“Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.” William Blake

Well, Sir William, what happens when you cannot sleep at night? What happens when you don’t sleep night after night? Well, of course… You are unable to think in the morning, surely unable act (normally and consciously) in the noon. And you just want to eat all day to try and give yourself energy.

When I first found out I was miraculously and accidentally pregnant with our third child, the FIRST thing that came to mind was “oh no. But I will become sleep deprived all over again. We JUST started sleeping now that our daughter was 2 1/2!” It actually made me nauseous thinking about about lack of sleep because we had already experienced it for months upon months two times before, with both children the first year of their lives.

Fast forward to now. A 6 1/2 year old, 4 year old and 8 month old. The last month has been HORRIFIC if we are talking specifically about sleep. And if we’re talking about not sleeping, then we can talk about how it effects EVERYTHING in your life….

*The inability to make rational choices,

*how you look at yourself in the mirror (glaring instead of smiling) (and your eyes look black instead of blue)

*what thoughts you have and the messages you tell yourself (“my skin looks rusty and it’s sagging!” and you start thinking in a fear based place “I’m doing a terrible job. My family is a mess. The kids are awful. I can’t do this! Everyone hates me. I don’t have any friends. My kids suck. My husband is probably going to lose his job.”),

*your voice (it turns from sweet and loving to intense and brash and raspy),

*the foods you eat (salads and steamed veggies are replaced with peanut butter and jelly sandwich crusts and leftover Halloween candy that you hid in the freezer),

*the way you carry your body (from tall, confident and toned to hunched over and reactive and guarded),

*the way you speak to your loved ones (coming from a place of love and presence and compassion is now replaced with anger, sadness, resentment, annoyance.)

*the way you start thinking about the person behind the sleep problems (feeling resentful and annoyed and almost angry with them even though they are only 8 months old and haven’t learned what proper sleep is),

*the way you fold your laundry (THROWING it in piles and letting your family deal with it),

*and then the inability to even sleep when you get a chance! (Your husband or friend or babysitter takes the kids for you, clears the house, tells the neighbors to leave and make sure all the sounds are off in their houses, asks all neighbors to put muzzles on their dogs, you draw all the blinds, you drink chamomile tea, put lavender oil on your temples, maybe even take a warm bath, and then you lay down on your bed and close your eyes. But then you start counting down the minutes that are going by and when your husband will come back with the kids. And what are you going to cook for dinner? And shoot did you send along a diaper for the baby? And oh no, you forgot to text so and so about tomorrow to ask if they can pick up your son from school. Oh shoot and tomorrow there’s a dentist appointment! And on the way back from the dentist, we really should stop at Target to get the laundry soap. Yikes! it’s been a week since the last laundry day and everyone is running out of clothes. I really should go start a load right now. Maybe I should go start it really quickly so that when the kids get home I can change it over. Oh no! I only have an hour left before they come back! What’s even the point of sleeping?! I could clean the kitchen while no one is here? No, Don’t do it, Emily. GO TO SLEEP. Ok so I’ll breathe and try to clear and empty my mind. Inhaling to the count of 4 and saying “I AM” silently, then exhale 4 counts while saying “peace” silently. I do that a few times….. and I start to drift. oh this feels so good. I’m relaxed and so close. I feel my body sinking. yes…..

VVVVVRRRRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMM Vrroooooommmm VRRROOOOOMMMM

And I’m JOLTED awake 5 minutes later. It’s Sunday. The motorcycles are doing their circle island tour.

And now I’m PISSED. My hormones are raging. The cortisol is at an all time HIGH…. fight or flight.

I get out of bed. I go eat some chocolate. This is crazy. I’m crazy. I don’t know if I want to go run over to Kam Highway and walk into the middle of the motorcycle mayhem and GLAAAARE at them or if I want to cry.

I’ll just eat another piece of chocolate and start the laundry and clean the kitchen.

The kids and husband come home. We have a “nice” relaxing night although I’m in a different world and can’t even listen to them or think or eat the steamed veggies cause I ate too much chocolate and pizza crusts.

We get the kids to bed and I start to relax. I decided I should go to bed early tonight. Like at 8:30 or 9. Forego my only adult time of the day. Don’t read, don’t watch a show, don’t sit and hang out with my husband. Sleep. So I try to remain in this relaxed place. I lay down, drift off into a deep sleep and no joke 30 minutes later the baby wakes up screaming. And it goes on like that ALL night long. Every 30-60 minutes. And the cycle continues the next day.

The baby and I glare at each other all day. He has purple and yellow circles around his eyes. He naps for no more than 30 minutes at each nap that day. I’m annoyed with him. With my husband. The kids. The man who came by with avocados and woke up the baby 20 minutes into his nap. How can this be healthy?! How can we go on like this?….. I decided that I need to make a change. It’s not fair to the kids, my husband, mySELF, or my sweet baby! We are all miserable. Life’s too short. And I want to enjoy these days and be at peace. I call a friend on the mainland that is a lactation consultant and sleep specialist for new moms and babies. I message another friend on the mainland who keeps posting on FB about how grateful she is that her son has been such a great sleeper and that she’d love to share her method. I ask a few moms with older kids whom I admire if they ever let their babies cry to get them to sleep. I read a few books. I prayed. I meditated. I picked cards. I wrote in my journal.

And then it was time to put baby Conner down for a nap. I got the room ready, started rocking him and singing to him like I always have done. He had napped for about 45 minutes all day. He was so exhausted but couldn’t even relax on me. He was kicking me and pushing himself away from me and crying. I kept trying to sway and rock and sing at different tones. I was trying everything I could to get him to relax and go to sleep on me. All while my two older kids were in the living room waiting to play a game with me. The minutes passed by in the dark room with the noise machine and lavender diffuser and all of a sudden I had that deep, all knowing feeling/thought that I needed to put Conner down in his bed and say goodnight to him and walk out and close the door. I did it. With confidence and in a way surrendered to a higher Spirit or God or something/ someONE. After I closed the door, he started crying. It was hard, I’m not going to lie. I sat with my two other kids and told them what was going on. They told me it was ok and to just play a game with them and then Conner would be able to sleep. It sounded so wise and I listened. I tried my hardest to be present with the kids, play the game all while sending loving prayers of peace and rest to Conner. 15 minutes into the game, it got silent in his room. He stopped crying. He was asleep. And I was able to sit and play with the kids! And clean the kitchen. And put my feet up and look at a magazine. And Conner ended up sleeping OVER 2 hours! And he woke up SO happy and rested. That night when we put him down in his crib awake, he cried for about 10 minutes, but then he slept for SIX hours. I think he whimpered a couple times for 30 seconds but he put himself back to sleep! Then I fed him in the night, burped him and put him back in his crib awake and I walked out. He went right back to sleep and slept until 6:30 AM! I woke up feeling normal. Feeling grateful. Feeling excited to be alive and see my family. Ready for the day. At peace. And nothing is worth more than that. Peace begets peace. Sleep begets sleep.