Never Say Never

When Michelle and I got married, we made a vow that we would never let pets or children sleep in the bed with us. Even after we got our first baby, Gus the bulldog, we held that vow. For eight days. All it took was one thunderstorm for our little ball of fur to whimper at the bedside asking to join us. Mommy wasn’t going to let her baby sit by himself in fear. And that started the pattern of Gus sleeping with us every night.

Here’s a fun fact about bulldogs — They grow.

Our eight-pound fur ball of whimper turned into a sixty-five-pound bowling ball of snore. And our bulldog is able to defy the laws of physics, geometry, and personal space by somehow taking up more room on a queen-sized bed than two full-grown adults. No problem, we just upgraded to a king-sized bed. Problem solved? Nope. Gus’s powers over scientific laws cannot be restrained by bed size. He somehow still finds a way to push me off the bed even with the nine-hole golf course of space between Michelle and me.

Then came baby Audrey. She has a very adorable habit of waking up at 2:05 in the morning once or twice a week. Sometimes she will cry, sometimes she will just talk to herself. We know that insomnia is common with babies with CHARGE Syndrome, but we don’t know if that is what is causing her late-night escapades. The concept of self-soothing is still new to her and after 30 minutes of crying, I find a little baby lying next to my head in bed. On some occasions, she will go right back to sleep. On other occasions, she plays one of two games for the next 4 hours — Roly-Poly or Let’s Tap Dance on Daddy’s Face. I find both games to be equally relaxing and conducive to deep REM sleep.

As a chronic insomniac, I need the ideal conditions to get even halfway decent sleep. The situation I just described would not qualify. Tim Ferriss changed the mindset of many people and sold millions of copies of his book “The Four-Hour Workweek.” He changed the way people think about work and time management. I hope to have the same impact with my upcoming book “The Four-Hour Sleep Week” where I show people how to live happy, productive lives on four hours of sleep every week. I haven’t finished my thesis yet. For now, it just involves a lot of coffee and crying. I will let you know when the book is finished so you can grab the presale discount on Amazon.

While Audrey would wake up around 2:00 frequently end up sleeping (or rolling around) in bed with us, we never had that problem with Ella. She was always a good sleeper and never came into our room asking to join us, but my little Ella is a morning person. She sleeps through the night and likes to get up early to take on the world. We had to put a frog-shaped night light, we call him Ziggy, in her room that turns green at 6:30. We told her that she had to stay in bed until he turned green. We had a nice, long streak of Ella always sleeping in her bed. Until she didn’t.

Here’s a fun fact about streaks — They remain intact. Until they don’t.

Ella would stay in her room until Ziggy told her it was time to get up. For months, it was like clockwork for me to be sitting at my desk and hear Ella’s bedroom door open precisely at 6:30 when a sleepy-eyed toddler would embark on her trip to the couch carrying between two to five stuffed animals. But at some point, her toddler brain told her that 6:30 is way too late to sleep. Now, it is not uncommon for me to hear the pitter-patter of toddler feet coming down the hall far before 6:30 followed by, “Mommy, Daddy, can I get up now?”

Here’s a fun fact about night lights — They cannot overcome the will of a toddler.

Ella recently woke up at 2:00 and just walked straight into our room and hopped into bed with us. Apparently, she wasn’t ready to take on the world yet because she crawled between Michelle and me and fell asleep. I thought this was going to be a problem because Ella and I both toss and turn at night. I feared that we were about to embark on an all-night version of the game “steamroller” which would not bode well for Ella due to my significant weight advantage.

Most of the night we were like the two beaters of an electric mixer as we spun around each other without touching. Then, around 4:00, I rolled over and smacked her in the head. She screamed “ouch!” and I knew that I was done sleeping for the night because I was too scared to go back to sleep for fear of hurting her. Crushing a toddler to death is a horrible way to start the day. So I just knew that the next day was going to suck because I would be exhausted the entire day.

Then Ella closed her eyes, draped her arm over my shoulder, and said “I love you, Daddy.”

Then I realized that no matter how tired I would be, the next day would not suck.

Sleep is overrated.

Hearing a toddler say “I love you” is not.