Julie Jay: Getting my toddler to bed is basically Squid Game

Before I had Ted, I’m ashamed to say I would silently judge friends who let their children bring iPads to bed or sleep in their own beds. While I would outwardly say nothing, mentally I would tut at them, having given in so easily. Now, of course, I completely get it. There comes a point when we would all do anything for some kip.

The nights Fred is home are somewhat less arduous because he can do the heavy lifting. No, not the emotional weight of parenting but rather the actual lifting of Ted, who is deceptively heavy. I am convinced he is officially the tallest two-and-a-half-year-old in the world.

“He only wants you,” Fred informs me upon re-entering the sitting room after having spent a good 20 minutes coaxing Ted to codladh.

A cynic would say this is a little convenient for Fred, but the gaping emotional void in me laps it up.

‘Of course, he only wants me,’ I want to respond. ‘I’ve engineered this whole problematic routine so that I am utterly indispensable.’

I trudge upstairs, stopping too often to take a breather (you’d miss bungalow living during the third-trimester heatwave). Sure enough, when I open the door, Ted’s arms are outstretched.

“Mammy, you’re here”, he shrieks with relief, and just as I am about to go in for the hug, I feel a hard plastic item under my chin.

“More bottle, please,” he requests. And so I descend back down to perform my menial bottle-making duties. At the risk of bottle-shaming my son, I’m pretty sure this is our fifth bottle of the night, which given the fact we haven’t even hit the nine o’clock news is too much bottle. Perhaps this is why he is getting harder and harder to lift. The child must be 70% dairy at this point.

Dragging my derrière back up to the bedroom, I am greeted by Ted who has decided to make a fort out of my pillows and decorative cushions. He directs me to lie on my pregnancy pillow and chooses the most long-winded storybook for us to read, involving a rabbit who suffers an injury and, quite frankly, assumes zero accountability for his part in the terrible accident.

“What about, Guess How Much I Love You?” I suggest, purely because I know we can fast forward through a lot of the nutbrown hare action and get this over and done with as soon as possible.

Ted shakes his head, points to his book of choice and momentarily removes the bottle from his mouth.

“Read it,” he says loudly.

His response is more authoritative than adorable and I know he’s not up for negotiation.

Ten minutes later, we are done. I insert an imaginary line where the rabbit says good night to his mammy and goes straight to sleep because I like to editorialise.

Ted being in our bed isn’t as much of a problem as the amalgamation of toys he brings with him. Every rockstar has an entourage, but Ted is fast turning into Mr Gadget with the rubbish I find beneath my spine.

In the last week alone, Ted has snuck binoculars, three dinosaurs, Lego blocks, a disposable camera, a phone charger, craft scissors, a credit card I had reported stolen and a shoehorn into our bed.

Tonight is no exception, and when I finally get him to sleep, I look over to see he is clutching an empty bottle in one hand and a frighteningly large tampon in the other. (‘Were they always that big?’ I ask myself, having not seen one for a while).

Yes, not alone does Ted dislike going to sleep, he is also a child who is quite possibly a bit of a hoarder. The following morning at breakfast, I point to a news story on Donald Trump hoarding official documents as a cautionary tale.

“This is why we don’t hold onto stuff,” I say, as Ted munches his Rice Krispies while wearing scuba goggles (it’s a look).

Of course, every morning I promise myself that tonight will be different. Tonight is the night Ted goes straight to bed. I will finally watch Succession and, even more importantly, I will get to bed at a reasonable hour.

No basking in child-free time for me, no, not a bit of it. Sleep is crucial.

But invariably, every night Ted puts up an admirable fight against bedtime, and every night I postpone Succession to “have an early one”.

By that I mean scrolling through TikTok in bed until the wee hours, exacerbating my feelings of comedic inadequacy.

Ted probably views me as the ultimate hypocrite: telling him to pack in the phone charger and tampon fun and go to sleep, when he knows full well his mother is staying up late googling ‘how to get a mortgage when you’re perpetually overdrawn?’ and ‘what is the population of Abbeyfeale?’.

But progress is coming. Trump is under arrest for crimes against clutter and last night, not to brag, it only took me a mere three hours to get Ted from bath to bed. Supernanny, move over, there’s a new child expert in town.