Noises wake me up, a car engine running too long outside my window (aka looters about to break into my house...<begin creating escape plans while half asleep>) will force me out of bed to investigate, and just all the thoughts that go through my head in a day seem to resurface in those precious hours of rest. I am a light sleeper and I have been this way for my whole life. What I didn't realize was that becoming a mother would add a whole new dimension to this lack of sleep.
Let me be honest, I am not a woman who loves every second of being pregnant. I'm going to tell you I appreciated the miracle God has given women in the fact that from a few cells, an ENTIRE human is made. What I didn't appreciate was the uncomfortable positions this little person could push their way into the smallest recesses of my midsection. I also didn't appreciate that I could no longer sleep on my belly, which I had been doing for the 28 previous years. This was stage one of feeling tired ALL the time!
Then the baby arrives and as Amy Poehler so honestly puts it in her book Yes Please!, "you so afraid that they are going to die that you stay up and jump up at any slight noise." Add to that that I breast fed, and had to do that every two hours, while it takes me a good 45 minutes to return to sleep, and you do the math. I've been sleep deprived since 2010!
I thought when my kids slept through the night this would change. I would go back to feeling not tired, but that's not true. I think I remember reading studies during those blurry first years of mommyhood about sleep deprivation and how it just keeps banking up and you have to have days where you play catch up. Apparently I never slept when the baby slept because (1.) I did want some laundry clean and (2.) I went back to work. My children have seemed to recover nicely from their erratic sleep and yes, they sleep through the night, but they are non-stop during the day.
What was also never stated in the books is that you don't get to choose your own bedtime. My children choose my bedtime. We have a set schedule, every night starting at 8pm, but my children are masterminds of prolonging the inevitable. Last night, Brad started the routine which usually means that he puts them to bed in their room, but at 10pm they were both laying in bed with me while Brad snoozed in their bedroom. We play musical beds nightly, and apparently I'm just a participant, I don't run the game!
Gone are the days when I would come home from work and peruse the internet for a little while and then flip over to an evening show or two before deciding I was tired and needed to go to bed. My nights are now filled with laughter, fighting, at least one sword fight a night (we don't even need a sword in the house, this still happens). I love our nights and really try to appreciate these little years, but honestly, I miss those days every so often where I wasn't responsible for another wonderful little person.
Most nights end with my little one talking his non-sensical, stream-of-conscience babble while I drift slowly into an uncomfortable sleep. Inevitably I wake up 2 hours later in some weird contortion between 2 children and feel like I had a great nap! This is when I can't get back to sleep and I usually watch all of the Bravo TV shows I can't watch while my kids are awake. Of course, I do get tired at some point, usually around an hour or two before I have to be awake. Then I spend 30 minutes thinking about how little time I have to fall asleep and get any semblance of a decent night's sleep.
Some of my sweet friends with grown children have told me it will only be 18 years of this sleep deprivation! I would like to say, "Please do not say this to my slightly on the fritz mind as it is already sleep deprived and really could snap in seconds!" I start thinking about those days so far ahead, but then I feel guilty for wishing these exhausting years away. So what is the answer? I'm not really sure. I feel good when I'm rested but that doesn't happen all that often. I want to be a person that can live in the moment without wishing it away, which is hard to do when all I really want to do is sit on the couch and perhaps take a snooze.
I'm becoming more creative. I now know that I can lay on the couch and turn a video on and get a twenty minute nap in every once in a while. I still wake up to little bodies using me as their target as they cannonball off the upper portion of the couch. There are times I try to go to bed early on the nights it is not my turn to put the kids to bed, but there always is another "I love you" that needs to be said or a hug that needs to be given, which I don't mind at all. I have relinquished that fact that I will not feel well-rested in any month in the new year. And maybe that's where I need to redirect my thoughts and realize that it's my problem and not my kids' problem. I don't have to be with my children every waking moment that I'm not working. I am trying to encourage independent, non-reckless play and I say lots of prayers that these two things will happen. I need to ask for some time for myself, because there will never be time if I always put everyone else's needs first. I can't keep making judgements about myself based on this mommy group I've created in my head who watches everything I do and sneers at how I'm raising my kids.
I need to take a shot at a nap when available and trust that I will not wake up with markers on the walls or a new make-over via my boys. Or I just embrace it if that happens, that's why we buy washable markers (or I'll trudge on over to Pinterest for a solution). With all that said, I'm not sure I'm going to ever be well-rested, but I do know that I'm going try to be better about taking care of myself. I'm even thinking about starting a business called MWNN-"Moms Who Need Naps" and all the employees get 2 short naps a day, required. I'm pretty sure I'd pay good money for that! Who's in?
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