Eight Months Without Sleep

I have not slept through the night since April, and even then it was only temporary.

Right now we do not have a dedicated room for the baby. Eventually she will share a room with two of the older kids. They are wonderful and helpful, but they are also kids. They leave stuffed animals, toys, and every now and then a rogue Lego that a baby could choke on. So for now Danielle, who is eight months old, sleeps in a crib at the foot of our bed.

Every time she cries, she wakes me up. If she cries long enough, she wakes my husband too, and he has been trying his hardest to get full nights of sleep because of his health. So I am the one popping up, grabbing her, nursing her, settling her, putting her back down, and then trying to fall asleep again before the whole cycle repeats.

I have never had a baby go this long without consistently sleeping through the night. She was born in February, and in April my husband went on a retreat. That week I had all six kids by myself, and of course that was the week she slept through the night. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. It felt like a miracle. And after that she slept through the night on and off for a couple of weeks. Then it stopped again.

She is healthy and growing, she just does not sleep long stretches. And honestly, I think part of it is that she is still in our room. The other kids slept through the night earlier because they were in their own spaces. They could whimper, fuss, or cry a little and eventually soothe themselves back to sleep without waking us or themselves up even more. William, who is a year and a half older than her, was the only other one who had trouble for the same reason. He was in our room for almost a year too.

Last night when she woke up at two thirty, I said to myself, I am not getting up again. I let her cry. Not scream, just cry. It took twenty minutes, but she put herself back to sleep. And this morning she woke up teething, which makes sense. Teething explains a lot of things about the past week.

Even so, all of this is wearing me down. I want to feel healthy. I want the willpower to stop eating junk. I want enough energy to get through the day without feeling like I am running on fumes. None of that is happening right now because I am up so many times every night.

We are still working on rearranging the house. We traded our biggest room, which used to be the office, to the kids so they have more space. The new office is almost ready, except that we have been in the middle of the move for weeks. William slept in the old office since he was about Danielle’s age, ever since I moved him out of our room, he just now began to share with his brother. Hoenstly, I think I'm getting close to putting Danielle in the new office. There is just not much room in there.

It will mean we cannot go into the office at night, which is inconvenient, but it would give her her own safe space. She would not see us getting in and out of bed. She would not get light pollution from phones or lamps. And she would not be two feet away from me, waiting to sense the slightest movement and decide it is time to wake up.

If the office ends up too cramped, we have another option. There is a little nook off our bedroom that currently holds a treadmill, a chair, and a beanbag that is really a newborn photography prop. It is not far from us, but it is out of her line of sight. It is quiet and dark. It might work, but she would still wake us up.

I think I will be spending today clearing that space out to see if it can become her little sleep corner. Because something has to change. I need rest. I need clarity. I need my body back. And she needs her own space to learn the rhythms my other kids were able to learn much earlier.

We are getting there, even if slowly. I just hope that someday soon I can write a post that starts with the words, “She finally slept through the night.”

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Mama, I know how easy it is to get lost in the swirl of kids, work, and life. That’s why I love creating space for moms to pause, breathe, and be reminded of their beauty. At Kristian Hutchings Portraits, you’ll be cared for from start to finish, and you’ll leave with images that show you the grace and strength your family already sees every day.

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Kristian is a mom of six, Program Manager by day, active Professional Photographer by trade, and a big believer in finding beauty in the everyday chaos.

Life in our house is loud, messy and full of literally everything. Love, noise, laundry, laughter, and definitely could use a bit more grace. I'm happily married to my best friend, grounded in my Catholic faith, and fueled by five to six hours of sleep per night and adrenaline.

I try to find joy in the everyday — even when it's wild, because without the little bit of joy, this life would be unbearable. This space is for the moms in the middle of it all: the ones juggling family, faith, work, and wonder. The ones that need someone else's messy life to make their own seem better or somewhat normal. You're not alone, and you're doing better than you think.

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