To the New Mom Whose Baby Never Sleeps

Photograph courtesy of the author

I was a first-time mother to nine-month-old twins. My husband worked graveyard shifts, which left me alone to care for my babies overnight. We lived in a tiny rental house with original wood floors that creaked with every move I made. Nighttime became a treacherous ordeal with our two bedrooms so close together, and I was always paranoid of every step I took.

For the most part, our babies were good sleepers, which I was so grateful for. But some nights, when the better sleeper would wake up crying, inevitably waking the lighter sleeper, I was left with two tired, screaming babies.

Needless to say, it was stressful and frustrating trying to calm two babies in the middle of the night by myself.

One night, this very thing happened, and I quickly got one baby calmed down and almost back to sleep in our living room. I went back for my other baby, who was still crying, and scooped her up. Amid my mounting frustration, I looked up and saw the painting of Christ surrounded by children hanging on the wall next to her crib. I thought of how patient and loving and tender He looked with them.

As I glanced to the side, I saw, in the darkness, the reflection of my own silhouette holding my baby. When I had placed that little mirror on the adjacent wall, I hadn’t realized the parallel it would create with the painting. But as I looked back and forth between the image of the Savior with those children and myself with my sweet, screaming baby, I was suddenly overcome with the thought that I wasn’t alone in this. I felt that I, the tired mama I saw in the reflection, could be more patient, more loving, and more tender than I felt—just as He was—because of Him and His example.

It was a moment I never want to forget. I’m grateful for the reminder that I am never alone and for His example of how to treat my children, even (and especially) in those middle-of-the-night moments.

Since that night, I have found such a special comfort in the words of the scriptures that remind us that we are never alone—in our trials, in our sorrows, in our exhaustion of new motherhood.

As Elder Robert D. Hales (1932–2017) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles expressed: “‘In my Gethsemane’ and yours, we are not alone. He that watches over us ‘shall neither slumber nor sleep’ [Psalm 121:4]. His angels here and beyond the veil are ‘round about [us], to bear [us] up’ [Doctrine and Covenants 84:88]. I bear my special witness that our Savior’s promise is true, for He says, ‘They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint’ [Isaiah 40:31].”

The babies waking up in the middle of the night might not stop anytime soon. But we can take comfort in knowing that, as we are there for our children, tired and frustrated as we may be, our Savior and our Father in Heaven are always there for us.