How many nights can I go without real sleep?

The fact is, I have been sleep deprived since B was born, five years ago next week. Some years, months, weeks have been worse than others. But I haven’t had more than a handful of solid nights of sleep since his birth. And though I openly admit that I have a tendency to exaggerate, this is no exaggeration. Here’s the rest of that fact: There’s no immediate end in sight. Parenthood is, as they say, 24/7. When B is up coughing, one of us has be up with him. When the baby can’t breathe out of her nose to nurse, I have to wake up enough not just to pull her over to me in bed but to suck out the goo in her nose. When S has a bad dream or falls out of bed, she wants her daddy to “come suggle with me.” And these moments, though exhausting, come at a time of night when will isn’t a factor. As parents, we do what we need to. Especially at night. There’s no time or energy or daylight to consider an alternative. And, there’s the FEAR that one awake child will wake another one (or, now, two). There is an urgency to nighttime parenting that is unlike any scenario in daytime, no matter how late we are to preschool or the pediatrician’s. No matter if someone is napping and the other two are playing emergency vehicles. (Daytime sleep is a luxury, even for the baby.) At night, instincts take over without any help from intellect. Just the way sleep should be. Just the way sleeping used to be. Auto pilot.