Every so often I see a call for submissions that forces me out of my usual routine in an effort to get something else written. When I saw the call for the second edition of Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, I knew I had to submit an essay for consideration (even though it meant I had to wake up at 4am to write without distraction).
My son was not a good sleeper, in fact, he rarely slept. By the time he was 8 months old I was up with him an average of 3 times a night, after my husband and myself had exhausted ourselves by cajoling him to sleep. Daytime was difficult, as D only napped in 20 minute clips, 30 minutes if I was lucky. I was beyond exhausted, crying often, my mind in a constant fog. I tried to read books about sleep, but in my overtired state the books seemed as though they were written in a foreign language and when I could actually make some sense of them, they often offered contradictory advice.
When I wrote this popular piece, 10 Signs My Baby’s Not Sleeping Through the Night (so don’t ask!), I was making a stab at humor, but the reality was that many of these were scarily true for me. Thank goodness for Facebook, as I was contacted by a Pediatric Sleep Consultant after posting a cry for help on my blog page. After a quick phone call with the sleep consultant (Jennifer from Gift of Sleep Consulting), I talked things over with my husband. Money was incredibly tight for us but I was desperate. We decided to hire Jennifer and the rest is history!
I still maintain that hiring a sleep consultant was the best investment we made in our son’s first year; you can check out our experience in this one year check-in piece, A Year of Sleep, Thanks to Sleep Training. While sleep training can be a controversial subject, I’ll be the first to say that the people being sleep trained were my husband and myself, moreso than our son. D began napping during the day and sleeping through the night at around 9 months, and I began to regain clarity (and my sanity).
So, yes, when I saw the call for submissions for Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness, I knew that I had to write something. I’m happy to say that my essay, The Long Road, was accepted for inclusion in this wonderfully funny and sweet anthology by mothers, for mothers. I just finished the book last night and I loved every moment of it; I actually forsook sleep two nights in a row to stay up reading these delightful stories by a bevy of talented writers. The best thing about Motherhood May Cause Drowsiness is that it is perfect for sleep deprived parents! You can easily pick MMCD, read a story or two and then put it down to be picked up again when you have the time (or the mental clarity) to read.