For the Sleep-Deprived Parent
Confession: my almost-two-year-old still doesn’t sleep through the night.
And yes. Her nighttime wake-ups are the bane of my existence.
If you have [had] one of these nocturnal creatures, too? Well then, welcome friend. Pull up a chair and allow me to pour you something with a lot of caffeine in it.
If you are one of those people who has not had a nighttime wanderer of toddler age blasting unceremoniously into your bedroom so that the door hits the wall behind it with a loud bang between midnight and four a.m. for years on end, and you are wondering to yourself why I haven’t been successful at sleep training, I might have to ask you to leave. So squelch those thoughts.
Because, this girl? She is headstrong. And I do not have the will she has. I am thirty-eight and frazzled with motherhood. Drained. Fried. Spent. Wiped out. I’m not a perky just-post-college girl who is used to sleeping four hours a night. I need rest to handle this parenting gig.
Oh, and for the record, I tried sleep training. Not once. Not twice. More times than my perpetually sleep-deprived brain can remember. I read all the sleep books. Tried all the suggestions. And then I gave up, reconciled to the fact that this child does not fit into any paradigm outlined in any book in any language that was ever in print. Period.
Yes, she is mine. My Most Precious Person, I call her. And I love her with every fiber of my being. But still. Her sleep habits are killing me.
Why is she not in a crib, you ask? Wouldn’t that stop the blasting into the bedroom? Well, let me tell you. She used to scream bloody murder for an hour at bedtime. Just stand there, holding onto the rail with the tears and snot streaming down, wailing at the top of her lungs. We literally could not outlast her.
Until I had the brilliant notion to take the bars off her prison cell, which turned bedtime into all sweetness and roses.
Peace, people. It’s about getting and keeping peace.
And yes, we are the adults and we are supposedly in charge. But. We know better, don’t we? Yes, us with the toddlers who ought to wear pajamas inscribed with the word “Boss.” We know who is really in control. And it is not us. Not in the middle of the night, anyway.
And now. Now she is wearing these boots that keep her from getting out of bed and blasting into our bedroom. I should be thanking Heaven, right? Well. No.
Yes, I am thankful with everything that is in me that bedtime is still peaceful. Even with the boots. But boots don’t mean she doesn’t wake. They just mean she doesn’t walk.
Last night? Let me tell you about last night. Let me describe the sudden waking to shrill screams of “Maaaamaaaaa!” that set my heart racing. How I sprang out of bed to rush to her room. How she was all ferociousness and tears at being trapped in her bed and I had to wake enough to calm and soothe and wipe tears and tuck in blankets and wait. Wait. For her to breathe even and deep. And then tiptoe back to my own bed and climb in and still my racing mind so I could sleep again.
How this happened three times.
How the third time, she demanded I get my pillow and a blanket and lie down on the floor next to her bed and she would accept nothing less because how dare I go back to my own bed and sleep there, where I belong.
Her bedroom floor and my bed. There is no comparison. I’m just saying.
One night out of every fifteen or so, she sleeps through the night without a sound, and we wake up to the light of day and marvel at the miracle. The miracle that always comes just when we are at the very end of our parental ropes.
We used to wonder on those blessed mornings. Wonder if it was the start of that ethereal thing. That Sleeping Through the Night thing people talk about. For her. For us.
We don’t wonder that anymore. We don’t dare.
We just do what we have to. And drink caffeine. And dream of more sleep. Because this is what parents do. Dream of sleep and pray for grace enough to cover the lack.
Friends, I have no advice for you. No tips. No tricks. I am not even going to try. But I have empathy in spades. As much as you can take. Solidarity, right here.
Have some more caffeine. Have some chocolate. You deserve it.
