The Years of No Sleep

I thought the universe and I made a pact that if we had this baby, he’d be a real good sleeper.

You know.

The kind of baby that comes home from the hospital and is like, “Y’know what? I’ll sleep through the night. No props, no bells, no whistles necessary. I’ll just sleep through the night because you really went through it with my brother. So, I’ll make it easy on you.”

I THOUGHT THE UNIVERSE WAS GOING TO BE COOL LIKE THAT.

But here we are.

And dare I say…

…that it feels harder with this one?

Not just because we have a 3-year old at home too.

But in other ways.

Like it used to be that as long as I could pick Ishu up, he’d be comforted with our presence.

But this kid is IN our bed already. He’s BREATHING THE SAME MOLECULES AS ME.

BEING NURSED ON DEMAND.

And it is still a struggle.

(Disclaimer: I’m not looking for advice. I’m just ranting a little bit because last night felt especially hard. I can assure you I don’t need to hear a list of things I could be doing to make it better).

My therapist has said it best.

“Can we just acknowledge that babies are babies? You’re not DOING anything or NOT doing anything to make him this way.”

I think that’s what I need to hear.

That’s what feels right to me.

Because I have done this rodeo with Ishu before.

Where I tried to replicate all the good days in hopes that we’d get the same outcome at night.

Where I tried to buy every sleep product under the sun because I thought it’d be the solution.

Where I questioned what part of our day went wrong to lead me here – once again – up at 2am. And then 3am. And then 3:15am.

I did this already.

I am not doing this again.

The thing that is bringing me solace on these sleepless nights is that I’ve got a 3-year old sleeping in his own bed in his own room. All night long.

He knows where we are if he needs us. He knows we’d come – in a heartbeat – if he called. But, mostly, he just sleeps through the night.

And so, the universe didn’t give us one of those unicorn babies that somehow want to sleep all night long.

But that’s OK.

He’ll figure it out.

His brother did.

We will all get sleep again.

And, some day, when I’m banging on their bedroom doors at 11am on a Sunday telling them to WAKE UP ONCE AND FOR ALL, I will laugh as I remember these early years of their life.