Surviving A Year Without Sleep

March marks the first birthday of my beautiful second-born son. And in the 365 days since his birth, he has never slept through the night. I blame myself mostly. After all, children don’t come to this planet knowing how to sleep, and it’s up to us to teach them, right?

Well, even though this is my second baby, this is my first “normal” parenting experience. My first was born at 27 weeks, and most of the first year of his life was spent in the hospital (and some of that time was spent under heavy sedation). So for my eldest, Roman, he can sleep through anything.

But when the doctors told me to take my youngest, AJ, home from the hospital 24 hours after he was born, I was beyond a mess of nerves. Yes, it was a totally undramatic birthing experience. In fact, it was my dream birth experience at Baylor Scott and White Centennial in Frisco.

My husband and doula were present throughout my 26-hour labor, and I even had a dream natural delivery that my wonderful doctor, Dr. Ellis, at Boardwalk OB-GYN supported me completely through even though I’d had an emergency C-section with my first.

As I was in active labor, I had my pre-selected blend of essential oils diffusing to keep me focused and happy, and my “push playlist” was queued up and playing via the portable speaker I’d brought. Things were exactly as I wanted it. My delivery with AJ was starkly different than the cold, scary, emergency birth I had with Roman.

Yet still, when I left the hospital, absolute anxiety set it. I was paranoid. Terrified. Sleep was the scariest thing on the planet. Even today I have fleeting thoughts of, “Is he still breathing? Is he still here with us?” And while I’m working through these issues with the help of a counselor and my trusty Owlet monitor, the fact still remains: I’ve never taught my son how to sleep.

So here we are.

One year of broken sleep—of him falling asleep while nursing, me transferring him to his bed and us repeating the cycle at exactly 12:34 am and 3:47 am. Every day. Like clockwork.

Around three months, I broke down in the pediatrician’s office, telling them he wouldn’t sleep through the night. I was sure something was wrong with him or me because my coworker who had a baby a month after me got her kid to sleep through the night, in her own bed, by six weeks old.

Queue more anxiety.

And while our pediatrician offered some solutions to help us sleep train him, ultimately it became a battle of wills that I nor my husband were willing to go through at the time. So we finally accepted that the “no sleep thing” was going to be our reality for a while.

I’m not going to say it hasn’t been stressful. Because he doesn’t sleep, I don’t sleep. And because I don’t sleep…well, let’s just say it’s been hard to show up and be awesome in my work every single day. But there are a few things I’ve learned to embrace in this season of life.

Every moment with my son is a blessing.

With my firstborn’s traumatic and dramatic first year of life, we learned pretty quickly that time with our children is not guaranteed. We saw a lot of kids like my eldest who never made it home from the hospital, and their names and memory are tattooed on my heart.

So when we were blessed to experience the healing that AJ gives my mama heart, I quickly fixed my thinking to accept that every day that he wants to be close to me, that he wants me to love on him and support him is a blessing.

The rest I’m getting is at least enough.

While I’m not getting a ton of sleep (at least, not continuous sleep), I’m learning to embrace that the sleep that I am getting is at least enough to get me through the day. That the rest that I do get when I am able to sleep is restoring my body. And I’m grateful for the sleep that I get.

I haven’t broken my son.

It’s not too late for my son to learn how to sleep. Will it be an easy process? Probably not. But is this sleep thing something that we can overcome — together? I’m confident of it.

This is but a season.

Usually when people say, “They’re only little once!” I want to throw things in response. But at the heart of the issue, the phrase is true. My son will only be this little once…and as he grows, this season will pass.

And eventually, I’ll sleep again. But for now: Happy birthday, AJ.