On Sleep

I've always been a pretty bad sleeper, which is ironic, because I LOVE sleep.  Bedtime is by far my favorite time of the day, hands down.  But the bitch of it all is that despite this, I suck at sleep.  I can vividly recall not being able to fall asleep when I was a kid, and sitting at the top of the stairs, willing myself to call down to my parents, but not doing so, because I knew I would get the inevitable "why aren't you sleeping yet?" response.  Other nights, I would end up in my parents room, where my poor father would have to decamp to my bed, while I shared the bed with my mom.  On those nights, sleep was also not happening.  She'd allow me to chat away, about anything and everything.  Although she probably wanted sleep just as much as I do now, mom probably encouraged the talking, given our usual acrimonious relationship, even at that age.  It was the only time I ever opened up to her.

As an adult and a parent myself, it's only gotten worse.  Before E arrived, I was a so-so sleeper.  I would have my bouts of not being able to sleep, but when I got tired enough, I'd be able to count on at least a few good nights of sleep.  And of course, there was always the chance to sleep in on weekends and days off.  When I got pregnant, my sleep slowly got worse and worse.  If it wasn't the need to go to the washroom umpteen times per night, it was general aches and pains, or the old standby of absolutely no reason at all to be awake, and yet I was.  Nothing enraged me more than when people would say "get your sleep now, because you'll get none when the baby comes".  Last I checked, sleep is not a form of currency - it can't be put into a savings account for a rainy day. 

With E here, sleep has become a distant memory.  The one thing that I didn't want E to inherit from me (other than my huge ass calves, but that's a story for another day!) was my inability to sleep.  I so wanted her to be a sleeper like D, who is able to drop his head on the pillow and be asleep in seconds.  I so envy this ability.  I won't keep you in suspense - clearly, my side won out, and poor E is a terrible sleeper.  As a result, I haven't slept more than a five hour stretch (and those nights could be counted on one hand) for over a year.  The annoying thing is that she has the ability to sleep through the night - she actually slept from 7 - 5:30 last night.  But most nights, she doesn't.  It could be something small, like she's lost her soother, or something major, like tummy troubles, but there are very few nights where she's not awake for a stretch of time during the night.  And there's always at least one stretch where she's awake for a good two hours or more.  It's aggravating, because we can see she wants to be asleep just as much as we want her to be... and would also like to be ourselves.

And here's the most annoying thing: on the (very) rare occasion where E sleeps through the night or D is being a superstar and has taken the monitor to the guest room so I can try and sleep, you would think that my exhausted body would let me sleep.  Nope.  Last night, I was awake off and on (mostly on) from 3:30 until E got up at 5:30 for absolutely no reason at all.  D, God bless his heart, asks why don't I just stop thinking, and tell myself to go to sleep.  I wish to all that is holy that it could be so simple.  There is no simple telling myself to go to sleep, and quickly falling asleep. I toss and turn, check the clock umpteen times and nudge poor D awake when he's blissfully snoring beside me. You would think my body would eventually cave, and allow me to sleep, but so far... nope, nada. 

This lack of sleep is turning me into someone that I really don't like.  In simple terms, I've become a huge grump.  I take it out on D and E, and neither of them deserve it.  The search for a solution continues, because something has to give, sooner or later.  What do you do when you have trouble sleeping?