I don’t think it’s a secret that life has been hard for us lately. Really hard.
It’s not that we didn’t expect life with 3 small children to be difficult, but I think in my mind it was going to get easier when the youngest hit 18 months (which granted she’s not quite yet), and in early January we realized it felt like NOTHING was even getting close to better. In fact the past 6 months have felt the hardest we’ve ever had as parents, which is saying a lot.
I think we did okay the first year of having 3, but then everything started to change and it all chipped away at our equilibrium bit by bit. Work called us both back into the office, which directly took away time from our day to do things like laundry, or clean, or cook meals. And then sleep got worse. Our wonderful sleepers suddenly weren’t sleeping like they used to. Sickness hit over and over again, too. We went from having children in one school to two. The baby started walking and got older and her siblings saw her solely as a person who messes up their toys. Winter hit and we couldn’t go outside as much.
There’s only so long you can go while getting hit from all sides.
I wish this was a post saying we’ve figured it out and everything is solved, but it’s not. We did get a little loud, though, and ask for help where we could. It’s not an instant fix, but it’s keeping us afloat.
Recently we went to a family event, and for the first time I didn’t consider leaving a child or two at home. I knew we’d take them all, and I didn’t panic.
As we were driving home, it hit me. The day had been good. We were driving with two sleeping children and another that was quietly looking out the window. It reminded me of years earlier when we were doing the same drive and I told Tom that when we first got married, I’d dreamed of this moment. All I wanted was a car full of sleeping kids as we drove home from a day of fun. Of course at the time we’d had two screaming children in the backseat.
But on this day we’d jumped in the car without much preparation. There were no snacks for the kids, no toys in the car, we just went. That wouldn’t have been possible, even a short time ago.
We even skipped naps, which is not something we do often. Oddly enough the reason I felt so confident doing that is actually because sleep is a disaster right now. That’s certainly a hyperbole, but as someone who needs good and consistent sleep, even one bad night’s sleep a week is enough to throw me off my equilibrium. And lately we’ve had bedtimes that take forever, early wake ups and occasional middle of the night wakes where we’d be up for hours. It’s becoming unsustainable, and I finally asked for help.
I just finished the book Spare. Towards the end, Prince Harry talks about a conversation he and Meghan had with Tyler Perry at the beginning of the pandemic. Their security had just been pulled by the palace, they were being hunted by the media, receiving death threats, and the borders were closing. They weren’t sure what to do, or where to go with their young child. “Go to my house” Tyler Perry had said, and thus begins the odd story of how they ended up staying at his California mansion while Tyler was elsewhere on a project.
It reminded me of a video I watched recently, of a man talking about a dad and child he’d watched at a coffee shop. They had been playing chess, but it was time to go, and the game was only half done. The child was upset, the dad was flustered because they were going to be late, and they were arguing. The man leaned over and suggested that they take a picture of the board, so that they could continue the game from home. Brilliant idea, and they’d both agreed and left happily. The man then spoke in the video about how creative and wonderful solutions exist to all of our problems. But when we are stressed out or otherwise not functioning at our best, we are unable to think of them.
The same goes for Harry and Meghan – they were so stressed out that they didn’t even know what help to ask for until it had been presented to them. Even with all of their money, power and influence, they were still just overwhelmed parents.
And so explains how we ended up hiring a sleep consultant. Even though we’ve managed to get 3 different children to sleep through the night before. Even though we knew all the techniques and things to do. When the baby stopped sleeping and her sleep got worse and worse while we got more and more tired and overwhelmed, we couldn’t see the solutions anymore. We met with the consultant and she spelled out the plan, it all clicked. Yes, I knew this. Yes this made sense because we’ve done it before. Why couldn’t we remember a month ago? Because we were too overwhelmed.
We all need help from time to time. I’m trying to learn how to ask for help more when we do.
