Barely awake I look at the alarm clock. Oh no! I shouldn’t have done that. Half past one. Only half past one. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last time I will have to wake up tonight. I no longer count the number of times I’m waking up. But it should be clear that it is way too often. And otherwise it is apparent from the bags under my eyes.


Nightmares
When I was pregnant with my eldest child, my biggest fear was how am I going to survive those interrupted nights? Me, who always desperately needed my sleep. I always enjoyed going out at night to party but was equally happy and content to stay at home for a quiet evening, to read a book or go to bed early – pretty much a homebody. I was very ready for that baby, no fear of giving birth at all, but I did have a lot of nightmares about not getting enough sleep.
A piece of cake
And then she arrived, our eldest, and I was so proud. That goes without saying. But above all, because she woke up only once at the age of one month. She allowed us to sleep at night. I even enjoyed the feeding at night. She was so calm and peaceful. Our little girl, who seemed to be in a hurry to grow and develop. Who, relying completely on me and my milk, immediately fell back asleep and allowed us to put her back to bed. Well in fact, I am painting an overly rosy picture here. In fact it was even twice. And sometimes putting her to bed was not all that easy. But still.
Think again
And then the two times turned into three times. Or four times. And so we just muddled on. Sometimes things went better, then worse. Periods when she was awake for two hours at night. Driving us crazy. But I was sure it would all work out in the end.
And here we are… more than six years later and never slept through a night. At least, our eldest has by now. But then two more followed. And they seamlessly fell into the same pattern of not sleeping through the night. Indeed. And nothing helped. Or at least not in the category of tricks I’m comfortable with. Because I had a gut reaction against many sleep training formats. And that’s how we’ve been sleeping downright lousy for six years, and now with this third child again for another year. When our second child arrived, I decided to make it easy for myself. I took him to bed with me and then just pretended I didn’t wake up structurally every two hours. And the third one (“oh, that’ll be so easy, you will just take it in your stride”) just cheerfully added his share. No, we clearly did not pass on any sleep genes.
We will persevere
And yet, I am still standing, I am still functioning, I am still working. And it turns out that I can cope quite well with the situation, with (too) little sleep. Or with an occasional lack of energy. But apart from the fact that as a mother I am not insecure by nature (another funny discovery, because my gosh, I was such a worry pot before I had children), the whole sleeping thing keeps nagging me every so often. As happy as I am for friends whose little darlings sleep easily and solidly at 6, 12 or 20 weeks, every now and then I wonder: why not ours? What are we doing wrong?
What now?
They are now six, four and one year old respectively. The world’s sweetest children. Obviously. During the day. And at night I keep my eyes closed as much as possible, latch my precious little darling onto the other breast and keep hoping that she will eventually almost sleep through the entire night. It can’t take all that long, can it?