Are Sleepless Nights God's Test For New Mothers?

Unpacking the meaning of a popular The Gospel Coalition Instagram post

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I was a Very Good Evangelical in my college days, and an acquaintance from those days reposted something from The Gospel Coalition that caught my attention this week. For those who haven’t swam in the evangelical ocean for much of their lives, TGC is an evangelical organization that produces resources for churches in the Reformed tradition, an offshoot of Calvinism which tends to be stricter in doctrinal interpretation.

Anyway, this was an Instagram post addressed to mothers, written by a mother (fortunately or we would have had some WORDS with a man trying to tell women how to live their lives). It was called “Trusting God in the Sleepless Nights of Motherhood.”

The author of the post shares her story of walking the path of sleepless nights over the course of 5 babies. She describes learning to rely on God in that time and acknowledge her “idol” of sleep. She realizes, “My sleepless nights revealed that I was really thinking, God can help me get through the day (as long as I get a good night’s sleep). And by taking away sleep he was graciously taking away those conditions. He was showing me that he is enough.”

Now I’ll preface this by saying that I’m a person who really values her sleep. Or gosh, maybe I should say, I’ve made an idol of sleep?? Frame it how you want, I’ve never been a person who can pull an all-nighter or go multiple nights in a row with little sleep. Except that, of course, when you have a newborn, that’s a mandate.

But let’s unpack what messaging the popular Instagram post is conveying through the sweet, inspirational sleepless nights post.

Mothers Portrayed As the Primary Sacrificers

I suppose women use Instagram a lot more often than men, but TGC is not exactly a woman or mom specific organization. I’m curious if a post like this would ever be written for a father? This mother has 5 children, but her husband is never mentioned in terms of his assistance through these sleepless nights. I assume she is breastfeeding her newborns, which is obviously a task her husband cannot directly help with. But I know he could indirectly help: change the baby, rock the baby back to sleep, or even feed the baby a bottle the mom had pumped earlier in the day.

Maybe dad is too busy with his breadwinning job to lose any sleep at night (even while mom has insomnia due to her anxiety about when baby will next wake)? Aside from re-examining our horrid parental leave policies in this country, perhaps we could recognize that mom is also doing a full-time job all day long as well, except she is working at home with up to 4 other children.

It is possible for parents to take shifts in these difficult early days: someone sleeping during the first half of the night while the other parent is on duty, then swapping it. My friends in same-sex relationships who are parents do this without a second thought. What a simple solution!

But if mom was actually better rested, where would the lesson be for learning to rely on God alone then, right?

Actually, Sleep is Correlated to Mental Health, Not a Test From God

The author acknowledges that we need sleep and that “Sleep is a good gift from God. God does not take our physical needs lightly.” Umm sorry, but would there exist a world where God creates humans, and also creates in them this weird need to rest their bodies and become unconscious for about a third of their day, but then says that need is simply a “gift” that God is nice enough to give us?? What a sadistic God that would be! Why not just create humans with no need for sleep then, or make sleep purely about pleasure?

Know what is correlated directly with postpartum depression? Sleep. As in, the ability to get better sleep helps people not experience as severe postpartum depression. The article I just linked explains how women without PPD were measured to have better sleep, and as PPD symptoms worsened, sleep quality decreased as well. Chicken or egg, or a little of both? The relationship between sleep and PPD may go both ways.

Postpartum depression is not something to take lightly. The above article points out that PPD affects the relationship between the mother and infant. I know for me, it’s really hard to be my best self and give my infant what he needs when I feel chronically sleep deprived. I am a different person than who I want to be. Perhaps we can do a little better than challenge new moms to withstand God’s test of removing the idol of sleep from their lives.

For instance, we could do things like structuring parental leave so new parents have the security of paid time off while they tend to a new baby who does not operate on any kind of reasonable schedule. Or funding our care infrastructure so that we also value investing in our elderly and our children instead of just our roads and bridges. We could help pay for doulas or home nurses to support new parents. We could create hospitals / birthing centers / pediatrician offices with a lactation consultant available for FREE (we actually have this in our rural town, which is awesome!!). We could make sleep consultants available under insurance, for those who choose a sleep training route. There’s so many structural things we could do to support new parents.

But to acknowledge sleep as a physical need, but one that God takes away for the purpose of making a new mom rely on him more… oof, that’s an attitude I just can’t get behind.

Babies Are Babies, Not Pawns in God’s Plan to Create Reliance on Him

News flash: babies are babies. They are usually born terrible sleepers (I mean except during the day when they love to nap especially all cozy in your arms, am I right?). They are needy and they cry a lot and don’t really know how to self-regulate. That’s because to get them to exit out of a woman’s body successfully, they have to be born pretty little and underdeveloped (compared to other mammals).

I personally don’t think they are born so little and underdeveloped because God has been scheming about how to get these independent, idolatrous mothers to be more reliant on him (because God is usually a man in this theology).

But if you grew up with this theology, this kind of thinking is 100% normal. God is always using situations in your life to disciple you into a person who is (or could be) more godly, closer to him, and more submissive and reliant on God.

It’s one thing to try to make meaning out of difficult, tiresome, depression- and insomnia-inducing situations (which I do genuinely think the writer was trying to do). But it’s another thing altogether to say that the situation exists in order to get you to such a state of exhaustion and helplessness that you cry uncle and fall into a helpless pile of non-idolatry in God’s arms.

The One Point I Can Agree With

Even though I find the Instagram post to be generally grating (because as I admitted initially, I’m obviously one of those who has made an idol of sleep), I can find a point of agreement with it. (I know, I know. Don’t be too shocked. I’m not an altogether unreasonable and hateful ex-evangelical).

When you are going through a difficult time, it helps to a) know you’re not alone, and b) find some way of making meaning out of it, or have some sense of purpose in what you’re experiencing.

This post provides both for the readers. People know they’re not alone, because the writer shares her experiences and all the other commenters and people who “like” it clearly feel some resonance, too. And she provides a sense of purpose for those sleepless nights. I can see how for those who are really religious and believe that God does things like put people in situations for the express purpose of making them reliant on him (which was VERY much part of the theology I imbibed growing up), a post like this would provide comfort.

Of course, I no longer find belief in that kind of God comforting. If God is willing to take away my sleep not because my baby is a newborn who needs me a lot, but because I’ve made an idol of sleep… well, now I find that God to be pretty off-putting, to say the least. Because what else is that God willing to put people through? Are abusive situations, child neglect, war, poverty, all just part of God’s master plan to get people to worship him? That’s not the kind of narcissistic fellow I’d feel really safe worshipping.

But if your theology is structured around such an all-powerful God for whom the ultimate good is all his creation worshipping him, then yes, I can see how the sleepless nights of motherhood suddenly become packed with meaning. And if that’s what helps pull you through those days… then so be it, I suppose.

And for all of us, may we be the ones who physically show up for people who need it. Who send the text messages reminding them they’re not alone, who bring the casserole and cookies, who wash the dishes or hold the baby while a tired parent naps. Maybe you think of it as being the hands and feet of Jesus, maybe you’re being part of the Beloved Community, or maybe you’re just trying to show up as a good neighbor and friend. Whatever conceptualization it takes to get us there… I hope we get there.

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