Transcript provided by YouTube. Slightly edited with AI.
I was sleeping, I was snoring, I was not prepared to be woken up. He coughs loudly, and I wake up because I’m not expecting anyone to be coughing in my mouth. Let me tell you about the biggest lie when you have a kid. People tell you that you’re never going to sleep again. That’s not true. When you have a kid, you’re definitely going to get some sleep. It just won’t be consistent sleep because you never know when a baby is going to walk into your bed and interrupt everything.
As I take you on this Sleep Number journey and show you how I reclaim my sleep health, I wanted to thank Sleep Number for sponsoring this video and providing me with this incredible bed.
[Music]
Welcome. Today, I’m going to reintroduce you to our little family and explain to you why it’s important for parents to reclaim their sleep health. All right, everybody, sit still. No one’s doing what Dad said, except me.
Okay, so quick question. Do you guys come in Dad’s bed a lot or Mom’s bed? Yes. Who lets you on Mom’s bed? Mom does. Does Dad like you in the bed? No. Okay, tell the camera why not. Well, because he sees our feet. They’re always dirty. He always comes up with excuses because we are ashy and stuff, and we smell. And sometimes, usually when we go in the room, he’s in the shower. When he comes out, he tells us to get out. And same thing with Mom. And he doesn’t like us sitting on the bed. Sometimes we sit on the pillows, and he’s like, “Oh, get out right now.” Why? Why? Why doesn’t he like it? Because he’s kind of grumpy sometimes. Okay, why is he grumpy? Because, well, it’s not just because I’m her dad that I’m grumpy. Okay, the truth is, I’m probably not getting enough sleep. We’ll get to that later.
Honestly, when you have your first daughter, there’s something that changes about you. You just grind differently, and she’s been grinding with me, always shining her light a little bit brighter so I can do better. But just like any baby, she doesn’t like to sleep. Mom, all done. Yeah, no, you have to go to sleep. But I still got to do what I got to do, which means making sure she gets enough rest while sacrificing my own.
Do you think Dad should let you guys come in his room and put your butt on his pillow? Do you want us to go in your room and put our butt on your pillow? No. Well, if you put our butt on your pillow, that means we get to come in your room. I’m willing to do that.
Theo has been waiting for the Rapture to come and leave behind himself, his mother, and me because he just wants to be an only child again. And I noticed the difference when he decided that he wanted to cut his hair. Since he’s the oldest, he often has the hardest time because everything that he does is new for us. So it often leaves me struggling to figure out if I’m doing the right thing or not because it’s the first time. And these big decisions often leave me overwhelmed and needing for a net. So thank God for great lullabies.
[Music]
And can we just talk about how tough life can be for the middle child? Like, Uah is so smart, and he has such a big imagination. If he’s not counting Z’s, sometimes his head is just in the clouds. Now, as a kid, I would often sneak and jump on my parents’ bed, but I never did it in front of a camera. And this guy does it in front of a camera because he’s all about having fun. One thing I didn’t take into consideration is that his little brother is watching everything he does, downloading. And one thing that I’ve never really been prepared for is the power of the youngest child because if they don’t want to go to sleep, they just don’t sleep. Are you going to sleep? Yeah. Okay, why’d you come back downstairs? Because what? And unfortunately, that means I don’t sleep either.
So the other night, I was sleeping, I was snoring, I was not prepared to be woken up. Uzi came into the bed. Now, when he came in the bed, he came in with all types of authority. Okay, he sits in the bed, he looks at me as if I’m supposed to just accept him, and then he kind of nudges his way right next to me. And then when he gets comfortable, he realizes he wants me to hold him, so he coughs loudly, and I wake up because I’m not expecting anyone to be coughing in my mouth in the middle of the night, you know what I’m saying? I feel like I should just be able to sleep.
I know you always want to be your best self for your kids, but in order to do that, you need to be getting enough sleep. So let’s go back in time so you can see what I did to reclaim my sleep. Welcome back. We have elevated our Slumber. Okay, we just got our Sleep Number I10 NextGen Smart Bed delivered. I’m excited to see about the tech that goes inside of it because I need to enhance my sleep life. Because I don’t be sleeping like I’m supposed to, y’all.
During the deeper periods of our sleep, our bodies go through such reparative processes like tissue repair, hormone regulation, and memory consolidation. So getting four to five hours of high-quality uninterrupted sleep is way better than getting eight hours of fragmented sleep. Lack of sleep can impair various cognitive functions, such as attention, concentration, problem-solving, and decision-making. Even if you manage to get eight hours of sleep, but it is poor quality—awakening frequently or with disturbances—you may still experience cognitive deficits. On the other hand, four to five hours of restful sleep can contribute to better cognitive performance throughout the day.
This is why I think it’s important to document your sleeping patterns, which makes your sleep IQ so important. These past three weeks have been really eye-opening because I never really understood what was happening while I was sleeping. It directly affects my patience, for sure, and it directly affects my quality of work. If I don’t work well and I end the day and I’m like, “Dang, I didn’t do what I had to do,” I leave work thinking about everything I didn’t accomplish. So it makes it harder for me to leave work at work.
I think one of the biggest things that I noticed when I had a really good night’s sleep is I just woke up grateful, ready to seize the day, and just felt like I could do anything. And then I felt prepared, like it could only go up from here. I felt disciplined, like I honored myself. I was actually excited to do whatever I had to do that day, and I felt like I was cared for, you know what I’m saying? Like almost like I pampered myself or I loved myself well.
I want to be a great father. That is the race I’m running. It’s all about fatherhood. It’s all about being a husband and a father and having a good family because
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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Photo credit: iStock