>What They Don’t Tell You About Parenting, No. 3,217: Sleep is the New Sex

>My son is now three and a half, and– if you must know– he still doesn’t sleep through the night.

Almost every single night at around three in the morning, we’re awakened by his booming voice.

“MOMMYYYYY!” he bellows in a gruff sing-song. “MOMM-MMYYYYY!”

Like a zombie, I blearily claw my way out of my sheets and stumble to his room. “I’ll get you some milk,” I say in a creaky voice before shuffling off down the stairs for a sippy cup. If I take even ten seconds longer than I should, I hear him again from the top of the stairs.

“MOMMMMYYYYY! WHERE ARE YOU, MOMMY?!”

“Shhhh!” I whisper futilely. “I’m coming!”

“BRING ME MY MILK, MOMMMMYYY!” I take it upstairs, hand it to him, and tuck him back in, pulling his favorite bunny blanket up around his shoulders before turning to head back to my room.

“LEAVE THE DOOR OPEN, MOMMY.”

“Okay.”

“TURN THE BATHROOM LIGHT ON, MOMMY.”

“I know.”

And then, only then, does my tiny tyrant allow me to go back to my room.

But it’s not over yet. More often than not, he’s up again between five and 5:30.

“I wan’ get up!” he says then, eyes wide open. “I wan’ get out of here. Wan’ go downstairs an’ play with my cars!”

Occasionally I can convince him it’s still midnight and get him to go back to sleep. But generally, his 17-year-old sister across the hall is getting up for school at around that time, and if he sees her, the jig is up. Thus, more often than not, I resolutely pull on my robe and head downstairs in the dark, hand-in-hand with my son, who insists on joyfully turning on every light as we go while I hiss and shield my eyes.

I know a lot of you are probably thinking we should let Bruiser cry it out at night until he learns to put himself back to sleep. And I would be absolutely fine with that… if it weren’t for the fact that he shares a room with his 6-year-old sister. If we let his cries and complaints go on for too long without coming to his aid, she eventually joins in the chorus, and getting two kids to go back to sleep at three in the morning is much, much harder than one.

Instead, my husband and I alternate Bruiser duty. But after going THREE AND A HALF YEARS without sleeping through the night, I really do believe we are finally beginning to lose our minds.

Never was this clearer to me than when I recently found myself lost in the throes of a very decadent fantasy. There I was (in my mind, anyway) in a rose petal-strewn bed, dressed in next to nothing. Candles were lit all around me and the seductive strains of tenor sax could be heard playing softly in the background. My husband entered the room and as he looked me with candid admiration, I felt myself tingle with the knowledge that my deepest desire was about to be fulfilled.

“Darling,” he said. I held my breath expectantly. “You can sleep in tomorrow as late as you want.”

Oh, the raptures that shook my body at those words! Sleep, glorious sleep, in a bed with sheets that still smelled somewhat fresh! Sleep that could stretch on uninterrupted for eight or even ten hours! SLEEP! I wanted it and I wanted it bad. Oh, I would do anything to have it, even…

“WAKE UP, MOMMY. OPEN EYES. IT MORNING TIME.”

I stirred from where I lay on the sofa and realized as my son rudely poked my eyelids with his thumbs that I had hit rock bottom. Sleep had officially replaced sex as my fantasy of choice, narrowly edging out swimming in an ocean of not-too-hot McDonalds French fries. It was clear I had purchased a one-way ticket to Dullsville.

It’s a parenting truth they don’t tell you until it’s way too late to change your mind about the whole mommy/daddy deal. Sleep is the new sex…

…and until you get your fill of it, nothing else will do.