Mommy Insights: Sleep Deprivation

We have some friends that had a baby recently, and we went to visit them a few weeks ago.  The first thing they said as we walked through the door was, "Please tell us night time gets easier...Jack's sleeping through the night right??"

And Peter and I broke the news to them slowly...."He's not sleeping through the night yet, but night times do get easier simply because you get use to the sleepless nights."

It all becomes your new normal, and you forget what it was like to have a night where your sleep wasn't interrupted by a hungry babe.  You forget what it was like to sleep past 6 AM.  You forget what it was like to lay in bed all day.

I forget...and the sleep deprivation becomes your new normal, and you begin to learn how to function with very little sleep.  Extending grace becomes your new normal. Asking for help becomes your new normal.

And eventually you forget what your life was like before the little human invaded it.  And you may not be thriving, but you certainly are surviving...what more can you ask for?

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I wrote that back in October - and it has been sitting in my drafts for the last 7 months! I can now say that my child is now sleeping through the night like a champ. And I still go to bed far too late and I still wake up far earlier than I'd like to. But there are mornings that I wake up before Jack, and I don't even know what to do with myself. And sometimes, I'm just counting down the minutes till the little man wakes up. I love being his mom and the sleep deprivation - worth it. It's all worth it! And I think I can say with confidence that we are past the survival mode, and we finally have a rhythm to our lives. So to all those new mamas out there...it does get easier. It gets a whole lot easier. I promise!

Dreams.

via pinterest

So tell me...How many of you have had some powerful dreams?  Dreams that felt so real when you awoke?  Dreams that left you a little unsettled?

My sleep has been extremely disrupted the past week, so I can't even recall the dreams I've had recently.  But I have definitely had some dreams that have left me unsettled.  I have definitely had dreams that felt extremely real.  Like this one.

When Peter and I first started dating I remember he would come to work in the morning and be mad at me ...he hadn't even given me a chance to DO anything and he was already mad.  I was so confused. And then after much prodding, I realized that he had been having dreams, terrible dreams, dreams that left him unsettled, dreams that felt so real.  All of his dreams centered around the fear of losing me.

Anyhow, a few weeks ago, I woke up from the most unsettling dream.  And I had to tell Peter about it straight away...I had dreamt that I had contracted some type of illness or disease that was extremely contagious and had put me in a coma for months.  Peter greeted me when I awoke from the coma, and I instantly asked for Jack. Where is he?  Bring him to me.  And Peter looked at me with the saddest eyes and had to tell me that while I was in the coma, Jack had died.  I had given him the illness that I had and he had died from it.  UGH...I get teary eyed just thinking about that.  Oh the grief...the sadness.  I went into a dark place...It felt so real.

And then I woke up.

I awoke from the dream so eager to realize that it was just that...a dream.  It was not my reality.   But I was unsettled nonetheless.

And as I was sharing this dream with Peter, he turned to me and said I had a terrible dream last night too.  I dreamt that you met someone else...and that you left me and Jack for this new man.

And although our dreams were different, the foundation of them was the same.  The dreams were driven by our fear, our fear of losing someone, of losing our son, of losing our spouse.

And although the dreams were extremely disturbing and completely unsettling, I found comfort in the knowledge of how far Peter and I have come.  We openly shared our dreams and the fears that were laced within them.  We openly shared the depth of emotions that spewed forth from these dreams and we captured our thoughts and we prayed. And we chose not to listen to the devils falsehoods, but to believe God.  And I have no doubt both of us started off our mornings a little unnerved, but this moment was turned into a beautiful one.

However it did leave me wondering...have I turned my son into an idol?  Have we turned our marriage into an idol? Do we live in the fear of losing one or the other?  Would we be able to stand and move on if we lost our son or our spouse?  Or would that loss break us?  Is our hope solely in those beings or is our hope in the One true being?

These are just a few of the questions I started to ask myself.  It's so easy for me to throw myself fully into my roles of being a mom and being a wife, and it's easy for me to lose sight of my role as a child of God and to live in this place of fear.

But this fear is not from the Lord, this I know, and these dreams served as a beautiful reminder to me that Christ is my lifeline and my hope is in Him. And for this I am thankful!

Blessed,

Malia

It's time to tell the Truth about Motherhood.

A friend posted a link to this article on her Facebook page awhile ago, and I read it of course. But little did I know my husband would be reading it too.  He came home that night wanting to talk about it over dinner.

And before I dive into our conversation, I want to encourage you to read the article in its entirety, but I will at least give you a little glimpse of some of my favorite words.

"The thing is, moms are tired.  They're also confused a lot of the time.  And they feel lost, like the days before GPS when we used to print out directions from Map Quest - like actually print them out on paper - and then just as you were glancing down at the paper the exit flew by you.  That kind of lost....

And moms, they wake up after having spent a night being woken up and they walk out into all that loudness and confused lost chaos.  They do it with eyes still squinting at the light, scrabbling for contact lenses or glasses and a cup of hot tea with plenty of sugar.  There were days they used to sleep in.  They can't remember those days anymore.  Their bodies are programmed to wake up at o'toddler dark thirty even when they're on vacation."

(Now isn't that the truth...I keep thinking, aren't we on vacation? (wrote this in Ireland) Shouldn't we be able to sleep as long as we want...the answer is no.  Gone are the days when I can wake up when I want to.)

And she continues...

"I want so badly for someone to tell her the truth about the exhaustion and how hard nursing can be and that everyone who looks so put together at church - there are none of us immune from the meltdowns and feelings of inadequacy.  I want so badly for someone to take her aside and ask how she's really doing.  For someone, anyone, to mentor her and admit their own hard days.  To be willing to go first.  To tell her how frustrated they were at the thought of even beginning the tedious process of trying to leave the house.  I want someone to ruthlessly admit to her that they don't have it all together.  That's where you come in."

And the truth is...I want to be that mom.  That mom that is honest and real.  That mom that admits how hard it truly is.  That mom that admits that sometimes she doesn't want to be pawed at, that sometimes she doesn't want to be needed by this little being, that sometimes she just wants to wake up when she wants to wake up.

I want to be a mom that encourages other moms, that invites real conversations and real support and encouragement.

And this is what I told the husband that night.

But first he asked the question..."Would you say that the transition to motherhood has been really hard on you?"

And this was my response..."You read that article on Natalie's wall didn't you?"

His reply, "Yeah, and while reading it I just kept thinking...Malia isn't struggling with any of this."

And I said, "Well, this is our reality now, no point getting down on myself...but yeah it's hard.  The sheer exhaustion, trying to balance it all, feeling as though I'm not satisfying anyone or doing anything well - that's hard."

The husband, "No one talks about the dads...how hard it is on the dads.  They are looking after the mom and the baby.  And that's hard."

I love that man and his response got me thinking.  He's right - no one talks about the dads, the conversations are always centered around the moms.  It's time to tell the truth about fatherhood, how hard it is on them.  Then again, maybe Peter's situation is unique. I ask alot of that man.  He isn't exempt from anything, well maybe the night time wakings (yes, Jack still wakes up at night) considering he doesn't have the tools to soothe him.

Anyhow, just something to consider, and maybe if Peter's willing, I'll ask him to share a little more on the blog.

So much love,

Malia