It was the third night that week that I’d gone to bed in the wee hours of the morning, rising at seven to begin the serve-breakfast-pack-lunches-run-for-the-bus-and-carpool marathon. But it was Friday. Shabbos was coming, and the show must go on.

And what a show it was.

I poured cholent beans into my chicken soup and searched frenziedly for my kitchen shears, only to discover they were on the counter. I walked down to the basement freezer to get something and forgot why I was there. I salted the potato kugel four times. I needed a bed desperately.

Sleep deprivation inhibits health and the ability to function on a basic level. Yet it’s something we contend with throughout our years of parenting, beginning with that delightful newborn phase when the cute bundle of joy includes a shrill siren we can’t turn off.

According to a poll by the National Sleep Foundation, at least two out of every three children in the United States suffers from disordered sleep. That’s a lot of tired children — and a lot of tired parents. The number of sleepless children is even higher among kids with chronic illness, special needs, or other conditions that prevent them from remaining in a horizontal position for more than a few hours.

Bleary-Eyed to the Max

When Michal gave birth to her first child, she thought she had the sleep thing down pat. Her son nursed like clockwork, and as he grew, his periods of sleep between feedings stretched pleasantly.

Then she had her second baby.

He was as endearing as her first, but one problem prevented Michal from fully enjoying her days — or rather nights — with him: He would not sleep. Or rather, he could not sleep. This angelic little boy had a troublesome respiratory issue that caused him to awaken red-faced and flailing every time he was placed in his bassinet.

It took almost four months until Michal reached a miraculous milestone: She slept for three consecutive hours. Her son outgrew his condition by the time he was ten months old, but by then he simply had no concept of how to go to sleep — or how to maintain that slumber for more than a couple of hours. It took a herculean effort to teach him to master those skills, and then finally, Michal regained her nights. Until a few years later, when she had another son with the same condition and her sleepless nights returned.

(Excerpted from Family First, Issue 630)