gentle Parenting”. Gentle Parenting doesn’t involve yelling bribery or punishment and is made to sound as easier than a bride on her wedding night. Practical mothers everywhere, however, are learning the hard way that the new-age parenting method is actually the equivalent of negotiating with a terrorist who doesn’t speak English and has a penchant for throwing tantrums over being handed the wrong coloured fork.
Rachel’s morning had begun, as suggested by the childless experts, with softly-spoken requests, outfit choices and reminders that time to get dressed would soon be up. It had ended, however, with Rachel attempting to wrestle her daughter into her seatbelt, as Zoe feigned rigamortis, and they both screamed at levels that were upsetting the neighbours’ cats.
In spite of having been bounced more than Michael Jordan’s basketball, Aidan had skipped his morning nap too.
“By the time we got in the car, I was just thrilled to listen to anything other than white noise and whining for the ten minutes drive until we made it to Playgroup, where I’d finally be able to unload with some adults while the kids played.”
Upon arriving at the Gymea Playgroup though, Rachel turned to find both kids soundly sleeping.
“For fucks sake” She said for the first time that day, if you don’t count the 15 times she muttered it under her breath while getting the kids ready.
She pulled the car over and whipped her phone out at superhuman speed, “These kids have a sixth sense for inconvenient nap-times.”
In related news, a recent research report from Mustbeetroo University has revealed that kids, in fact, do have more than a knack for napping at the worst possible moment.
300 families in the Sutherland Shire recently took part in the Mustbeetroo study and were required to record the circumstances surrounding the timing of the naps of all children 4 and under.
A whopping 45% of all participants’ children routinely fell asleep in the car within 35 seconds of arriving at their planned destination. This number increased to 75% if the occasion was a time-sensitive one including school drop-offs, specialist appointments, and at any point where the child had to be inconveniently woken.
Head of the study, Dr Madeup told The MOTS Mail the findings suggest that “The brain, though very undeveloped in infants, seems to be acutely aware of when to fall asleep to most inconvenience the people around them.”
“Moreover, babies and younger children have a heightened awareness of when to over-sleep. Popular times for this appear to be mornings on which they attend daycare, late afternoons that are likely to mess up the evening and generally any time parents are relying on them to stick to their usual routine to coordinate plans with other people.”
The reverse-effect of this unique gift is that the brain is also triggered to wake up at inopportune times. 30% of mothers said their babies have woken up wanting to be breastfed immediately after they consumed an alcoholic beverage, while 95% say that their child has been triggered to wake up immediately after they’d gone to bed, or in the middle of the night.
When The MOTS Mail relayed these findings to Rachel, she was unsurprised.
“Are we done here?” She said glancing back at her still sleeping children “I’d really like to try and get an episode of Virgin River in before they wake up…”
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