It is 2:17 a.m.
You are standing in the dim glow of the hallway night-light, bouncing a baby who is wide awake and deeply offended by the concept of sleep 😂. Your phone is in your hand. You are Googling, again, how to get my baby to sleep, as if this time the internet might finally tell you the secret it has been withholding.
I get it.
Most parents come to the sleep conversation already carrying shame. Somewhere along the way, we absorbed the idea that if our baby is not sleeping, it must mean we are doing something wrong. We missed a step. We failed to establish a routine. We held them too much. We did not hold them enough. We trusted our instincts, and now we are paying for it at 3 a.m.
This is where the conversation usually goes sideways.
Sleep advice is often delivered with urgency and fear. If you do not fix this now, something terrible will happen. Your baby will never sleep. Your marriage will suffer. Your child will not learn independence. You will be tired forever.
That fear alone is enough to keep a nervous system wide awake.
In this podcast conversation, I sat down with Bernie Ranieri, founder of Snuggle & Sleep, to talk about sleep from a very different angle and not just schedules and wake windows, but the interior life of parents. Faith. Authority. Trust. The nervous system of the mother who is trying to make a decision while running on fumes.
One of the most freeing truths we discussed is this: sleep struggles are not a moral failure. They are often a sign of a system under strain.
When parents are overtired, their capacity shrinks. Everything feels louder, heavier, and more urgent than it actually is. A baby waking at night does not just feel inconvenient. It feels like proof that you are doing something wrong. That emotional weight is not random. It is physiology.
A dysregulated nervous system is desperate for relief. That is why sleep decisions can suddenly feel charged, high-stakes, and impossible to make calmly. You are not lacking discipline or faith. Your body is asking for rest.
We also talked about something that does not get enough airtime in sleep conversations: authority.
Not dominance. Not control. Authority as calm leadership. The kind that says, “I can see you. I can handle this. We are safe.” Babies borrow regulation from their parents. When we are frantic, they feel it. When we are grounded, they feel that too.
Godly parenting does not mean martyring yourself through exhaustion. It does not mean ignoring your own limits in the name of love. Love that never rests eventually collapses into resentment, even when it is well-intentioned.
Rest is not indulgent. It is stabilizing.
There was a moment in our conversation when Bernie shared how many parents come to her feeling like sleep has become a referendum on their worth. If the baby sleeps, they are doing well. If the baby does not, they are failing. That binary thinking is not wisdom. It is pressure.
Good parenting is rarely proven at night. It is revealed over time, through consistency, presence, and repair.
If you are in the thick of sleepless nights, I want to say this gently and clearly. You do not need one more hack. You need support that honors your values, your faith, and your nervous system.
Your baby will sleep.
You will rest again.
If this resonates, I invite you to listen to the full podcast episode.
Comments