Sleep Deprivation Torture
It seems that my Kids are ganging up on me as co-torturers by means of sleep deprivation. I am no stranger to sleep deprivation and before having my first baby I thought how I had a skill set in this situation that would serve me well as a new mom. I didn't know what I was in for!
You see for years I have had issues with insomnia. It's not severe and for the most part it's been rather manageable but once in a while, usually due to an outside stressor, I will have a difficult bought. This has led to a few trips to a sleep clinic to "sleep" in their strange, hospital like, cubical rooms with electrodes stuck all over and a band strapped around my chest. I know what you are thinking, that must make it almost impossible to sleep at all but surprisingly it doesn't end up being so bad. The results however where that I do have insomnia and tend to wake up an average of 18 times a night. This isn't as bad as it sounds either and with the medication they gave me I went away to experience some quality rest.
However I then was pregnant and although the drugs were tested and completely safe to take in pregnancy and during nursing I wasn't able to continue taking them long after my Daughter was born. The problem was that getting up in the night was next to impossible on these pills. I would stagger down the hall to her room, running into just about everything and couldn't seem to do any of the necessities very well. I wasn't concerned however about cutting out the medication. I had dealt with sleep deprivation before and I actually felt I was pretty good at functioning on very little sleep. The problem was my daughter was quite difficult! She had colic for almost an entire year and there was almost an entire month where she would not sleep at all unless I was sitting up with her in a sling. I was surviving that month on approximately an hour and a half of sleep per night.
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture for a very good reason! It changes you. I was moody, exhausted, and depressed. I was fighting with my husband, crying all the time and I felt completely alone. I spent quite a bit of time wondering what I had done. Why had I decided to have this baby, why had I married this man that I could not stand and what was I going to do now that my entire life seemed to be falling apart around me? Yes, that little sleep can do that to you. My husband and I were lucky. Threw our church and being willing to be open we managed to get connected to a counsellor and worked on the problems we were having. We stopped fighting so often and attempted to work together. I spent most of my time researching colic cures and attempting ALL of them. Nothing worked. Around 10 and a half months of age Trinity all of a sudden began to sleep for appropriate lengths of time! She started to even nap in the afternoon. Oh the difference a good night sleep can make!
For some unknown reason we decided we would take our chances and have another. This time we were prepared for the possibility of a year of sleepless nights. When Alex came along it wasn't as bad as we were expecting. We thought we were so lucky that this time we got a "good sleeper". However I would hear the stories of some other moms, frustrated with a sleepless night or two and a baby that still isn't sleeping threw the night at 6 months and I think "they're supposed to do that"? Alex is now almost 2 and though he has gone threw a few months where he sleeps threw the night here and there I still don't get a solid night sleep for the most part. In fact for the last 2 weeks I have spent every night but one in the spare room with Alex.
It also seems that on some of the rare nights that Alex does sleep Trinity will take over. She'll wake with nightmares or will make a LOT of noise going to the washroom in the middle of the night. I know that this time will end at some point, most likely in the distant future. I just never thought that I would have been grateful for the insomnia that has created in me the ability to still function.
You see for years I have had issues with insomnia. It's not severe and for the most part it's been rather manageable but once in a while, usually due to an outside stressor, I will have a difficult bought. This has led to a few trips to a sleep clinic to "sleep" in their strange, hospital like, cubical rooms with electrodes stuck all over and a band strapped around my chest. I know what you are thinking, that must make it almost impossible to sleep at all but surprisingly it doesn't end up being so bad. The results however where that I do have insomnia and tend to wake up an average of 18 times a night. This isn't as bad as it sounds either and with the medication they gave me I went away to experience some quality rest.
However I then was pregnant and although the drugs were tested and completely safe to take in pregnancy and during nursing I wasn't able to continue taking them long after my Daughter was born. The problem was that getting up in the night was next to impossible on these pills. I would stagger down the hall to her room, running into just about everything and couldn't seem to do any of the necessities very well. I wasn't concerned however about cutting out the medication. I had dealt with sleep deprivation before and I actually felt I was pretty good at functioning on very little sleep. The problem was my daughter was quite difficult! She had colic for almost an entire year and there was almost an entire month where she would not sleep at all unless I was sitting up with her in a sling. I was surviving that month on approximately an hour and a half of sleep per night.
Sleep deprivation is a form of torture for a very good reason! It changes you. I was moody, exhausted, and depressed. I was fighting with my husband, crying all the time and I felt completely alone. I spent quite a bit of time wondering what I had done. Why had I decided to have this baby, why had I married this man that I could not stand and what was I going to do now that my entire life seemed to be falling apart around me? Yes, that little sleep can do that to you. My husband and I were lucky. Threw our church and being willing to be open we managed to get connected to a counsellor and worked on the problems we were having. We stopped fighting so often and attempted to work together. I spent most of my time researching colic cures and attempting ALL of them. Nothing worked. Around 10 and a half months of age Trinity all of a sudden began to sleep for appropriate lengths of time! She started to even nap in the afternoon. Oh the difference a good night sleep can make!
For some unknown reason we decided we would take our chances and have another. This time we were prepared for the possibility of a year of sleepless nights. When Alex came along it wasn't as bad as we were expecting. We thought we were so lucky that this time we got a "good sleeper". However I would hear the stories of some other moms, frustrated with a sleepless night or two and a baby that still isn't sleeping threw the night at 6 months and I think "they're supposed to do that"? Alex is now almost 2 and though he has gone threw a few months where he sleeps threw the night here and there I still don't get a solid night sleep for the most part. In fact for the last 2 weeks I have spent every night but one in the spare room with Alex.
It also seems that on some of the rare nights that Alex does sleep Trinity will take over. She'll wake with nightmares or will make a LOT of noise going to the washroom in the middle of the night. I know that this time will end at some point, most likely in the distant future. I just never thought that I would have been grateful for the insomnia that has created in me the ability to still function.
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