No blog post tonight, I need to sleep

Sleep, that amazing five letter word that most parents slave for. I think we’d do almost anything for a good night sleep. I think, too, what is defined as good sleep deteriorates as children are added to the mix.  Come to mention it, I don’t think I’ve had regular good sleep in almost 10 years.

True, for the past 9 years, I’ve been either pregnant or nursing, so that affects how much sleep I’ve been getting. I’ve never had an infant sleep “through” the night. The largest block of sleep I can hope for from my current baby is from about 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Too bad I’m still dealing with household stuff, winding down, and couple time with my husband for two of those hours.

Also, for whatever reason, all of my children have night terrors and a few sleep walk. On any given night, my husband and I will be up with at least one other child besides the baby. We have a solid night time routine. It involves lavender and chamomile. It involves cuddles, songs, scriptures, and family prayer, good night kisses and special good night songs. We try to make sure the house is quiet – no media after dinner. We try to make sure our own voices are quite, soothing, and calm.

Yet, it seems on the nights we do everything “right”, we are up every other hour with a different child. Our oldest will have a nightmare and wake up crying… She’s a she, so I go and see what I can do to help her out. Then, our oldest boy will have a night terror, and scream like crazy. He’s a he, so my husband goes and calms him down. Then it’ll be the baby’s turn to nurse, again. (I believe in feeding on demand with my infants, then weaning around a year).  Also, if I’m nursing the baby, or have just managed to get back into bed, my dear, sweet, sleep deprived husband takes care of the night calls. And honestly, more often than not, he takes care of all the night calls, except for nursing the baby.

After that, the Kindergartner will come into our room trying to find the bathroom – he really isn’t awake. And if we aren’t quick enough to steer him to the correct room, we have a mess to clean up. And, then after all that, I’ll wake up to feed the baby again and find my Preschooler on my bedroom floor. She’s laying half under my bed with just her head and torso poking out. Finding her in the dark, with my feet, makes for an exciting moment, that’s for sure.

So, like I said. No blog post tonight.  I need to go to sleep. My children are all in bed, so I’m going to take my tired self and go to bed too.

Note:  These are all old pictures from my picture archive, my cameraman is asleep.

Does anyone else’s night time look like mine? Do you have a magic something that helps your kids sleep through the night?  I’d love to hear some suggestions, but tomorrow morning, after I’ve slept.  Good night.