Sami’s sleep struggle

Show me a well-rested new parent and I’ll show you a liar. Like many people, Madeleine Sami, writerdirector and star of The Breaker Upperers and co-host of The

Great Kiwi Bake Off, balances work with being a mum to a toddler and often that means running on very little shut-eye.

‘‘[My sleep patterns have] changed a bit since I’ve had a baby, because you tend to kind of fall asleep whenever you can.

But in general, yeah, I’m a terrible, terrible sleeper. And it really annoys me,’’ she says.

Sami admits she frequently struggles with sleep – and it has a big impact on her day-to-day life. ‘‘I love sleep. I wish I could have more of it,’’ she says.

‘‘I’ve never been a huge sleeper. I’ve always been a sort of put my head down, get into bed, and [then] I feel like I’m awake and I can be up for hours. And my mind is going. I often do a lot of work at night, often write through the night.’’

Sami and partner Pip Brown (musician Ladyhawke) are mums to daughter Billie Jean and having a toddler means changing the way you do things.

‘‘I helped a friend with a couple of scripts earlier in the year. It was when Billie Jean was really young and I was like, ‘when am I going to do this?’ ’’ she says.

‘‘And I’d fall asleep – 8.30pm maybe with Billie Jean, if I’d been up the night before – and wake up at four in the morning and write for a few hours and then go back to sleep.’’

Sami says she has always struggled with sleep – even after nights out in her 20s, she would be the first awake, just waiting for other people to get out of bed.

Now a little older, the struggle is getting to sleep in the first place. Running on what she thinks is an average of about six hours a night, the sleep deprivation is a massive frustration.

‘‘You feel like you’ve had a big full night of sleep – and it’s three in the morning. You know, like I wake up and I go, ‘I really feel like I’ve had a big sleep’. And it’s so weird and I’m so annoyed.

But, you know, then you just have to kind of get up.’’

Tailoring her work day to her sleeping patterns means she doesn’t feel like she is wasting the hours she should be asleep, but Sami certainly tries to ensure she gets as much sleep as possible.

She has tools she can call on to help her try to get a good night’s sleep. She says ‘‘exhausting’’ herself with exercise can help her get to sleep more easily, although she knows she will probably still wake up earlier than everyone else. Sami also has a sleep machine, that plays white noise in the form of rain or the sound of the ocean, which has improved her sleeping a little.

She got the machine while living in a noisy apartment building in LA where ‘‘it sounded like the people upstairs are on drugs and dropping weights all night’’.

‘‘So we just did it to drown out the sound. That was probably the worst I ever slept in my whole life. So I bought the machine to see if that would help. It sort of has helped. We use it for my daughter as well. I feel like it keeps her asleep a bit longer.’’

When the exercise and white noise machines don’t work though, Sami still experiences bouts of disrupted sleep. She says while the tiredness that follows is tough, in the moment, when it’s dark and she’s wide awake, it’s the sense of isolation that is difficult.

‘‘That’s the lonely thing sometimes. Especially if you’re reading, or if you’re on the internet and you discover something you want to have a chat about. That’s the lonely bit. And you have to wait at least two or three hours before you can be like, ‘hey, I just learnt this amazing fact’.’’ – Bridget Jones