There are plenty of articles out about the correlation between getting enough sleep and successful weight loss. Just google ‘weight loss + sleep’ and see for yourself. Why is sleep so important? Maybe it’s simple: maybe people who are sleep deprived need to drink more high calorie caffeinated beverages and eat more donuts at meetings to keep themselves from falling asleep. Or it may be more complicated: is there some link between metabolism and REM sleep? Whatever the reason, it seems experts agree that sleep is a vital component of a healthy lifestyle.
Unfortunately for me, a healthy amount of sleep remains ever elusive. My sleep deprivation is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a mystery. I know the exact cause. Well, causes. There are two. I fondly refer to them as Allison and Nicole, and when I am not feeling so fond, I refer to them as Alarm Clocks One and Two (AC1/2).
It’s not that I had perfect sleep habits before having children. In high school, I got up at 5 am for jazz band and often didn’t get home again until after 10 pm. In college, I got in the habit of staying up until 3 am and waking up at 7:50 for my 8 am calculus class. But I was young and invincible; I had weekends and summer vacations to catch up on sleep.
After Chris and I were married, we seemed to have copious amounts of sleep. We were on a pretty regular schedule during the week, and weekends were for sleeping in, lazing around watching Smallville, and squeezing in afternoon naps. We scheduled the odd vacation or two where we had even more time for sleep. Like our first anniversary trip to Bull Shoals Lake in Arkansas. We were so well rested we had time for various other activities, which resulted in Allison nine months later and the end of sleep as we knew it.
Allison has many charming attributes, but ‘good sleeper’ has never been among them. I blame myself to some extent. I had little experience with babies, and I honestly didn’t realize you had to teach babies to sleep. I figured Allie would just fall asleep on her own if she was tired, like I did. She was over a year by the time I got her on a regular nap schedule, and though we had weaned her from night feedings by 9 months, she was still waking up multiple times a night by 18 months. I remember waking up to her wails, stumbling into her room, and patting her back, willing her to go back to sleep. I’d slowly remove my hand and count to one hundred before attempting to creep out of her room. Sadly, by this time in my life, my knees had started to pop. More often than not my creaking joints would wake her when I tried to leave, and I’d have to start all over again.
Chris eventually convinced me to let her work it out on her own at night, which led to a brief interval of good nights for all. We were so giddy from being well rested that we decided to have another child. Of course, a baby on the way meant that it was time to move Allison out of her crib: a move that would seemingly squash all hope of a full night of sleep. Ever. Again.
Because it is virtually impossible to force a child to stay in her ‘big girl’ bed. You can the lock the door (believe me, we’ve tried), but you can’t control what she chooses to do behind that locked door. And AC1 rarely chooses to sleep. Besides, once you’ve started potty training, a child without an exit plan is the last thing you want.
Which brings me to the situation we are facing now. Allie gets up anywhere from one to four times every night. The list of reasons she gives for being out of bed is long and varied: “I need to go potty.”
“I ran out of water.”
“Will you please sit on my bed?”
“Something is wrong with my blanket!”
“I need a glass of milk.”
“I fell out of bed”
And my personal favorite, “Mommy, may I please have a hug?”
And that’s just during the hours that it remains dark. As soon as it’s light outside, we face a multitude of other bedroom visits: “Mommy, it’s light outside, it is time to get up!”
“Mommy, is it morning yet?”
“Mommy, now is it morning?”
“Mommy, I think it’s morning.”
We solved these issues to some extent by insisting that she stay in her room until 7 am. If she wakes up before then, she has quiet time in her room. It’s not fool proof. Most mornings, we spend more time asking Allie to go back to her room than actually sleeping, but at least we are still lying in bed. Exactly at seven, our favorite little early bird is back in our room: “Mommy, it is seven now. My clock has a seven on it, and I see yours does too. That means it’s time to get up. Get up, Mommy. Get up!!” At least she is cheerful.
Nicole has been a much better sleeper so far. She gets up at most once a night, and she just eats and goes back to sleep. She has been known to sleep in until 9 am, and is rarely up before 7. But between Nicole’s once nightly wake up call and Allie’s 3 or 4 nightly visitations, there is not a whole lot of sleeping going on in our household. Which makes me hope that, at least for now, a healthy diet and exercise routine is enough. Maybe there will be time for sleep in eighteen
years...
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