Benefit of Losing Sleep

by Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

My heart aches. I have just come downstairs from putting my twin 2.5 year (32 month) olds to bed and my heart hurts. They aren't screaming or crying or calling my name. No, my beautiful children are lying in bed falling asleep silently. While I feel a tremendous sense of pride that - considering everything we have been through in the past couple of months - they are falling asleep in their beds on their own, I am sad. This is my favorite part of the day and yet it is over too quickly. Just when my children are their most delicious I find myself having to leave them. A part of me doesn't want to walk out the door, a part of me misses my boy crying that he doesn't want me to leave, misses my girl needing me to calm her down, misses hearing that they want to lie down with me to fall asleep.

My 2.5 year old boy-girl twins - particularly my son - had been having a lot of trouble sleeping at night lately, ever since we went away on vacation, in fact. This meant, of course, that my wife and I also had been having trouble sleeping at night. In the incredibly exhausting struggle to help them fall asleep on their own, my relationship with my children - especially my boy, Elijah, reached a new level of closeness that feels wonderful to all of us, that makes me sort of miss the sleepless nights of crying and screaming. Sort of.

In order to help them get back into the rhythm of sleeping through the night, my wife and I decided that I would put them to bed every night. The first night I put them to bed by myself they were sleeping on the floor or the couch in their room - anywhere but their beds. They also were taking a very long time to fall asleep - even though we had been staying in the room with them. Then, of course, Elijah was waking up several times during the night. As you can imagine, with putting them to sleep and waking up every time they woke up to go to their room and help them back to sleep, I was sleep deprived within a couple of days. That only added to my desperation and determination to get them back to sleeping regularly.

The first two weeks after our vacation went like this; when Elijah would wake up in the middle of the night and call out for me, I would go up right away, hoping he wouldn't wake up my wife or his sister.

"What's wrong, Elijah?" I would whisper as I creeped into the room trying not to wake up Jordyn.

"I'm ascared," he said making sure I knew he was both afraid and scared. "I'm ascared, Daddy."

"Did you have a bad dream?"

"Yeah," he sighed.

"It's okay, Elijah. Why don't we just lie down and try to go back to sleep."

"I don't want to leave, Daddy. I don't want to leave."

"Okay, Elijah, I won't leave until you fall asleep."

"I don't want to leave, Daddy," he whispered as he put his head back down and tried to fall back to sleep hoping he wouldn't be frightened by what he saw. I hoped for exactly the same thing. In the first few days his falling back asleep could easily take an hour.

After a few nights, these interactions really seemed to help him feel better and soon he was only waking up once a night. I think part of what made us closer was the sense that when he called out for me, I came to him. He could depend on me at night even though I wasn't around during the day for him. While being woken up at night was truly exhausting, there was something so special about hearing him call out "Daddy," hearing him call out for me to help and being able to provide comfort and safety for him.

What was most worrisome about Elijah was that he truly seemed terrified at the notion of going to sleep. What could be haunting my little boy so badly? Neither of us had an answer and we felt helpless. While he felt better when I was in the room with him, it only seemed to reinforce that he was too scared to try it by himself. One night as I was putting them to sleep, I told him I used to be scared to go to sleep.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Yeah, really. When I was a kid I used to be scared to go to sleep," I whispered into his ear.

It was dark, but I could see him looking at me very intently. As if asking with his eyes, "Could it really be possible for Daddy to be scared?"

"You know what I used to do to help me fall asleep at night when I was scared?"

"Yeah." He always says "yeah" when I ask him if he knows something. I think he thinks I'm asking if he wants to know.

"I used to lie in my bed and imagine I was playing a game of baseball."

"Yeah," he breathed.

"Yeah ... and it always helped me fall asleep. That was my happy thought. What is your happy thought, Elijah? What is one thing or person that makes you happy?"

"Tia," he replied, meaning his Tia Maria, his Aunt, my wife's sister. I had no idea that this innocent exchange would be the basis for both of my children, and my wife and me, to sleep through the night once again.

About the Author

Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT, sees clients and conducts workshops in New York and Long Island. He has been interviewed by NBC's The Today Show, CNN, The Washington Post, and Newsday. Since the birth of his boy/girl twins in December 2002, he has written more than 30 articles on his experiences as a father that have been published in numerous parenting magazines and web sites. He also publishes a monthly column called A Father's Voice and produces the corresponding A Father's Voice Podcast. In between articles, he writes about his daily experiences as a father in Two Okapis, his Digital Daddy Diary (blog). For more information, visit www.jgs.net or to contact him directly, email him at [e-mail].