Will I ever sleep again?

There are many days that leave me pondering – how am I supposed to do it? In all seriousness, how the heck am I supposed to be a parent and have a career and be a wife and take care of myself? How do I do this day in and day out? It seems impossible sometimes.

I have two children under the age of four who are in daycare. Anyone who has experienced this knows it’s boogers, coughs and fevers for most of the year.

My daughter has been sick on and off for what seems like forever. With that comes disrupted sleep and the spreading of germs to all corners of our network, accompanied by passive aggressive comments from family members about how we got them sick. How am I supposed to contain a toddler’s sickness?

We seem to be winding down in terms of runny noses and coughing fits, but now she doesn’t want to sleep through the night anymore. She was always a good sleeper, far better than my son. Suddenly that has changed. Every night, around 2am or 3am, she wakes up and screams until we bring her into our bed.

I know, I know, we’re supposed to intervene as little as possible and let her cry it out. Spoiler alert - I will never subscribe to that method. I do not have the patience or endurance that it requires.

Once in our bed, she will roll around for an hour or two until she falls back to sleep, all the while throwing bows, roundhouse kicks, and occasionally slapping one of us in the face. We’ve gotten in a bad way.

In all seriousness, how the heck am I supposed to be a parent and have a career and be a wife and take care of myself?

Finally, one night after fighting a typhoon at put down, she miraculously slept through the night for the first time in two months. Yay! Are we finally going to be privy to a full night of rest?

Nope! My son decided it was his turn to wake up every hour on the hour starting at 11pm to “use the bathroom.” He didn’t feel well, but he’s only three and doesn’t know how to articulate that yet, so when he woke up he would just whine and whimper, and then go to the potty because his bladder is tiny and he drank a ton of water before bed, against my strong recommendation not to.

It wasn’t until the tenth wake up (OK, that’s probably an exaggeration, it was actually the sixth) at 4:30am that I realized he felt warm and had a fever. Great, I think. Not only do I feel bad for being impatient with him all night, but now he can’t go to daycare!

It’s a good thing I’ve been working from home since March 2020, but I have work that needs to get done. I can’t cater to the child who is constantly crying and moaning (legit – sitting on the couch watching Paw Patrol, moaning).

But here I am again, having to figure it out because my husband is a CNC Machinist and works in a plant. He obviously has to be on location to do his work, and he has limited vacation and sick time. He can’t just take off work at the drop of the hat.

I’m left trying to make it work, balancing my heavy workload and a sick child who needs his mommy. I’m genuinely not bitter toward my husband and I don’t begrudge his situation. I know he wants to help. It’s just the nature of it all.

Sometimes I think it would be nice to work an 8-hour shift, the same hours every day, and then leave the building, leaving all my work behind until tomorrow.

It would be nice to sleep occasionally. Truthfully, I’ve been sleep deprived since I got pregnant with my first child.

I’m a salaried employee, which just means corporate America can squeeze more than 40 hours out of me every week without having to compensate me for it. I work from home, so I don’t have to take my work home, it’s already there. And while I relish in the fact that I get to work in sweatpants all day every day with no make-up on, there are no lines between work and home life anymore.

This was especially true with my previous job, which was quite demanding. Depending on what was going on, I might have to work all day (8:30am-6pm), quickly scarf down dinner (most likely after my husband and the kids were done), give baths, put on jammies and go right back to work. I’ve worked until 10pm, more times than I care to admit. One of the many reasons I left the banking industry.

Needless to say, it would be nice to sleep occasionally. Truthfully, I’ve been sleep deprived since I got pregnant with my first child.

They say you don’t sleep once the baby comes and you should sleep as much as you can while you’re pregnant, but that’s a load of crap. In reality, once I became pregnant, I began peeing constantly. Upon conception, no joke. I would have to get up once every hour during the night to use the bathroom.

I was nauseated or throwing up all the time, which of course took away from my sleep. Then as my pregnancies progressed and I got bigger and bigger, I became extremely uncomfortable. There was no position that was comfortable anymore, despite all the ridiculous versions of the body pillow peddled on me – absurd wrap around, whole body pregnancy pillows. Let me save you the trouble – just don’t.

Then there’s the heartburn. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I thought for sure I was going to burn down the house with my breath of fire. Propping myself up on a pillow didn’t help and I consumed far more than the recommended dose of Tums daily.

It’s the kind of pain that paralyzes you. You find yourself bargaining with God, willing to do anything to make it stop.

If you’re lucky like me, your feet will swell to the point of pain. As if the fluid is pushing up against your skin trying any way to escape, stretching and pulling like a facelift gone wrong on your feet.

Then the charlie horses, oh the charlie horses! I was brought to tears many times during the night because of the pain I experienced in my feet and up through my knees, sometimes reaching my thighs. It’s the kind of pain that paralyzes you. You find yourself bargaining with God, willing to do anything to make it stop.

I haven’t had a good night’s rest in over four years. I remember the first time I got five consecutive hours of sleep after having my son – it felt amazing. It was the best thing in the world in that moment. Looking back, I realize just how sad that is.

There are so many days where I just want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over my head and cry. It is so HARD being a full-time working mother of two.

I text my husband this morning to tell him I’m ready to break. We finally got the one kid to sleep through the night and the other one stays up all night instead. When will the stars align? Will I ever sleep more than five hours again?

I’ll try again tonight. And tomorrow I’ll wake up and keep going, because I must. My family needs me to, so I’ll somehow find the strength.