Sleep Through It

    I relish sleep more than any single thing in the universe. If given a choice of all the life sustaining things in the world I would still choose sleep over food, water and even oxygen because when I am not adequately rested I feel sick and miserable. So when I lie down it's not just for a quick napper snapper, I make it an event which supersedes all other events. And if I can't make time for a two to three hour nap in mid-day then I don't bother with a nap at all. This is possible in my world at the moment but was mostly just a fantasy when the kids were young.
     When the boy came along I willingly gave up uninterrupted sleep as a matter of course. I slept when he slept and I was frequently, but silently, sick with sleep deprivation but I knew it wouldn't last forever and I lived on hope. Except, my autistic son didn't sleep well at night after he turned three years old. He gradually made his way into the master bed and my husband gradually made his way to the couch.
     The fundamental problem which started the slow decline of my marriage was that the boy took control of the bedroom. My husband and I didn't enforce the same rules and therefore the kid won. When I worked late and got home at 1 a.m. Tanner was in my spot in the bed. I squeezed in just to have my husband retreat to the sofa. On the nights when I was home the pup was required to sleep in his own bed which meant I spent the whole night aborting his attempt to get into MY bed. Soon, due to inconsistencies in rule enforcement, I gave up.
    Tanner slept with me for a decade. He was restless, clingy, noisy and a general pain in the butt. I counted his awakenings as I counted the time on the clock. By the time it was four in the morning I would have been awakened four times by his rolling around, sitting up, crying out, or having his arm on my face. I didn't reach dream sleep for ten years. There were many attempts to get Tanner to sleep on his own but it wasn't until I bullet proofed the house and put a lock on my bedroom door that I began to sleep again. I made things safe, locked all doors, cupboards and faucets and then refused to open the bedroom door when he wanted in.There were nights that he pounded on my door for hours and camped out in the hallway. There were nights when he turned on all the sound and lights in the house. Yes it kept me up for a month but no longer. I gained the confidence that he was safe, put earplugs in, checked on him once nightly and then slept like a baby.
    To this day Tanner still bangs on my door a couple of times a night but I yell "GO AWAY" and he does. Sometimes I will get up and turn off the lights and the TV and find him asleep on the couch. Who cares? He is not a normal kid so I can't expect him to sleep in a normal bed. He has the run of the house at night, I sleep with earplugs and we see each other in the morning. It is an understanding which works for us.
    So, the moral of the story is to NEVER,EVER let your kid sleep in your marriage bed. Make things safe in the house, let him stay up all night yelling for attention but draw that red line which shall never be crossed. ....And buy many sets of effective earplugs and save your sanity.