I have not slept in over 6 years!

I can't remember the last time I closed my eyes at night and did not wake until morning (after 6AM).  My household is not one of blissfully sleeping children.  On a rare occasion that my children sleep from night til' morn, it is my husband's snores who shake the house like an incoming train.  I can count on my two hands the number of times in the last 6 years that my children were sleeping, my husband was not snoring, and we remembered to take my dog's jingly collar off.  During these quiet nights, I wait on high alert for the first person (or canine) who will need me.

Someone always has to pee.  Someone is always thirsty, Someone is always too hot/too cold or has outgrown their pajamas in the middle of the night.  Someone always has a special stuffed animal friend who has gotten lodged between the bed and the wall.  Someone always can't find their special blanket or is twisted and restrained by it.  Someone is always scared by a noise, the silence, a shadow.  Someone always complains of their room being too light or too dark.  Someone always has a booger, a nose bleed or a random ache or pain.  Someone always needs something, anything...other then sleep!

I can't dream up all the ways in which they manage to stay awake and need me through the night.

I am so tired.  I just want to sleep.

My children just don't seem to need sleep.  They are unlike any other children I know. It is not a rare occasion that I am woken by the sound of my three year old son sitting in the bathroom sink, eating toothpaste. Several times a week I hear the start of battery operated trucks, trains or chainsaws at 3:00 AM.  When I go to his room he is not remorseful, but asks me if I want to play.  On the days he does sleep, he will wake me up at 5:00AM, sometimes dressed in a full football uniform (including helmet), and asks me to play football with him...in the dark...at 5:00AM!!!!!

My 5 year old daughter is perhaps the worst sleeper in the house.  She goes through true episodes of insomnia.  We have had numerous conversations with the pediatrician, taken her to sleep specialists, tried melatonin, and every behavioral strategy invented...to no avail.  The professional opinion we received is that she "suffers" from childhood insomnia, and this is who she is.  We need to teach her how to cope with it.

I would disagree, it is her parents who are suffering!

I am so tired.  I just want to sleep.

I just want to know when I will sleep again.  My brain is foggy, my body is sore and I dread going to bed for fear of what the night will bring.

I am so tired.  I just want to sleep.