Noah has been suffering from a bit of insomnia lately. I’d like to blame Mark for this one but the Henrichsens aren’t really insomniacs, just night owls that catch up on their sleep later in the morning. When Mark and I got married, I was a morning person. I would wake up around seven, sometimes earlier and would be already to tackle the day. But Mark had other ideas and he’d wrap his big arms around me really tight and wouldn’t let go until I’d fallen back to sleep. And waking up after that, if you’re like me, is nearly impossible. Of course, after undoing my early-bird personality he probably wished he hadn’t, especially when Hunter came along and sleeping was not on his list of important things to do. Sleeping until 1:00 in the afternoon was no longer an option and getting up at 5:00 in the morning was practically mandatory. I’m happy to say that six children later I’ve returned to my early-rising self and between my early risings and Mark’s night owl abilities, we cover almost all possible baby shifts, except for the 2:00-5:00am shift and at that point we’re both really good at faking sleep.
But I’ve deviated and I must get back to Noah’s insomnia which I suppose I will have to accept all responsibility because according to my Mother, it runs in the family. My dear sister Melanie has apparently struggled her entire life to sleep. That is, until now–now that she has three kids 3 and under and all she wants to do is sleep but of course, cannot. But not because she can’t. Because kids and sleep do not coincide. Melanie, I’ve been told, is very much like Noah and used to lie in bed at night, wide awake, just waiting for the dawn to come. And so does Noah. He’s never been a good sleeper. Right from the start he was a non-sleeper. We’d rock him to sleep, swaddle him tight and as soon as we laid him down. . . he was awake. When he was a little older we tried letting him cry himself to sleep which was extremely painful for all of us. Hunter figured out at six months how to cry himself to sleep and never took longer than 15 minutes to fall asleep. Noah cried and screamed and shook the bed so hard we thought for sure it would fall to pieces. And he remained that way for hours until I could no longer take it and gave in to his insisting I sleep with him, at least until he fell asleep. Then there were his coughing fits that lasted for at least two years. I remember praying that God would help me with Noah and the only answer I ever got was “Be patient.” And I suppose, time passed and he did start getting better. He started sleeping without me by his side and the coughing passed. But still, Noah would wake up every night at almost the exact same time with no better excuse than “I can’t sleep.” He would often call us into his bedroom and ask us “how much longer ’til morning?” And then he’d just lay there. . . waiting. Noah also takes the very longest to fall asleep and is often wide awake long after I’ve fallen asleep. Naps? We’ve tried them. . . they don’t help anything.
Anyway, lately Noah has really been struggling to sleep. He’s up late and then up at his usual 3-4:00am hour. And up again at 6:00am. He keeps waking us up and it’s been especially frustrating because we just got the twins to sleep through the night and Mark and I desperately want a straight eight hours. Desperately. I stayed up one night way past my bedtime trying to research “insomnia in children” and I couldn’t find anything helpful. Some moron tried blaming all sleep disorders on the parents which maybe if Noah was my first I’d accept with my tail between my legs but all five of my other children sleep straight through the night from 9:00pm to 7:00am just fine and I know Noah is definitely having a problem separate from my parenting abilities or lack thereof. And much of my research left me wondering if Noah has a milk intolerance and maybe his tummy is bothering him. But the only really useful info I found was to not make a big deal out of it and after the whole learning to poop in the potty ordeal we went through with Noah, I knew it was good advice.
So I went to bed and that very night Noah woke up earlier than ever. In an attempt to not make a big deal out of things I had Mark bring Noah downstairs and turned on the TV for Noah and rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I figured just because he couldn’t sleep didn’t mean we had to stay awake. And I thought letting him watch TV for a little while was a lot nicer than forcing him to lay in his bed for hours on end, trying to go to sleep when he obviously could not. The only problem with that is that there isn’t a lot of chilren’s television on at 1:45 in the morning which left us little to choose from. Luckily Mythbusters was on the Discovery Channel and I knew it was safe and interesting, if not educational too. So I left it there and fell asleep pretty darn quick after that. I woke up later to some infomercials, and tried finding something else for Noah to watch but fell asleep with the remote in my hand and who knows what on the TV for my innocent Noah to feast his eyes upon. Eventually Noah fell asleep and when he did he crashed hard, sleeping all the way until 8:30am, well past the start of school. Hallelujah!
Well. . . last night as I was tucking the boys in bed Noah started talking about what he watched on TV while his daddy and I snored away on either side of him. I was a little worried because I do remember getting groggy as I flipped channels right around MTV and thanks to many late nights with the twins I know much too well what comes on MTV late at night (Girls Gone Wild Commercials to name just one) and I wouldn’t want Noah watching that stuff, not ever. So my ears perked up and this is what Noah said he saw, “These guys were heating up salsa and trying to break these jail bars and one guy stuck his arm up the machine and was wiggling his fingers and saying ‘I’m ticklating the generator of the goop’ and then they had a cement truck and they put dynamite in it and blew it up.” Huh? Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t Girls Gone Wild. But what was it?
Much to my relief today I found this description of episode 26 of Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel: “Adam and Jamie go head to head in a madcap Mexican jailbreak as they taste-test the theory of the Salsa Escape. And take one cement truck, add 850 pounds of dynamite, and what’s left? Absolutely nothing, apparently. Adam and Jamie join forces with the FBI to find out if you can remove cement build-up from a mixer’s barrel using dynamite.” So while Noah still may not be sleeping through the night we at least know he’s not insane and he’s got himself a great memory for a six year old.
