I have not had many uninterrupted night sleeps in over 14 months. Three weeks before Miller was born, Tom got a new job that required him to be in Roanoke,VA four days a week. This meant that I was a single mom for five nights per week. Tom would leave around dinner time on Sunday and not return until late Thursday night. I was a single mom with a new born, a three-year-old and a five-year-old. Some one is always awake through out the night. It isn’t as bad as it used to be now that Miller is sleeping through the night, but the other two are always waking up at some point.

My typical night is as follows: I put Miller to sleep at 7:00, then read and get the other two in bed by 8:30. Then I have a drink, watch TV, and relax until 10:00 pm. I sleep until Faith creeps into my room somewhere around 3:00 am. She wakes me up, sniffs and snorts until I make her blow her nose, and then we fall asleep. Miller is awake around 5:30am and I can usually feed him and get him back to sleep. I finally fall back asleep by 6:00, but then Wilson is up for the day around 6:30am. So essentially, I get to sleep until 3:00am.  Then I am up and down until I get kicked out of bed by Wilson. It is exhausting!

I have been worrying lately that I am loosing my mind. I forget everything! I have to set a timer when I boil water because I forget that I have turned on the stove. I find that I can’t think of the right word to use in a sentence. My brain is mush! I looked up “sleep deprevation” and it said that “cronic sleep deprevation” is sleeplessness that occurs for more than a three month period. It said that getting only 1.5 hours of less sleep in one night can affect your ability to perform by almost 30%!  My goodness! Multiply that over 14 months of being woken up at least once per night….typically twice. It is no wonder that I can’t think, am always tired, and forget everything. I need sleep!

The other night when Tom was home, I knew that Faith would be sleeping in her tent in the office upstairs (strange, I know). I decided that I was going to go downstairs to her bed so that no one could wake me up that night. It worked. Of course, I woke up with Wilson at 6:30am, but at least I slept for 8 straight hours. The next night Tom and I locked our bedroom door so that no one could get in. (It only worked for the first time that Faith woke up to come in). Last night I fell asleep at 9:00pm, Wilson crawled in bed with me around midnight (which wasn’t too bad), but then Faith came in at 3:00am. I sent her back to her room, fell back asleep and was up with Miller at 5:00am.  I decided to just stay awake….seemed silly to go back to bed at that point.  Tom keeps telling me that I am malnourished, but in reality, I am just sleep deprived.

I figure that in another four years or so I will be able to sleep through the night. By then, the kids will be old enough and will stop crawling in bed with me every night…..I hope.