Dear Sleep, oh how I miss you.

I remember taking forced naps as a child and an adult warning me that someday I would no longer have to take naps and would miss them.

I seem to recall I responded with "that'll never happen" and threw in an eye roll because I was clearly mature and all knowing at 6 years of age.

10 years later I owed that adult an apology. I loved to sleep. Hated school. It was always so early! Seriously, why so early? Who can learn anything at 7am? And dreams are awesome, teenage me thought.

10 years later, I thought teenage me was a wuss. I now worked 60 hour weeks on my feet and school was nothing compared to that. I appreciated sleep for the gift it was. Is there anything better than falling into bed after a long exhausting day and feeling that moment when your muscles finally relax?

It's just...so… nice.

Now 10 years after that I am deeply jealous of past me. Seriously, that girl/woman had it so easy. If I went back in time I'm not sure if I would give myself some sage advice about appreciating what you have or if I would just slap myself and glare. Good thing I can't travel back in time, I've never been wealthy and therapy is expensive. I don't look so different that I wouldn't know that the person trying to remove my face with her hand, was in fact, me.

Now you might be wondering what changed in 10 years? What could rob me of sleep even more than 60 hour work weeks? The answer… the absolute love of my life. My Sun, my reason for breathing. My greatest joy. My destroyer. That's right. I had a child.

And what do you get when you have a child with the most exhausted man on the planet? Obviously a child who never sleeps. It's as if the years her father spent sleeping extra somehow counted towards her own sleep. And because he remained the most exhausted man who ever lived, guess who had the unparalleled joy of staying up every day with her bundle of joy? That was rhetorical.

I still recall the day I looked into her tiny, beautiful face and as love swelled within me, wondered how I'd given birth to an alien.

My Mom had three kids and was alarmed by my daughter's lack of sleep. I had been mostly clueless, primarily because I was just too tired to think about the situation. But my Mom insisted we call a Nurse or Doctor. Wanting some sort of actual data to give a doctor, I decided to record my daughter's sleep on my phone. I typically fell asleep as soon as it was safe to do so (i.e. after I had moved to the bed or adjusted so my child wouldn't be smothered by own breasts while I slept). So basically I slept about 10 minutes less than she did every time she slept.

I recorded her sleep for 4 days, then armed with this information, called our family doctors office. I was connected with a Nurse Practitioner.

"Hi, so my daughter seems to be sleeping a lot less than other babies and I'm wondering if this is normal?" I asked.

"How much does she sleep in a day?" the nurse asked. She had sounded neutral. Like she thought she was dealing with one of those panicky parents and was forcing herself to not show emotion.

"She sleeps between 7 and 9 hours a day," I said.

"Some babies just need less sleep," the Nurse stated.

" Yes, but it's not all at once," I replied.

"It can take a while before they sleep through the night." Her tone was dismissive now.

Sleep through the night? She slept more during the day than night.

"But she doesn't sleep longer than 3 hours at a time and even that long is rare. She often only sleeps an hour. In 4 days she had 9 naps that were only 45 min long," I said. I listed this information wanting reassurance not because I thought something was wrong.

"Yes, some babies need less sleep, especially as they get older and more aware of the world. Some parents get used to how a newborn sleeps and by the time their baby is 3 months old they are really struggling," she explained.

3 months?

"Okay, but my daughter's only 2 weeks old," I said.

There was a pause.

"2 weeks?" She asked. "And she sleeps 9 hours a day?"

"Well, I recorded her sleep for 4 days. She slept 9 hours one day, just shy of 7 hours one day, 7 hours and about 10 minutes one day and 7 and a half hours the final day," I said.

The Nurse asked me to hold and went to consult a doctor. When she returned I was peppered with questions leading to the general conclusion that my small child was healthy but was just trying to gain weight. She was cluster feeding and she would sleep more once her weight was better.

My daughter quickly gained weight and was a chubby infant and toddler and her sleep did not get better.

For example, at 2 years-old she experienced an intense fear of all beds. I had to hold her in our rocking recliner for her to sleep. For 8 months I slept in a chair, almost upright-as fully reclining woke her, with my child on my lap. At the time I was also blessed with a nocturnal roommate who only left his room after my daughter had fallen asleep and would wander into the kitchen and cook his food, making as much noise as humanly possible in the process. I will not lie. I fantasized about murdering him quite often.

On top of the lack of daily sleep, my daughter ran on a 25-28hr day. That is, she gradually moved her bedtime (what we called her long nap) later until eventually her short nap would be after the sun set and her longer nap would be during the day. We spent many hours at 24 hour grocery stores for entertainment, as she was active and my husband worked early mornings.

Safeway, you saved my sanity!

She did not break this need to flip her schedule even when she eliminated her short nap and her long nap increased to a more reasonable 5+ hours. Yes, 5 hours of sleep is more reasonable than what it used to be.

She was 7 before she began sleeping regularly at night, even if her bedtime and total hours of sleep continue to this day to vary. I felt like falling to my knees and weeping when I realized I might be able to have anything close to a schedule and thus a life where things can be planned.

Her sleep has continued to improve and I was rather proud when I realized this past year I managed to sleep a full night (7+ hours) 10 times. That's almost once a month!

My doctor, however, was not impressed. She sternly reminded me that I'm old. Okay, she didn't actually say old, just "getting older." My chronically low blood pressure was up by a lot. I looked tired and was drinking way too much caffeine. Not that she knows that last part. I'm not telling my doctor, she might take away my coffee and with it my will to live.

But she did inspire me to take my sleep more seriously. Alright, not inspire so much as terrify me with facts.

At first I sat down and wrote a New Years Resolution. A good night's sleep every month! But that was less than impressive.

A good night's sleep twice a month! I immediately wondered if that was possible.

My husband read my Resolution and laughed at me and said it wasn't much of a goal if I didn't want to die from sleep deprivation. I smiled, looked up at him and threatened to beat him to death with his own leg if he didn't leave me alone. He backed off. I had only slept 2 hours that day and I basically turn into a fire breathing monster when I sleep less than 3 hours in a day.

It also was at least partially his fault I was in this mess. But that's not to say my husband did not help at all. As my daughter got older he did help more. Now that she's 9 he suffers his own version of sleep deprivation, sometimes only sleeping 7 hours in a night, so he can give me a break!

Only seven… hours... Yes I just rolled my eyes.

I returned to my Resolution with determination and glared at my husband wisely hiding at the other end of the room. He knew he'd done it now. Oh yes, he was going to have to help now. But here's the thing. I kind of have to thank him because now I don't want to slap my former self. I want to meet my Resolution goals and know I did it. I survived. By the time 10 years of my daughter's life has passed, I want my health and my blood pressure back on track. I want to tell former me, it was hard, you nearly lost your dang mind, but you survived.

In 2022 I will get a good night's sleep every week and in 2023 it will be several times a week, if not every day. I got this.