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The New York Times reports that insomnia among the mothering set is epidemic. 84% of us report having suffered from it at some point between gestating and wherever our kids now fall on BabyCenter's timeline. And the only thing that surprises me is that they actually needed to conduct research to come to the conclusion that having children leaves more marks than the stretchy kind.
My bouts with sleeplessness started with the infertility treatments and just ramped up a notch with every step thereafter. The last month before my daughter was born was almost a rehearsal for the first six sleepless weeks of her life. People often thought it was some kind of latent hippy permissive parenting nonsense that led me to bring her into my bed when she was two months old, but it was actually my need to sleep. Nursing on demand became a whole lot less demanding when I didn't have to crawl out of bed, stumble to her crib, nurse, burp, resettle her and then try to remember where my room was.
It didn't end the insomnia. I've wrangled it into submission, and lost a few rounds to it, more than a few times in the last decade.
While I agree with the experts who conclude that some of the issue is simply overload and an inability to manage our busy lives, which spill into what should be our sleep time, I also blame just being female.
Insomnia for me is cycle related. My hormones churn wildly now that I am approaching the end of my fertility. I wake more frequently when my period approaches because of hot flashes or headaches. Like many women, I have a point of no return. If I wake before 3 A.M., I can get back to sleep but after that, it's a crapshoot.
I am leery of pharmaceuticals. But I will take melatonin if I need to or pop a Tylenol or Aleve to head off a premenstrual headaches or cramps. I take herbal supplements for the hormone fluctuations and this, I think, helps my sleep too.
The study claims that men are not as bothered by insomnia, but I wonder if they are just less likely to attribute bad sleep or sleep debt to it. My husband suffers from middle of night waking’s and has the same trouble dropping off to sleep. My brother has trouble sleeping too.
My husband blames Farmville - not for his sleep difficulties - but because he feels we are too wired literally. We've banned our computers from our bedroom and the only reading material before bed is the archaic print on paper kind. The NYT's makes that point as well and we'd long ago began a hours long set of rituals to make sure the child was well-weaned away from visual and electronic stimuli as a part of her bed time routine. Its worked wonders.
There was a time when I prided myself on being able to get by on five or six hours of sleep a night. Now I scheme to make sure I get 8 at the minimum and 10 if I can swing it on the weekends. Maybe I could write that memoir faster if I was awake more but I somehow doubt that would be the end result.
Nothing is important enough for me to get up at 3 in the morning to accomplish it.
