Be it ever so simple, there is nothing quite like a good night’s sleep to make a person feel recharged in the morning. At least, that is what I recalled about sleep before we had twins. Getting a full night’s rest (I’m an 8 hour kind of guy) since then proved problematic. I knew this going into our surprise-additional-involuntary-offspring-family-project, but knowing about something is very different from living through it. Thankfully, after 21 months of broken nights, I think we have weathered the worst of the sleeplessness and calmer more restful nights should be more the norm rather than the exception. At this point all three of our children seem content to sleep through the night about half the time, providing my beloved and I with the opportunity to sleep uninterrupted for more than 2 hours at a time.
Despite the kids finally doing their part to aid in my quest for sleep, I now find that I myself have developed some unfortunate habits that need overcoming. Before kids, I could stay up working late and not worry too much about the consequences the next day as I could schedule things for afternoons. Over the past 20 months, I dealt with the disruptive night hours by going back to sleep after getting my daughter off to school and the ayis showed up to take on the day shift. That kind of broken sleep is fine in a pinch, but it doesn’t do a person any long-term favors. Consequently, I’m now faced with the task of sleep-training myself to get me into bed at a respectable hour. Hopefully I won’t be as difficult to work with as a toddler.
Photo by Christopher Lay
