My husband and I just returned from a long weekend with our two daughters. Our three-year-old- and seven-month-old- daughters shared a room with us, and, with all the exciting circumstances, my husband and I barely slept.
Photo Credit: Lounge Park/Getty Images; from Redbook
Our seven-month-old would wake up around 1-2 AM, “chatting” and exercising her lungs while also insisting on practicing her new-found crawling (or, more accurately, face planting!), until about 4-5 AM. Then, although our three-year-old would miraculously sleep through all this, she would wake up around 5-5:30 AM, excited to swim and play.
Between the different night schedules of our two children, and our active days, I was thinking about the recent New York Magazine article, “I Love My Children. I Hate My Life” by Jennifer Senior. My “vacation” experience reminded me that a key reason parenting can be so hard to enjoy at times is because it’s so PHYSICALLY EXHAUSTING!
Sleep Deprivation Is A Form Of Torture
This weekend’s experience, preceded by many more sleepless nights, led me to do some online research.
“Sleep deprivation is not like torture – it is a form of torture, a tactic favoured by the KGB and the Japanese in PoW camps in World War Two.”
Oddly, I found relief from an article, “The Real Victims of Sleep Deprivation” by Megan Lane and Brian Wheeler, that was inspired by a reality television show in which contestants starve themselves of sleep for a week in the hopes of winning a cash reward. Throughout the 7.5 months that I’ve been nursing, I have felt tortured and psychotic at times from both the sleep deprivation and the lack of uninterrupted sleep!
“Going without sleep is intensely stressful, with unpredictable short- and long-term effects. People lose the ability to act and think coherently… Making a [television] programme in which people are deprived of sleep is like treating them with medication that will make them psychotic.”
Furthermore, when I read that the Pentagon would play loud rock music on sleep deprived prisoners to break their resistance (quoted below), I thought: “What about those sleep deprived moms?!!”
“The Pentagon has denied torturing Iraqi prisoners, but it has admitted using sleep deprivation and playing loud rock music to break prisoners’ resistance.”
All moms know that we are much more sensitive to the cries of babies than the dads! (Just read: “Men Really Don’t Hear A Crying Baby At Night“)
Just Venting…
Of course, I don’t mean to belittle the experiences of those who have really been tortured by sleep deprivation. Given my recent cumulative lack of sleep, however, I have deepened empathy for that experience than ever before and could relate to a few sections of the article.
What Helps Me?
What really gets me through these physically challenging times are two things. First, and by far the most nourishing fuel for this foggy road, is the comfort and security that my unconditional presence brings to my children: the immediate and visible relief that my baby daughter feels once she knows that I’m picking her up; or the security I sense in my toddler when I show up in her room when she calls for me in the morning. (Note: At home, we have had general “rules,” like no pickup of our toddler before 6-6:30 AM; and no pickup of the baby before 6 AM. However, our general rules don’t, or can’t, apply when away from home.)
Second, is knowing that so many more parents are going, and have gone, through the same experience. I find comfort in knowing that sleep deprivation from parenting is a universal experience and privilege.
The Influence of Sleep On One’s Perspective…
Now that we’ve spent a night home after our weekend — all of us sleeping in our contained compartments, I immediately woke from my first night of some uninterrupted sleep, remembering it with a BIG internal smile and feeling our sleepless “vacation” to be as magical as it was.
Happy Child, Happy Mom
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Please note that all quoted text above are from “The Real Victims of Sleep Deprivation: Sleep deprivation is nowadays a source of light entertainment. But it has been used as a real instrument of torture around the world” by Megan Lane and Brian Wheeler; BBC News Online Magazine; Last Updated: Thursday, 8 January 2004, 12:23 GMT
Related Content:
- “I Love My Children. I Hate My Life”
- Finally Liberated to Sleep!
- Impacts of Sleep: Interesting Things I Didn’t Know
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Looking at the baby yawning in your tab to this article just made me yawn!
Great photo
Also, great article.
Thanks so much!