Sleep is for Babies.

Last night I asked Ben to tell me I’m doing a good job. Just in general. At life. You know, a simple question. Except, that’s not really how I said it. Instead I said, “I know I’ve gotten a little crazy lately, but considering I haven’t had a consistent night’s sleep in over ten years now, I’m doing pretty well, right?... RIGHT?!”

And Ben responded by telling me that I am, in fact, getting a little crazy lately. Except, that’s not really how he said it, either. Instead he said, “We really need to figure out how to get you some sleep.”

There is very little that we can rely on around here. Very little that is consistent. However, one thing we can be pretty darn sure of, every single night, is that I’m going to sleep like crap.

When Will was born, I knew I wouldn’t sleep much… for a while. I did not, however, anticipate him still waking up in a panic in the middle of the night- every night- ten years later. Yet, here we are.

Now before you start to wonder what I did or did not do to lead us to this hellish place of nocturnal frustration, let me just answer that for you. Did I make mistakes when Will was a baby? Of course I did. I probably made ALL the mistakes. And, if I had a baby right now would I do things differently?

No clue, actually. Probably not. Because having a baby is just an enormous game of trial and error. You go with your instincts, you do the best you can, and sometimes you get it right the first time and sometimes you don’t. And you have to keep working on it… for ten years.

But let me be clear, the mistakes I made are the same mistakes millions of moms make. And yet, their kids sleep now and mine does not. My child was predisposed to poor sleep habits and my efforts probably made that worse. But my maternal instincts are not THE reason my child cannot stay asleep at night.

Don’t believe me?

Will was born at the end of November. Five weeks later, on Christmas Eve, I remember sitting in my mom and dad’s house nursing him and thinking, “Is this normal?” Because he just didn’t settle in. He never stopped moving. He wasn’t unhappy, he just was never still. Never totally content.

He went to sleep when he was tired but he couldn’t stay asleep. His little legs never stopped pumping. We would hold him and he would just wiggle. And squirm. And bounce. And bop.

And at five-weeks-old, it was already abundantly clear to me that he was born with a defective off-button. Or maybe that kind of deficit thinking isn’t fair. Maybe it’s better to say he was clearly born with a super powerful on-button that had the tendency to get stuck when it was activated. And five-weeks-old was way too early in his little life for me to have ALREADY screwed him up.

And so, here we are.

When the topic of sleep comes up in adult conversation, I always prepare myself for the have-you-ever-tried-this line of questioning that inevitably follows. And it doesn’t bother me, because everyone’s intentions are to simply help. And I always take it in because eventually we’ll figure out whatever it is that he needs and isn’t getting.

But the truth is, I can confidently say, “Yes… we’ve tried that,” before I even let you finish your suggestion. Because I know we’ve tried it. We’ve tried oils and baths and rubs and pills and supplements and blankets and lights and sounds and even surgery. For his gigantic tonsils. That we were CONVINCED was the issue, since nothing else was turning out to be.

And all have helped in some way, or for some amount of time. But the thing that is missing remains a mystery. And because he goes to sleep very early at night (mostly out of Ben and my need for him to go to bed, and less out of his need), and because we work hard throughout the night to keep him sleeping or to get him back to sleep, the kid sleeps about the recommended amount of time for his age.

But I do not. And it’s misery. I sleep restlessly for the first half of the night knowing that he’s going to be calling out for me at any time. And then I’m awake for a while after it happens and I have finally gotten him back to sleep. And yet, I’m oddly used to it. And I feel like, overall, I’m functioning fine.

Every once in a while, it hits me like a wall and I say stupid things like, “Why am I so tired right now?” and then “TEN YEARS OF NO SLEEP” flashes in my brain like a neon sign. You know. The kind of sign that would keep you awake. If you were asleep.

But this is motherhood. And, oddly enough, some good things have come from being awake in the middle of the night. Some of my most creative teaching ideas have come to me at this time. And it’s allowed me time in my day to watch every single episode of Bridezillas to ever exist.

And it’s led to me perfecting my morning caffeine routine (which is simply to steadily consume coffee until I have flu-like symptoms, then back off until symptoms subside, and then dive right back into the coffee, in case you’re wondering). And I now know how to do my hair and make-up in under ten minutes when I hit the snooze button three-too-many times in the morning before work.

And, no words can express how sweet some of the moments between Will and I have been when he’s searching for a little bit of reassurance in the moonlit room and he finds it by holding my hand as he drifts off comfortably into dreams again.

While those silver linings may not necessarily make the sleepless nights worth it, they certainly make them a little better.

True to form, I’m writing these final paragraphs in the middle of the night. And as I’m lying here, I’m realizing that after 10 years of trying to figure out “Will’s sleep problems, it’s probably not fair to think of them as his alone. At least, not any longer. The health and wellbeing of each member in our family impacts and affects everyone else’s.

Yes. Even Evie’s.

This seems like one of those super small, but potentially important “shifts” in one’s point of few that hit us all from time to time. Usually in the middle of the night.

Which brings me back to my conversation with Ben last night. I was worried that maybe the question wasn’t actually that simple. But maybe it is simple. It’s just the wrong question. Instead, perhaps I should ask, ““I know we’ve gotten a little crazy lately, but considering we haven’t had a consistent night’s sleep in over ten years now, we’re doing pretty well, right?... RIGHT?!”

Here in the soon-to-be-dawn dark, that FEELS like a different question. At least to me. Questions always have answers. So it makes sense then, that if you want the right answer, you need to ask the right question. Right?

I’d ask this new question of Ben right now to find out. But he’s sleeping.