The Exhausted Dad: A nightmare for spine health
Hundreds of lifestyle changes happen because of parenthood. The most disruptive of them all: A drastic reduction in quality sleep.
As much as I miss having little kids running around the house, I don’t miss the frequent wakeups in the middle of the night. A newborn requires food every couple of hours, and even as they get a little bit older, it doesn’t take much to stir the entire house awake. With multiple kids, one sibling might wake up another, or, worse, each kiddo takes their own turn disturbing my deep sleep cycle.
With my four kids now ages 6-12, the middle of the night wakeups don’t occur as often, and even when they do, most of them no longer require my intervention. At this point, I don’t offer much helpful advice after 2 a.m. anyway. I might mumble, “Have a glass of warm water” and slip back out of consciousness.
Historically, my “bookend” kids have been the ficklest sleepers. My oldest, now 12, never slept as a baby unless she was snuggled in a parent’s arms. Even now, she regularly keeps herself awake past midnight reading, journaling and making rubber-band bracelets in the dark. Weirdo.
My youngest liked his spacious bed from the earliest days of his life. However, he always wanted me in the room, every night, laying on the floor next to him until he fell asleep. If I tried to leave before he fell asleep, the whole process would require a complete reset — including tucking of the blankets and bedtime songs.
This continued for a solid five years, but for the past year or so, he’s allowed me to leave the room before he falls asleep. He shares the bedroom with his older brother anyway.
And, even more recently, some nights he tells me, “You don’t need to stay in here. I’m tired." My spine appreciates the reprieve from laying on the floor, even as my heart can’t accept that my baby boy doesn’t need me to help him fall asleep anymore.
Despite my slight heartbreak, I’m happy to shorten the marathon bedtime routine in our house. It still takes a good hour to run through all the various routines and goodnights of four children. I’ll gladly reclaim a half hour of my life.
Except that a 6-year-old, while much more independent than a baby or toddler, is still just a precious and delicate little kid. It only takes one bad nightmare to (hopefully temporarily) unravel years of sleep training.
It started about a week ago, when my son popped open our bedroom door around 3 a.m. It was already an evening in which I couldn’t fall asleep until after 2 a.m. (thanks, generalized anxiety disorder!). My son crawled into our bed, wiping tears from his face.
“I had the scariest dream ever.”
Usually, this isn’t a big deal. All four of our kids periodically rush into our bedroom seeking some nightmare consolation. Rarely, the kiddo will be too shaken to return to their own bed, and so my wife and I get to share the bed with a floppy, awkward bonus human who, despite being a fraction of our physical size, manages to claim 97 percent of the total surface area of a king-size bed.
All parents, of course, know this scenario. It’s just part of the gig. Lucky for us, the bedtime visitor usually returns to their own bed before the sun rises. I credit my snoring. My wife tells me my snoring is universally disruptive, but just look at how effective it is in reclaiming space on the bed! Some nights my snoring earns me the entire bed all to myself!
My son, however, has still not shaken the nightmare of that night.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says with truly haunted eyes. “It’s just. Too. Scary.”
Just before bed for several nights, he began to panic too.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have another bad dream.”
What was the dream about? He’s only described what it isn’t. It didn’t involve any of his family members. He said it “wasn’t realistic.” He screamed at his older brother for suggesting it could have been about a vampire.
The more he doesn’t say, the more I freak out about it, honestly. Is it like a Babadook or a Poltergeist or something? I probably need to make sure the kids aren’t rifling through my DVDs again.
The lingering consequence of this recent nightmare is that I’m back on the floor of his bedroom again, waiting for him to fall asleep. The bad dream hasn’t recurred yet, but his Paw Patrol night light is back in the outlet and his dad is experiencing back spasms again. Thanks a lot, Babadook.
Counterpoint: My baby still needs me!
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer, full-time student, and a parent to four kids, ages 6-12. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.
The Exhausted Dad