As I’m listening to this podcast episode about sleep this morning, I am reminded of just how little my housemates have been getting these past months. Ever since their twin boys were born last September, both parents have been running on four hours of sleep per night. I cannot comprehend how they do it. The last time I only got four hours of sleep (had to pick up a friend after the Taylor Swift concert), I was in a suboptimal daze for the entire week following.
Either I am weak, or, you know, proper amounts of sleep is the best thing for our body that pharmaceuticals can’t hope to replicate.
But, as new parents, my friends got to do what they got to do. Though it’s not really good advertising to entice others to have kids. So you’re telling me: the babies will cry every few hours (like PTSD), I only get few hours of sleep a night - therefore my body don’t have the necessary time to repair itself, my stress levels are through the roof, and my diet is absolute super-processed shit. All for the privilege of bring a new life into this world. Honorable, but damn if it looks like not so good a time.
Life is a big game of tradeoffs. That aforementioned is the sacrifice required to have kids. Just like if you want to date and get married, then some of your leisure activities will have to go. One quite literally cannot have it all. You drill down to the few things most important, and then focus on them solely. Once kids arrive, then obviously something - a lot of something - else is no longer in the “most important’ category. Like sleep, or traveling to foreign countries for fun.
Thankfully (and hopefully soon), my housemates will get some sleep hours back. Once the twins reach a stage where they are able to sleep overnight consistently. Surely other parenting challenges await after that. But, a well-rested and well-slept parent is better adept at meeting those challenges.
It was all yellow.