Middle of the Night Prayers for Sleep

5 year old David has been suffering from insomnia the past couple weeks. Traumatized by a bad storm we had, his fears have just magnified leading to bad dreams and a general inability to simply roll over and go back to sleep. Of course, his first response when he wakes up is to come get Mommy, which then means that Mommy needs to lay down next to him to help him fall back asleep.

I have walked the path of sleep-deprivation before. While I hear stories from other mothers on how their children have slept through the night from the age of 2 weeks, I was not blessed in that regard. David did start sleeping through the night at two months only to start waking up again at five months. We solved that one by having him sleep in our bed until we did a slightly modified Ferberization when he was a little over a year old. Isaac was due soon and we needed to have at least one child sleeping. After that experience, my husband made me promise we would never have another child sleep in our bed. Therefore, I now go to them.

No matter how prolonged David's issues with sleep were, nothing could have prepared us for Isaac. He was the original non-sleeping baby. He just didn't get tired. He would take a 10 minute powernap and be good to go for the rest of the day. At night, he would wake for hours - not crying, just babbling. Even my laying next to him didn't help. He was simply awake. He didn't sleep through the night until he was two years old. Thankfully, his bouts with insomnia are now few and far between, although every now and then, he will have a night that involves more waking than sleeping.

There are people who can function reasonably well on little sleep. I am not one of them. Sleep-deprivation makes me cranky and miserable. A normally patient person, everything grates on my nerves when I am tired. Therefore, for everyone's sakes, I pray every day that my children will sleep through the night. I even have them pray that they will have a good night sleep. After five years, why God sometimes chooses to answer those prayers and sometimes not remains a mystery to me. I was pondering that as I lay on the floor next to David from 2 to 4 am last night, listening him to relate all the things that were on his mind, trying to keep him quiet so that Isaac wouldn't wake up. I just kept praying and praying, all to no avail. Meanwhile, my anger kept increasing - my anger at the little boy who just wouldn't be quiet and go to sleep, and anger at my husband who was sleeping happily in the next room because in the five years my children have been on this earth, they have not once gotten up in the middle of the night and looked for Daddy. I kept trying to keep things in perspective, but I have found that at 3 a.m., I pretty much lack perspective. I even tried explaining to David that it was in his best interest to let me sleep because that way I would be more fun to be around the next day. He didn't seem to care. When he finally fell asleep at 4 am, I tried to escape back to my own room. He came to get me 5 minutes later. I hoped that maybe he would at least sleep later in the morning because he had been awake so long. He woke up at 6:30 am ready to face the day! Needless to say, I was not so eager to be up.

I was still seething, a response I realized was totally irrational. I also knew I needed a break. While I could fake being a happy mommy for a little while, it was not going to last long. Just listening to them talk was like someone running their fingernails on a chalkboard. I begged my husband to take the boys out for an outing today to just give me some time to rest. Thankfully, he obliged, and once they returned I was in a much better position to take care of the boys for the rest of the day.

So, tonight, again I prayed. Hopefully, God will be kind to me. I even told David if he sleeps all night, he will be able to get a sticker on the calendar tomorrow. Meanwhile, I keep reminding myself that this, too, shall pass, and that one day, I will wish that this was the biggest problem I had with them!