A hug and a kiss to my babies
There is nothing easy about parenting. Not one thing.
I have two kids with special needs. They are high functioning in many ways and not in many others. I love them, but they don’t sleep…much.
When they were very little, I rocked them to sleep every night. Our son was in the NICU briefly upon birth and couldn’t be held normally. It took time to learn how to hold and rock him due to his needs. Once I was comfortable, I rocked my baby boy every night for two years until his little sister came home.
Once we had the two kids, I took turns with my spouse. I usually was rocking our daughter while my husband took care of our son. It made sense for me to be the ‘rocking partner’ much of our daughter’s first year between skin-to-skin contact, breast feeding and storytelling. With our son needing care through the night (and often long stays in the hospital), I devoted specific time to rocking our daughter until she fell asleep when it was possible. Our son required so much of my time, that I never wanted our daughter to feel she wasn’t as important…and nighttime was an important time for us.
As they aged, and I moved to working 3 jobs to stay afloat, those precious bedtimes with the kids faded away. I would come home at 11 or 12 at night and pick up the fragmented pieces of our kids…
