I am a mother’s sleep deprived mind. I am the brink of madness. I am three-year-old’s sleep regression. I am destruction. I am chaos. I am frustration.
Nothing worked. My mind was slipping.
My three-year-old was torturing me. She didn’t sleep at night and she was a bully by day. Something had to give. I tried everything I could think of short of drugging her. I was at my wits’ end with no end in sight. Six months went by and she was still not sleeping through the night. She has always been a light sleeper, but this was getting ridiculous. People talk about the 4th trimester, but what about the 5th? Or was this the 6th?
Time was slipping away as I entered survival mode. I felt like I was drowning.
Then somehow a light bulb came on in my addled mind. A friend had mentioned white noise. With a child who is the human equivalent of category level 4 destruction, I quickly threw out the idea of a white noise machine. She destroys her toys, her room, and anything else in her grasp given the chance. Luckily, her room is next to the bathroom.
Cue the magical fart fan!
Besides already performing the life saving task of reducing the stench of my family’s gas, it served a hidden purpose. I turned it on. The noise quieted that end of our home to a dull roar. Then suddenly silence. Nine hours of uninterrupted silence!
Now the magical fart fan is part of our nightly routine. It comes on every bedtime, quietly luring my children to sleep with its gentle whirl of blades hidden in the ceiling of the next room. It’s safely tucked away from their reach seven feet above the ground. My sanity all in one vented appliance.
My daughter still wakes during the witching hours occasionally, but instead of a terrible fight to put her back to bed, I face simple crying, which quickly fades into the sound of that blessed device. Then blessed silence. I am currently singing the praises of the magical fart fan!
