Sleep, Oh Sleep

Sleep, oh sleep. It’s our biggest challenge. I don’t even know where to start other than it’s been a journey the past 11 months. It’s 3:00 in the morning and after being up and down out of bed for the past hour and a half now, I’ve decided I might as well get my thoughts out instead of having them race around in my head and snowball into frustration. I know that as soon as I put my head down on the pillow, I’ll be right back up again and I’m wide awake now anyway.

I think Clara is here to teach me about myself and about life and somehow this journey of figuring out how to get her to sleep through the night is part of it. Out of all the sleep books I’ve read, methods I’ve tried, charts I’ve made to analyze patterns, advice I’ve taken, it really hit me tonight. This is a dance. It’s a unique dance between me and Clara, one that has never been danced before and nobody can teach us the steps. Although I’m the leader, I’m learning the steps at the same time. We’re practicing together, sometimes tripping and even falling flat on our faces, but we get right back up and try again. It’s all trial and error. It’s easy to get tied up in the ropes of error and doubt, but right now as I look at the big picture I realize we’ve untied a lot of knots.

As I write, I hear some sweet coos every few minutes. She has woken back up, but this time she is peaceful and settling herself. I think she’ll go back to sleep now on her own. Another dance step learned tonight, another knot untied. Goodnight.