for the sleep-deprived mother

For the past six and a half years, since I very first became a mother, it seems that issues related to sleep have consumed our household.

A tiny fraction of my sleepless nights have been due to my own sleep issues related to pregnancy and weird nursing hormones and the odd night filled with anxiety here and there. A tiny fraction, mind you, belongs to adults in the house.

The vast majority of the sleep issues are entirely the fault of one or more children who live under this roof. The child who decides that sleep is simply not something he feels like doing at midnight, or 3am, or some number of horrid hours in between. The child who feels that crying for insane amounts of time is preferable. The child who incorrectly assumes that throwing an angry fit will give me some compassion and allow her to stay awake. Or perhaps the child who finds that coming into my bed to talk to me and poke me all night and play with my hair is a much more entertaining option.

Besides creating a general state of exhaustion, it creates a persona of self-doubt. A sentiment perpetuated by other mothers who love to talk about how well their own child is sleeping.  As if getting a baby to sleep through the night by 6-weeks, or 12-weeks, or even 20-weeks-old has somehow granted them a pass into the Excellent Mother Club.

What am I doing wrong? And why is it that other people's children are the same ones who sleep through the night AND take long 4 hour naps every afternoon? Isn't there some kind of sleep fairness rule that says if the child (and mother) doesn't get enough sleep at night that he should make up for it during the day?

Let me tell you that I have read a LOT of books on getting children to sleep and I have tried a lot of different methods. I have even gone to such desperate measures as climbing into my child's crib to get him to go back to sleep. You might think that is part of the problem, and you might be right. But when everything else has been tried to no avail then climbing into the crib actually seems like a great option. I will spare you the trial, however, because it doesn't work either.

Whether the problem is middle of the night wakings, or dreadfully short naps, or a child who loves dawn patrol, my children have never been great sleepers. In issues related to parenting, I have probably cried out to God more times asking for sleep than I have for anything else. Lord please let the baby sleep for more than 45 minutes this time! I don't think I will make it through my day if I don't get some rest!

He rarely answers the way I want Him to.

In one of my sleep-desperate days, I stumbled upon Psalm 127 which says:

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat - 

for the Lord grants sleep to those He loves. 
Psalm 127:2

To whom will He grant sleep? 
To those He loves. Me. You. Sleep-deprived mothers everywhere. Especially the ones who have been awake at odd hours of the night caring for the precious children that have been entrusted to them.

He will grant sleep to the mother who spent the majority of the night rocking a sick baby. The mother who held her daughter's hair back while she vomited over and over again until the virus passed. The mother who can't bear to let her child "cry-it-out". The mother who is so consumed with love for her child that she must arise to check on him. The mother who returns throughout the night to quell a cough, or a fever, or a simple lonely cry. The mother who knows she is the earthly caretaker of this little love and puts his needs above her own.

The Lord grants sleep to those He loves. When I cry out to God for the gift of sleep, He often answers me not with more hours of rest, but with more ounces of strength.

I have learned that God made women incredibly capable. Somehow all of that laboring children into the world and spending months of sleepless nights with newborns only makes us stronger. As we lean on Him, we are stronger still.

In that, comes the knowledge that He will always give us the strength to do what He asks us to do.

He asked me to raise three children who have some kind of terrible sleeping gene. In turn, He gives me the strength to do it.

The strength is given one tiny miracle at a time. Sometimes the miracle is in the minutes of sleep. Sometimes it is in the husband who says "Go take a nap while I watch them." Sometimes the miracle is a show on television.

I will always feel that this psalm was written specifically for the generations of mothers plagued by sleep issues. The next verse says it all:

In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat -
for the Lord grants sleep to those He loves.

Children are a heritage from the Lord, 

offspring a reward from Him.

Psalm 127:2,3

Besides being an ever-present source of enervation, children are a heritage, a reward, a gift.  In sleeplessness, we are challenged to depend more upon God for our strength.  All of the ways that we grow to be a little more Christ-like end up being part of the reward.

Take heart, exhausted friend! You are not alone in this journey. The Lord knows exactly what you need to make it through today. Indeed, He grants sleep to those He loves.