One of the cruel things about being human is having to sleep. Don't get me wrong usually I love it, that is, until I "have to" do it. It's like getting enough protein or saturated fats into your diet; you love it when you're not thinking about it, but once you stick a "have to" in front of, well pretty much anything, then that which was once fun is know sickeningly hard to accomplish.
Anyway, my issue is sleep. I have the worst time sleeping. When I have to be somewhere early (like before noon) I often have to drink a glass of wine, and take allergy medication just to knock myself out and stay under long enough to get about six hours of decent, albeit, drug and alcohol induced sleep. I have on occasion tried to sleep without any aid, but inevitably will get up at 2:30am-ish and be bitterly wide awake until I break down and take something. Which then makes me utterly groggy and angry the next morning. So what I can do?
Hmm...not much really. I've even tried those melatonin tablets you're supposed to pop just before you go to sleep. Those are rubbish. And I've tried "Extra Sleepytime" tea (two bags steeped for a good ten minutes). The tea makes me very sleepy but then I'm up around 3 or 4am, wide awake, AND I have to go potty. Very annoying!! One time I was up around 3am and wide awake as usual, and it seemed like the whole world was asleep but me, and snoring, which made me more angry and annoyed, so I tried pacing and some hot milk. But it was like everyone was saying, "No you can't sleep and just to make double sure, we're all going to snore in an irregular pattern to drive you crazy all night, so there." Well the pacing for about twenty minutes made me tired and the milk keep my stomach from grumbling (yet another annoying reason to get up in the middle of the night), so I was able to get back to sleep for about 2 hours. My husbands alarm went off at 6am or so. So I got about 5 hours that night total. ANNOYING!!
Now I'm told that new moms suffer an similar fate for the first few months of their childs life as they get used to one another. In addition to the whole 3am feeding and diaper change thing, et. the infant must establish a sleeping pattern. I must have been a horrible baby. I should ask my mom about that. However the mother usually gets back to normal sleep in about 4 months or so. Maybe all I need to do is have a baby and I'll be normal. Wouldn't that be great. the cure for insomnia is having a baby, and magically all will right itself in about four to five months.
Well there are no babies in my future, so far as I know, but I'll let you all know how that goes someday. In the mean time, it's more hot milk, pacing, alchol, allergy medication, and prayer.
Sweet dreams,
Leah
