I come from a long line of people who have no problems sleeping. There are a few recorded episodes within my family of narcolepsy, and the joke has always been in my family that my Dad’s eyelids were connected to his behind as he would sit down and immediately go to sleep.
Sleep issues for my son were a complete surprise to me. What came as an even bigger surprise was the sleep issues I have developed.
All mothers go through a through a period of at least a few years where their children don’t sleep at night and they are very sleep deprived. Eventually, most children learn to sleep through the night. But my issues started LONG before children.
My sleepless nights started when my husband deployed to Iraq for the first time. There was a bit of a time difference there between us, coupled with the fact that phones were not very accessible, and depending on when he was on duty or not, largely dictated when he could call which was usually about 3 am. But he was in a war zone, and I was just happy to talk to him. But when I hadn’t heard from him in awhile I would either be kept awake worrying or wake up suddenly expecting a call. Let’s just say that didn’t make the greatest sleep for 16 months.
We didn’t have any kids at the time thankfully. Those came a couple years later and my daughter was born during his second deployment to Iraq when again I was waiting for phone calls.
Later when D was about 3 1/2 he started waking between 2-4am for the day. That was pretty much impossible for me to handle. It was what propelled me to start finding out what was going on with him. Here we are, many years later and sleep is still an issue for him.
Suddenly I am having really bad bouts of insomnia that can literally keep me awake all night. I really think at this point it has been trained into my body from the last 14 years or so. I don’t function well at all on no sleep. I pretty much can’t function. So I should be able to chalk up any bad decisions I’ve made recently to chronic lack of sleep right? I mean there has to some good side?
This is a very common occurrence for parents of children with Special Needs and for spouses of Military personnel who are deployed. This is the life I’ve chosen and I live. Here’s hoping I can find the right supplements to knock me out at night.
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