Still no internet, and are you sleeping?

I'm typing this from my BlackBerry. I still have no internet, but am hoping the cable guy comes today. And then that I can find the box with my router and figure out how to set it up. Sigh. (I really need full-time tech support. Or a keeper.)

If you're in a class, your emails are set up--I just can't queue them to send from here. So unfortunately they're going to all come through together later today when I can get on. I apologize for that.

Question: I feel like there's an epidemic of insomnia right now. Even people I know who usually have no trouble sleeping are having problems. Anyone experiencing this? I feel like I'm the only person I know who get a decent night's sleep last night.

(I still love magnesium. I've been rubbing magnesium oil into my feet before bed and have actually been sleeping, even with all my life chaos.)

Anyone having insomnia?

Comments

[rosie]

i cannot sleep. or find magnesium oil! help?

[flea]

I think you should train your older son to do stuff like hook up the cable box. It's good for kids to have household expertise! (As long as he doesn't go off to college and then have to field phone calls from you asking how the change the channel.)

[Prism]

I have had insomnia issues recently (back when DS was still sleeping better too...grrr), but now I'm in the middle of the 8-month sleep regression (he's 37 weeks today). Insomnia problem is gone, but I'm still not sleeping much *sigh*. "This too shall pass, this too shall pass." I have found a running buddy and gotten out to run with her 2-3 days a week recently, and this has really seemed to help. I am also taking my vitamins, and have been making a point to eat fish high in Omega 3s as well, just for good measure.

[Jennifer]

LOADS of insomnia - but I'm due with baby #2 in 2 days, so I guess it makes sense. Best wishes to those who have non-pregnancy related insomnia. I hope you all can get some good rest!

[hush]

Like @Jennifer, I'm currently experiencing pregnancy-related insomnia - actually it is more a bout of like ridiculously early waking and just a total inability to go back to sleep. So I'm committed to using this extra early morning time as "me time," dammit!

[Sarah]

I have been having a hard time falling asleep. Staying up too late. But the magic that makes this not feel like insomnia is that I have been able to sleep in. My whole household was a wake up by 6 type - the kids, the baby, my husband, my parents who live with us, me. And now my husband leaves to a quiet house. My big kids sleep until 7. The baby and I have been sleeping until 8. That's been drifting later and I fear I am training my body to shift my sleep. Probably going to be hard when school starts in fall.

But the sleep is weirdly foreign to me - I have been sleeping so hard - dead to the world. When a kid does cry, I have a hard time remembering where we are, you know, our house.

[Diane D]

Weird. I am having insomnia recently-- just the past week, really. And I never have problems sleeping. I'm a great sleeper.

But my husband just did his Prelim for his PhD on Wednesday, and we're leaving tomorrow for my sister's wedding, and I'm flying alone with my 2-year-old cause my husband is taking a side trip to see his 103-year-old grandmother and I haven't even thought about starting packing yet. So I think my insomnia has some logical backing!

[VandyB]

no insomnia here. just a 2 year old who wakes me up once/night and has a morning waking time of 4:45. every day.

until a few weeks ago, i wasn't getting to bed until midnight. then i cut my caffeine intake to one cup of coffee each morning, suffered through the associated withdrawal, and have been able to fall asleep much earlier at night now, and am waking up at that crazy hour with much less pain.

[amberjee]

hello insomnia! i'm 32 weeks pregnant, plus my toddler is generally waking 3 times a night. the worst is not the wakings, but the fact that it takes me an hour or so to get back to sleep. so i think i lose 3 hours of sleep a night owing to just 'trying' to go to sleep. also he doesn't allow daddy to deal with the night wakings. i have a feeling my newborn is going to be able to outsleep him from the word go. although we seem not to be too blessed in the sleep stakes generally.

[giddy]

Strangely enough, my 9-year-old has been having insomnia. However, she is finishing up a 2-week musical theater camp today--with a performance--so I think the "insomnia" is just pre-performance nerves.

[mom2boys]

If I had insomnia on top of everything else, I might run off into the night screaming, never to be heard from again. My sympathies to those of you not sleeping when you otherwise could be. And very good thoughts to those of you expecting another baby. Yay new babies! :)

[Cathy]

I was awake from 4-5 this morning, so yes. And have had weird segments like that all week. It's no fun. There are a lot of things going on that I can't fix that much and mostly have to wait out. Stinky.

[K]

Weird, me too. No real reason, just not tired at 4 AM. Maybe I don't need it right now?

[awakingsleep]

Uh - It has been insomnia central here. Although the last two nights I think I must have adjusted to falling asleep at 1 because I just went to bed later and fell asleep then. I'm hoping it will get better soon, but there's no telling. My almost-3-year-old hasn't been napping at all, and her 28mo friend has been singing in his crib for 2 hours after going to bed every night (up from ~15 minutes of that).

[ramy]

we're all not sleeping. its the norm for my 4.5 year old (who has always been sleep deprived b/c she doesn't believe in it) but the baby is starting to walk and wants to walk at all hours, the husband gets up too early and hasn't been going to sleep early b/c the kids are up so late right now and I've been having nightmares for a week. so i don't know what is up.

does anyone else get nauseous when they don't get enough sleep? Its a new symptom this summer. My first thought was i've got to cut back on alcohol but I hadn't had any the first days this showed up. My second thought was pregnancy I checked. so I think its just sleep deprivation.

[Donna]

YES! I recently tried melatonin with excellent results. I found that 3mg 1/2 hour before bed works for me. It helps me fall asleep and stay asleep. If my daughter wakes me up, I can fall asleep right away if I took melatonin. It doesn't work for everyone though. I've had a difficult time with sleep ever since becoming a mom. I think my body got out of whack from having a baby who slept horribly. Not to mention the drastic cut back in exercise. In the past, I've also tried valerian root/chamomile. It helps you relax to fall asleep, but not stay asleep.
Another thing to look into is 5HTP.

[Jac]

I'm another one whose sleep has gone down the toilet since becoming a mom - I think those early months of sleep deprivation hell just wrecked havoc on my natural sleep cycles. And even tho DS has been reliably sleeping 12 hours a night for well over a year now (bless him!) I regularly have bouts of insomnia where I either (a) can't fall asleep until 4 or 5 in the morning (only to be waken by my lovely alarm clock two hours later or (b) fall asleep easily enough but wake at about 1:30 and can't back to sleep before I need to get up.

I am going to look to add magnesium oil and melatonin to my arsenal of solutions.

The only trick I have is sometimes I get up and I start writing down my stream of conciousness. It's kind of like purging everything I have in my brain so I can get to a place of quiet and fall asleep. It doesn't always work, but often enough that I continue to try every time the insomnia beast strikes.

[Julie]

I was up from 1:30 - 3:00 this morning. Baby woke at 1:30, ate for 10 minutes, and went back to sleep. I did not. My mind would just not turn off. It's not a nightly thing for me, but maybe once a week or so.

I try to talk myself off the ledge with the usual "Nothing will get solved tonight - the problems will still be there in the morning. Nothing I can do about it at 1:30 AM so I might as well sleep" but sometimes that doesn't work. So then I just try to say some prayers and hope that soothes my soul. Sometimes just listing all the things I'm grateful for before launching into my "Oh ya, and could You please....." makes me drift off.

Sadly, that didn't work last night either. I am tiiiiiired this morning.

[Amber]

We've been sleeping like crap over here too. The Babe has decided to have an unscheduled sleep regression :P

[Jenny]

I would be sleeping fine if my 4yo didn't come in once a night with a different problem each night (hot/ nose hurts/ toe hurts/ blanket folded funny/ scary dream/ is thinking about popsicles.) Then, like amberjee, it takes me a long time to get back to sleep afterward. Ugh. But otherwise no problems.

[Katy]

@hush - Yes! I also have the pregnancy-related, very frustrating, very early waking and inability to get back to sleep. I know going to bed earlier would help, but somehow I just can't seem to make that happen - I just have too much appreciation for that quiet time alone with hubby after the kids are in bed.

[maria]

Yes, indeedy. I have been going to bed too late, P has been going to bed too late, it's all just too damn late! Long summer daylight is part of it, I think and the evening activities that come with it.

Also, we have a lot of stressful crap going on which doesn't help.

And, for a bonus, last night P came down with a cold or something, and a) fell asleep late (like 11!), b) woke up uncomfortable by 4, c) didn't go back to sleep til 5:30 or something, and c) woke up for the day a little after 9.

Then she wailed because the answer to Mama, what are we going to do today? was "It's a rest day." My point exactly!

[Sonya]

Okay, weird. Yes, I have been waking up at 4-5ish every morning totally unable to fall back asleep. One morning I got the binding put on a quilt; this morning I packed lunches, fed the fish, cleaned bottles... I'd love the extra time if it didn't mean hitting a wall at 3pm.

[anaximander]

I have something called delayed circadian rhythm, so I get to take something very, very nice before bed and that removes all the stress until exactly 8 hours later.

[maria]

@anaximander, what, praytell, is the miracle stress-removing substance?

[anaximander]

It's called zopiclone (I think a version of it is marketed under the name Lunesta in the US) - it's a pretty restricted prescription, and I only got it once everything else hadn't worked. I usually just fall asleep right away and stay asleep, but even if I do resist and stay up, I just can't seem to get stressed - everything floats right through.

(This is not a one-size-fits-all solution, though. I cannot stress enough that if all of the "sleep advice stuff" fails, get thee to a doctor. It turns out that the underlying cause for me was undiagnosed, horrifically bad sleep apnea, without any of the more readily apparent symptoms (ie snoring, midday napping, sleepiness while driving.) It had apparently gotten to the point where my brain became quite afraid of letting me sleep in case I'd DIE. We tried lots and lots of non-medication treatments to fix my brain for well over a year before we decided to try this, in conjunction with a CPAP.)

[Redhead]

I have not been able to sleep since becoming a mom either (Daughter is 22 months old). I never had a sleep problem before that, at least that I can remember...some days it's hard to remember details of my life pre-motherhood. I have tried prescription sleep aids, melatonin, magnesium oil, as well as cutting out caffeine, "unplugging" before bed, etc. Nothing seems to work. I fall asleep with little problem and wake in the middle of the night unable to fall back asleep for hours. I think a lot of it is anxiety because my daughter has been a solid sleeper from almost birth and still I cannot sleep. Last month, I did finally, at my husband's urging, make an appointment at a sleep clinic. They scheduled me for a sleep study but I had to cancel due to my stepdad's stay in ICU for the past eight weeks. I have been out of state caring for my mom and couldn't get back in time for it. So, the insomnia just continues....

[lisa s]

hmmmm. so it's not just me??

and while babe is doing great once she GETS to sleep... this last week has been HELL putting her down. have had to result to magic boob feeds at 8-9pm to finally make it happen. even had to go back to swaddling one night. what is going on???

[AmeliaV]

This isn't happening to me right now, but has SO OFTEN in the last 11 months that I've been a mom. Very frustrating, because I have always always always been a good sleeper.
What has helped is:
- cutting back the mid-morning/early afternoon coffee (I switched to tea, which probably has hte same caffeine, but doesn't make me as hyper)
- trying to find time to exercise every few days
- having a bedtime routine for myself
- Ok, and now that I've resigned myself, I also think cosleeping is helping. I don't wake up in the night wondering what is going on in the next room, bc the baby's in bed with us. I think my daughter has become my blankie. Is that wrong?

Good luck to everyone. Nothing is more maddeningi than actually having hte opportunity to sleep and not being able to.

[Sarah]

@ Redhead: My story is identical to yours. I finally saw a doctor of traditional chinese medicine / acupuncturist (I was desperate to try anything) and it has made a world of difference. After acupuncture, I sleep a sleep of the dead. It is heaven. My doctor specializes in post-partum conditions, of which insomnia is common. I highly recommend it if it is an option for you / where you live.

[Kathy]

Insomnia here as well. I'm nursing a 3 month old, so that explains the waking, but then I can't fall back asleep. Does anyone know if it's safe to use the magnesium oil if you are nursing?

[Beth]

Yup, both kids (2 and 4 months) are sleeping great. 4 month old sleeps from 8:30pm until 5am usually, but I seem to wake up every hour or two and just toss and turn. But I am taking the bar exam in a little less than 2 weeks, so I think it's all stress related here.

[Shelley]

STRESS RELATED INSOMNIAC here. Work-related for the most part. Tell me about magnesium, someone?

I have a hard time shutting down the spinning hamster wheel that is my brain to get to sleep, and if I wake up in the middle of the night I often stay awake. It's awful.

Help?

[Goddess Babe]

Insomnia. Nightmares.

Usually sleep is reasonably easy for me.

(I am a hypnotist. Usually, that helps.)

[paola]

My 4.5 year old!! The best sleeper ever ever. Must be going thru a develomental/growth spurt. He is looking thinner and taller recently too. Either that or it's time for him to drop his nap.

[Anon]

Sleep? Haven't heard of it in about 2 months. Work is crazy - really, really crazy.

And we're trying to buy a house (short sale). It is turning into a nightmare; the seller obviously does not want to be foreclosed on. But he also, just as obviously, has no real intention of leaving the house per the contract. They've lied to us about getting permits for the house, lied to us about other information (roof, heater vent, dishwasher etc etc) and now this. We were supposed to move in a week; we signed papers today and they oh-so-casually mentioned to our realtor that they aren't moving per the agreement and aren't quite sure when they will move. But they are willing to sign the house over to us while they decide when to move.

We signed everything but refused to fund the sale and now we're both stressed all over again. I know they did it on purpose. I know that they did it so that our real options are to wait for them to decide when to leave since we don't have time to find another house (our landlord has already rented this one and the seller knows that). But, at this point, I'm at the point of saying fuck 'em and walking away since I really feel that we'll end up paying $$$ and scrambling anyway when our lease is up since we won't have anywhere to live. We don't have any family in the area either.

My daughter starts kindergarten this year so we also need to move so I can get her registered in her new district and figure out after-care options. We also promised her grandmother that we would visit this summer...which has all of 6 weeks left.

And my job is incredibly busy right now. It is at the point where my boss has told me that there are certain weeks that she can't give me time off on because other people had already requested it. The week we were supposed to move was a good week but the week that we HAVE to move out of here is a bad one. I can't get time off for it.

And we've spent so much time and energy on this crap that we haven't started packing. And I work from home so I've been the one fielding all the calls from the realtor and the mortgage broker as well as scheduling all the calls from people wishing to rent our current place! One day I had EIGHT calls and our landlord wants us to show it within 2 hours of a call. And a full time job and 2 kids. I give up; I'm seriously in tears and I don't know what else to do. I've had severe stomach cramps for a week or so and haven't been able to sleep well for days. Sorry to threadshit but I needed to let it out.

[MrsHaley]

@Anon - Moving sucks. It SUCKS. Every time we do it, I swear up and down it will never happen again. I cannot imagine your situation -- it sounds horrifying. The only thing that strikes me (which I'm sure you've already considered) is getting into it with the sellers for breach of contract? Even if you decide to f**k them, could you turn around and bite them with breach of contract to recoup your costs thus far? Of course, if their house is going in to forclosure, they don't have much to go after, I'm sure.

Anyway, it will all work out and settle down -- it always does. One of my fave bloggers, Swistle, does this little mind game she calls "A Year Ago, A Year From Now" where she just wallows in what her life was a year ago, takes stock of it today and speculates joyfully on what it will be a year from now, focusing especially on her 5 (!!) kids and their varous stages & abilities. It's so funny to read her reflections when she gets into it, and it's really centering to do it for yourself. Anyway, my point is that a year from now, you will be settled into your 'new' house (but it won't even feel so new any more!) and it might be this one, or it might be another one ... your boss will have forgotten about inconvenient time off, your kids will be back to sleeping through the night in their new rooms and you will be thinking about repainting the dining room because the previous owners liked lime green too much!!

Hang in there and keep us posted. You could go read Jodifur for some commiseration -- she has been having loads of buying / selling / moving angst lately, too.

On topic? Don't play the "A Year Ago / A Year From Now" game while trying to fall asleep. It will not help.

[toomuchstrong]

Yes! Insomnia every other night. No idea why because my baby is finally sleeping through the night after 7 months and my toddler has painlessly transitioned to her big girl bed too. I guess I've been kept awake with worries about my parents, my inlaws, our health, their health. Eeek. I've even finally started to exercise during the day so you'd think it would help me sleep. Nope.

[toomuchstrong]

@Anon-Holy S***. What a nightmare. I feel awful for you. Sending you good thoughts that those awful sellers get the hell out of your house so you can move in in peace.

[elisa]

Yes. Pregnant and awake almost every morning at 4. And I'm only 21 weeks, so what gives? And what is it about 4 in the morning? Meh. Wishing everyone some good sleep tonight.

[caramama]

Oh, I'm sleeping... in 30-60 minute increments all night long. Minus the couple of hours when I first go to sleep and my husband holds the newborn. Ah, having an infant.

@Moxie - Once again, thanks for recommending The Wonder Weeks. I was just feeling overwhelmed by the baby being completely mommy-clingy and fussy in the last few days. I also noticed that the baby seems more aware of things and slightly different. I pulled out The Wonder Weeks, and low and behold--the first wonder week is right around 5 weeks, which he is going to be tonight at 12:30! What a relief to know what is going on and that it should get better soon. Maybe I'll get some sleep after that...

[Jill]

Insomnia here, yes. Stress related. I asked at the health food store about magnesuim oil and they said it was only available online. I cannot muster the brain needed to order it.

[Maeve]

Insomnia. Had problems before I had twins, and definitely after. Even when one or the other doesn't wake, I still wake every two hours. Sucks. Nursing has helped. I will search for magnesium oil.
What helps, a bit anyway:
-Wearing socks. I hate wearing socks, am a dedicated sandal wearer, but I got this tip somewhere and it helps. My feet were too cold and I didn't realize it.
-Lavender oil. Sprinkled on my pillow like at some fancy-hippie hotel.
-Writing lists so the hamster in my head can stop worrying I'll forget something.
-Rubbing arnica cream into my knotted shoulders before bed.
-Acupuncture (there's a squeam-inducing point at the inner corners of my eyes that does the trick for me)
-Osteopathy
-No caffeine after early afternoon, and ideally no sweets either. I possibly blew tonight's sleep by eating some kulfi ice cream (with cardamom!) after supper. I may try to counteract that with a handful of almonds or a glass of milk. Sometimes that helps.
-of course, getting to bed earlier than I am tonight is optimal. Why am I still up?
Good night, all!

[Andrea]

Sleep is getting better day by day, which is all I can say having a nearly 6 month old. Also wanted to let you know that I linked you as one of my favorite blogs today. Thanks for all that you do!

[ramy]

is fancy-hippie an oxymoron? what comes to my mind after 5.5 hours of interrupted sleep...

[Melina]

Insomnia. Some thyroid related, but maybe I should consider other post partum issues....

[oakley outlet]

%when ghetto people say pose to. My friend told her boss he needed to give her a raise