Insomnia
ok, so I think I officially have insomnia. I get sleepy at night but by the time I wash my face and brush my teeth I am wide awake. My mind races for at least an hour. It is awful. Waking up to feed my baby at 5 am might not be so bad if I wasn’t going to bed at 12:30am. I tried going to bed earlier to see if it was just that my body needed an hour or so to wind down, but no I ended up lying in bed for 2 hours instead of 1.
The worst part is that my husband and baby are both in deep sleep and I can hear their deep sleep breathing and it makes me so jealous. I envy there ability to get in bed and fall asleep within literally one minute. Seriously, I have timed it before. My mind is just racing with thoughts and then I get adrenaline thinking about all the things I could be doing instead of sleeping.
Some of the things that run through my mind are:
Swim lessons
Target trips
Grocery lists
Vacations
scrapbooking
buying a fire ladder ( i have this horrible fear that my house is going to burn down and I wont be able to get my baby… its horrible.)
Thoughts of exercising
Self criticism (I think about all the dramatic things I say to people during the day that may be misinterpreted)
Decorating/ Organizing my house
And much more…
No joke, I have thought about all these things in just one sleepless night.
Do any of you out there have any advice for how to get better sleep? Your advice is welcome unless you are going to tell me to avoid the 200mg of caffeine that I have throughout the day, but that has nothing to do with loss of sleep, right?
Kristin said,
April 29, 2008 at 3:19 am
A glass of wine or alcoholic beverage of your choice
onbeautysroad said,
April 29, 2008 at 5:41 am
I like the glass of wine idea as well. I would also add that perhaps you are like my wife and need to find something to release the tension of what seems to be a very busy mind. Prayer, yoga, or perhaps another form of “release” from all that plagues your mind. Love you, Jan. Keep posting- we love hearing about your life.
kruclan said,
May 1, 2008 at 4:24 pm
i feel for you-i have had some serious insomnia (especially when i was on bedrest with aj), and i found a few things that helped:
1. exercising during the day (or just getting energy out…but NOT right before bed, since that would just wake me up again)…this helps me the most
2. drinking a glass of hot (decaf) tea or a steamer before bed
3. a glass of wine (more fun than tea or a steamer)
4. not watching tv/movies right before bed, since it’s a stimulant
5. reading (preferably something terribly boring) in bed
6. once i’m in bed and ready to sleep, i focus on deep breathing for a few minutes, just to calm the body…which would be a great time for contemplative prayer, or just “please let cb sleep long, please let cb sleep long”:).
i think that as moms, we have to be such multi-taskers during the day, that it is incredibly hard to find the off button once the lights go out.
insomnia is the worst. i’ll be sending sleepy thoughts your way:).