The Sleep Problem- Again

I’m not sure why it is that sleep is such an issue for my children. At this point in their lives you would think we would have this issue solved, but I am pretty sure it will never be solved. I think that if children are going to be a high energy, intensive, and hyper people, at the bare minimum they should at least sleep through the night, so their parents can rest and be ready to continue the job of raising them the next day. Evidently my children disagree and seem to feel that sleeping is just a terrible thing to do. This is something we have been fighting since the birth of my oldest daughter, of course back then, eleven years ago, I though it was a passing stage, now I know this is a permanent problem. Yes I have read books and tried everything under the sun, nothing works. I remember getting one book that started out telling me I only needed to read the chapters that applied to my particular sleep problems. I was so excited, until I looked at the table of contents and realized we had every sleep problem listed – problems going to sleep, staying asleep, walking and talking in their sleep, wetting the bed, getting up in the morning, etc. The only problem we have never had is night terrors and for that I am most definitely truly thankful. Of course to have night terrors, you have to occasionally be asleep for some length of time. When they were little they took turns sleeping, so we could literally go days at a time having at least one child always awake. I consider it ironic that people with so little to do, would have so much time on their hands, since they don’t sleep. Now the girls have kind of leveled out- Hailey usually sleeps well and Ashley, most nights, sleeps at least six hours and many nights even up to nine hours. This is quite an improvement to the four hour nights, if we were lucky, that we had for years. Josh on the other hand rarely sleeps more than two hours straight. And I for one have gotten very, very tired. But starting last Wednesday he has started sleeping through the night every other night. It is not perfect and I don’t know if it will continue, but we are thankful and count it as a blessing for today.
For I have given rest to the weary and joy to the sorrowing. Jeremiah 31:25
Originally posted May 2011