9 Reasons Moms Can Only Hope "We'll sleep when we're dead"

When they say “a baby changes everything”, they mean everything, from your body to your brain and even your relationships.  While the stretch marks fade, the “mom-brain” lessens and the Daddy finally realizes it’s just easier to do it all mommy’s way, there’s a change so prolific its effects last for years. And years.  And more years.  It’s the relationship with  your pillow.

I expected, like most, the sleepless nights with a nursing infant, the predictable awakenings of the toddler years, even the random bad dream or “I’m sick” snooze wrecker here and there, but not the near decade of substandard sleep I’ve endured since my first was born.   While the rest of the world REMs away, I am the nocturnal creature stumbling about the darkness herding children back to their beds with water, reassurance, new sheets or a puke bowl.

So I offer you 9 reasons Mommy can’t sleep.

1.  Moms sleep like a baby.  Let’s be real here, babies are crappy sleepers.  Sure, when they’re out, they’re out, but it never lasts long and grown up brains don’t really function on a two hours down, one hour up sleep pattern.  The result is actually sleeping like a baby, falling asleep on our lunch, at the computer or even while folding laundry.  I remember being so tired I actually felt nauseous.  I’ve put the milk in the cupboard and the cereal in the fridge. The only upside was that when my kids were babies, I never had trouble falling asleep at night 
2. Rotten Little Deal Breakers! After a few months, my tiny kids and I were able to strike an agreement – I fed them at 11PM with the understanding that they would then sleep until 4 or 5AM.  We were both happy, or so I thought, and the arrangement worked for weeks.   Then one night I hear rustling and a whimper at 2AM.  What the hell!  We had a deal! As I tried to console their desperate cries, my sleep deprived mind takes a journey through an emotional jungle – from concern and confusion (What. About. The. Deal?!) to “Why are you ruining my life, child!?” until we’re both crying until we fall back asleep.  In the light of day you notice the new tooth or that their 9 month pants are now suddenly an inch too short and it makes sense. Luckily within a few nights the deals back on, for now.
3. . Night Ninja  Once the kiddos start sleeping through the night (or so you tell people, it’s never actually through the night, most nights).  Of course, I have the quantity disadvantage – even if it’s just one kid waking up once a week, with four kids it’s still 4 nights of crappy sleep.   So you try to prevent the waking and to do so you develop Night Ninja skills.  Let’s set the scene:  its 4AM and the youngest wakes to a dark and eerily quiet house and panics, wouldn’t you?  As a mom, I can miraculously sleep through the snoring next to me, but my supersonic ears perk up to hear the telltale rustle of the waterproof mattress pad, the littlest baby moan or the PLINKO sound of the pacifier bouncing down the crib bars to the floor.  Like a ninja I slide out of bed, avoiding squeaky floor boards and knowing instinctively where the paci dropped, finding it by feel and returning it to the fussing baby without him even knowing I was there.  The ninja maneuvers are especially crucial for someone as nearsighted as I am.  My crappy vision puts me past the threshold for being legally blind and wasting time feeling for my glasses before “Operation Paci Retrieval” is the difference between a whimper and all out house waking wail.
4.  Sleep, the Musical  If you miss the whine to wail window, you’re in their room for the long haul, but that’s nothing a little choreography can’t fix.  One and two and three and four – five and six and seven and eight, rock-rock-rock, lay down slowly, three and four and butt pat, butt pat, butt pat, drop to floor, five and six and seven and army crawl, two and three, watch that floorboard, seven and eight.  Slide into bed … and sleep, or repeat.
5. Small Bedfellows  When the choreography falls flat and I give up, having my head on or at least near my pillow is more important than keeping my child in their own bed.  You 0, Them 105.  They win again, but I take comfort as a loser just having my own bed under me, even when there’s a toddler’s butt  on my head.
6.  Polk High’s Best Football Player  Now that the kid is in bed with two giant people on each side some precautions have to be taken, especially when one side could roll over the tiny human without even noticing.  So I give up my pillow to the little one and position myself in what can best be described as “Al Bundy’s 4 touchdowns in a single game” pose.  One arm around baby, one straight out, locked against the wall of dad to prevent or at least alert you to an impending roll.  Ahh, sleep, kinda.
7. Sick and Scared and Wet and Tired  My oldest is nine and I haven’t slept through the night once since she and her three younger brothers were born.  Even with my youngest, now four, every night someone is sick, or has a bad dream or gets up to use the bathroom and tries to pee in a closet, or just forgets to get up before going to the bathroom.   I’m beginning to think this is the longest phase and it requires the most supersonic senses and the most alertness in the wee morning hours.  You’ve got to assess the situation, find puke bowls and new sheets, banish mountain lions, white wolves and bears, oh my.  And then try to go back to sleep.
8. Spooked Sleep  On the rare occasion I don’t hear the rustle of the waterproof mattress covers, I usually awake with near heart attack to a small, dark figure standing bedside near my head, whispering “maaaamiiii” Ahh!  After you get them their glass of water or whatever, you’re heart’s still racing too fast for you to fall back asleep.
9. Did you hear that?  Even when the odds of a full night’s sleep are in my favor, my brain won’t let me believe a full night’s sleep is possible.  As I lay, one ear pressed to my pillow, trying to clear my mind, the white noise from the fan, the dishwasher, the furnace or the #&%$@ rock tumbler rumbling downstairs, starts to sound like a child.  Was that a cry? One of them talking? I lift my head and listen, and hear nothing.  Just the fan/furnace/dishwasher/handful of rocks on their 8^th day of rotation.  But, every time I put my head down, I hear it again, like the phone ringing when you turn on the vacuum or shower. 

I’m sure the tween and teen years will bring all sorts of new sleep issues and by the time the kids are out of the house, I hear menopause packs an insomnia punch.  The catch phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” is a favorite with the party crowd, but I’m pretty sure it started as a mom’s mantra.  So, we’re gonna own this no sleep thing.  We’ll pretend the giant, puffy bags under our eyes are high cheek bones and maybe cereal tastes better from the fridge. If not, at least our pillows will have a longer than average lifespan.