Prayers for Sleep

One question I get a lot is, "what made you think your son had autism in the first place?"

The first tip-off was his sleeping patterns. There were a lot of symptoms at the time, but I didn't put them together until the sleeping made me hunt for answers. Here's what was happening.

Christmas. We were visiting my parents. William went to bed at his normal time, with the normal routine of bath, rocking chair time, some books, pacifier, sippy cup, lay him down, and he's out. Normally this process (after bathtime) takes ten to twenty minutes. All of a sudden, it was taking an hour. Sometimes two. That's not the worst part. Finally after he'd fall asleep at 10 pm, he'd wake up again at 1 am. And he was completely inconsolable. It was a constant fight just to hold on to him, and he was screaming constantly. He'd do that until 2 or 3. And then, he'd calm down, but he wanted to play. Or at least wander around the house. And he would do that until 4 or 4:30, when he would literally collapse on the living room floor out of pure exhaustion. At this point, you had to wait until he was dead asleep (around 5), and then you could pick him up and lay him in his crib. If you picked him up before the dead-sleep stage, the process started over again.

Yes. It was absolute hell.

He quit doing it after about two or three months of that. We assumed it had something to do with travel, since he only did it when he wasn't sleeping in his crib. It still sent up red flags because that seemed like a very strange reaction to change, even though of course, no kids actually like stuff like that. But, after we stayed put in one place for long enough, it seemed to take care of the problem.

So imagine my horror when about two weeks ago he became increasingly difficult to settle down to his nap. By the time this past Saturday rolled around, it took us an hour to get him asleep for his nap. What am I supposed to do, you know? We're doing everything we can for him. I know where this is going, and I can't imagine a worse time for it to happen. Even if all this autism stuff weren't happening right now, August is the most mentally and emotionally vulnerable month out of the year for our family. George works in higher education. This is when students return. It is sheer and utter chaos, and I literally don't see him for weeks.

Last night, William woke up at 1 am and chattered in his crib until almost 6. Somewhere around 4:30, I sat up in bed and half-cried-half-prayed. It started out with me blubbering "Lord, have mercy," over and over, and then I started crying to the Theotokos.

I've always felt a little behind as a relatively new Orthodox Christian. So much has happened in our lives since I was chrismated, that I feel like I haven't had much opportunity to connect with my faith. One of those elements was Mary, the Theotokos. Like a good Orthodox Christian, I always say the prayers addressed to her during liturgy, I nod respectfully toward her icon, and the like, but I never felt emotionally connected to the mother of Jesus. Last night, it was different.

I found myself crying over and over, "Mother of mothers, Holy God-bearer, please petition your Son. Please, as a mother, pray for us, please, pray for us. We cannot survive this. Please petition your Son. We cannot survive this."

I don't know if it was an answer to prayer or not, but I fell asleep.

Thank you, Lord Jesus Christ and your Holy Mother for the four hours I got. Lord have mercy. Get me through today. Anything I accomplish, Holy God, is all to Your credit, because today, I am completely incapable.