I have to admit…I’m jealous of those families whose kids start sleeping through the night at 4 or 5 months. We don’t have that kid. And if I’m being completely honest, I get a bit perturbed when people complain that their kid didn’t sleep through the night until 6 months or even if their kid is 1 and sleeps through the night most of the time, but got up at 2 am for one fluke night…puh leese…if you’re looking for sympathy I’m the wrong person to talk to. That’s nothing. From what I hear, most EB kids don’t sleep through the night until they are much older…some even 4 or 5 years old. And Ella is no different. At 2 years old she still doesn’t sleep through the night. She does, however, usually just wake up once and it’s typically around 5 am, so we just give her a bottle and she’s back asleep within minutes. Joe and I have learned to function with broken sleep. Sure, I’d prefer to have a full nights sleep, but I feel like I can function MOSTLY fine when I’m woken up just once.
This weekend, however, things went wrong…very very wrong. Friday night was fine and Ella slept until 10 am Saturday morning. I thought she knew we needed the sleep, but no, she was just getting rested up for Saturday night. Ella didn’t nap at all on Saturday, which always makes for a bad situation. When she went to bed that night I didn’t think much of it, except that I knew she was tired. Well, she woke up every 1 ½ to 2 hours ALL NIGHT!!! It was terrible. Joe and I have this deal…I get up with her first then he gets up with her, then me, and so on. That way at least one of us gets to rest while the other puts her back to bed. Sometimes we even play the bargain game in the middle of the night…”If you get up with her this time I’ll get up with her all night tomorrow night.” Fortunately she did nap yesterday (church always makes Ella tired), so I had high hopes for last night. They were shattered at 1:30 am, and 3 am, and so on. Again she was up every 1 ½ to 2 hours.
On nights like this I go through all the stages of emotion…concern - what if something is wrong; sympathy - poor girl can’t get comfortable and sleep; anger - what is her problem; sorrow - all I want is to sleep…is that so wrong; disregard - go ahead and cry…I can sleep through it. Some nights…if this has happened several nights in a row, I will even burst out in tears and beg God to help her sleep.
Today I’m exhausted. It has been 2 nights and I’m fearful that tonight will be a third. The good news is that this always comes to an end. Sometimes she has nights like this for just 2 nights, and other times it lasts for a week or more…but it always comes to an end and we get back to normal…or at least as normal as Ella’s sleeping can be.
2 comments:
Praying for sleep!
Iknow exactly what you are going through. Galen never slept through the night until she was 6 even now she gets up once a night once in a while. Alex sleeps better than Galen did but she still at 7 gets up once a night. You both are strong & will be able to get through it with Gods help. I used to beg God all the time just for 4 hrs straight. He always knows best.
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