Embracing the night

Hello Darkness my old friend…

Cloudy rainy days make me embrace change when it is otherwise very challenging to do. I mean, who DOES embrace change well? I’d love to meet them! Our human nature teaches us to fear change, that it means danger could be coming. For animals, a change in the wind could cue them into a predator they cannot see, but they do smell. For humans, in modern times, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real and sometimes disabling condition that makes this time of year, or others, extremely challenging.

Change is not our favorite, and when we make the transition to parenting, then into special needs parenting, it feels all consuming. One of my most vivid memories after Cael, our oldest was born, was the first night home with him. I’d put myself to bed and Chris and I had agreed he’d take first shift, and I’d take second and third. I sat in bed, trying to read, feeling exhausted and sore. My anxiety was through the roof and even though I was so tired, I was just waiting, with baited breath, to hear him start to cry. Fast forward almost 6 years, and I still can’t sleep well some nights as I feel like I need to keep an ear open for one of the boys to wake up at night.

One late night I sat in Cael’s room rocking him and I started out the window, seeing the stars and the moon. The silence of the house, the smell of my new baby and the feel of him in my arms was comforting. Then, there was a night several years later, late at night, when Bowen was sick and had thrown up in bed. One of many illnesses we’d conquered. It was late and Chris was working. In all my sleepiness, I leapt into action and a thought crossed my mind as I gathered towels and got him changed and calmed down; “This is what a mom is all about. This is what I live for”. It dawned on me in subsequent weeks, and as I pondered my strengths and weaknesses in self-reflection, that being a mom was the best thing I’d ever done and it wasn’t about all the good and easy times that made me; it was the hard days and nights.

I was once asked by a relatively new mama if I had any advice for the tough times. I vaguely recall her 6 month old wasn’t sleeping through the night and her and her husband were running on fumes. I told her to be kind to herself, but I also explained that in the moment, yes, it feels impossible. But everything, every moment, every week, every month… it’s all phases and those phases pass. I told her to embrace the night. Look at the moon, the silhouette of the trees. If you can open the window, feel the breeze if there is one, and smell the air. Show yourself some compassion in those moments and embrace them for the bonding moments with your little one. Those moments are so fleeting and they go by so darn quick, I’d implore any new parent to really focus on the beauty of the night.

When you add in an element of medical conditions or otherwise, sleep may be when your babe is finally at some peace. Maybe it is in their dreams they they can feel the tickle of the grass on bare feet, when otherwise, they are wheelchair bound. Maybe it is in their dreams that not being able to speak isn’t necessary to communicate. Maybe it is in their dreams where they have friends and aren’t ridiculed for their differences. If they can find peace in their dreams, why can’t we, as their parents, watch them rest at night knowing this is where they feel their best? Embrace their sleep, and when they cannot find the land of Nod, we are their comfort. We are their safe place, their calm in their storm. Night can be when we are our best. Our babes don’t care if we are bleary eyed, stumbling and bumbling into their rooms. They need us, and our highest calling is here.

When you become a parent, you lose a lot of your free will, but it is so important to impart your wisdom and steadiness upon your children. We reach to control situations for them to keep them safe and happy. In trying to control situations, anxiety arises when something happens outside that control, i.e. a child waking at night. Relinquishing that control, embracing the hat we must wear at that time is the key to beating that anxiety. When we show ourselves and our children the compassion that is needed at a time when it is really hard, we grow together and connect.

So next time you find yourself mumbling and grumbling about another night awake, take a moment and peek outside. you’ll find beauty you weren’t expecting and the strength to get through this moment. And as a final parent-to-parent word of advice- give yourself a mental health day and catch up on those zzzz’s. Your are replaceable at work, you are not replaceable at home.