sleeping in is not an option

I took a sleep aid late last night. I slept WAY past my alarm this morning. What ensued was undercaffeinated insanity with bad attitudes. When will I learn that the whole freaking household falls apart if Mommy sleeps in?

On a good day, I'm showered and dressed with hot cereal cooking on the stove before my son gets up. How often does this happen? Maybe twice a week. Other days I'm playing catch-up, juggling the morning rush with my husband while trying to pack a lunch. He's actually pretty hands-on and helpful in the morning -- it's me who has a hard time asking for what I need to get us out the door. I have this stubborn independent streak that guides me to acting like a single mom instead of communicating what I need when I need it. Ahem.

Today I weighed myself. I am trying to push away the shame and feelings of unworthiness that come with being overweight. Lord help me.

random thoughts on conscious parenting

There's a new buzz-phrase going around called conscious parenting. Kindness? I'm all over it. But let me know when someone figures out how to accomplish unconscious parenting. I'm tired. Or subconscious parenting. Because I think my son's subconscious is the only one listening.

losing his last nap and my sanity with it

My son's life is a series of transitions, and currently he is transitioning away from his midday nap. I'm not sure, but I think this transition is supposed to last a couple of months decades. Some days, he naps. Others, only if he's strapped into a carseat and forced to sit still for an hour. Still others, like this past weekend, he skips the nap and slips into a coma right before dinnertime.

Friday we let him nap since we couldn't reasonably wake him, then he was a major crankybutt until bedtime. Sunday we just gave in and put him to bed. Predictably, he was awake at 5 this morning. Argh!!!

Meanwhile, I've started seeing my therapist again, and my next appointment is tomorrow. I’m thinking of going back on antidepressants for a while. My insomnia is just an absolute plague, and when I can’t sleep I can’t handle my son very well (let alone the rest of my life). Case in point: Yesterday was day 6 of terrible sleep for me. The day went okay, but of course the boy didn’t nap. Late in the afternoon he just got more and more upset, throwing tantrums over next to nothing. I knew it was because he was exhausted, but every episode just ratcheted up my stress level. I was trying to put lotion on him after his shower and he got all fussy, yelling etc., then he full-on hit me in the face (not hard, of course). I grabbed his arms and rather yelled “I know you’re upset but I won’t let you hit me!” This shocked him enough that he burst into tears, so I held him and he continued fighting me. My husband took over and I just sat in the chair in our son's room sobbing, helpless to the situation.

In a way, it was a blessing that he crashed at 5 and my husband and I had a quiet evening together (we even got to eat dinner in front of the TV!), but then of course I couldn’t sleep and then he was up at 5 this morning… Whatever "it" is, I’m starting to lose it.

As my therapist reminded me last week, a happy mom is a good mom. What's a stressed-out, depressed, overweight, insomniac mom??

The most productive thing I did last night, since I was awake, was go into the living room in the dark and talk to God. Actually, I argued with him. As I poured out my frustration, I said I felt like I was talking to a brick wall, and asked Him to let me know He was actually listening. After a while, I turned on a light and started reading my Bible -- a Good News Translation version that my dad gave to me on my 13th birthday. I randomly flipped over to the middle section, wordlessly asking for a Psalm. Up in the left hand corner was a drawing of a person leaning over another one who was lying in bed, and the caption was from Psalm 23:4. "Even if I go through the deepest darkness, I will not be afraid, Lord, for you are with me." Tears in my eyes, I turned off the light and went back to bed.

early riser

Captain Sillypants came creeping into our room at 4:30 this morning and plopped a stuffed animal on my back. I jumped and startled him, causing him to fall onto his bottom in the dark. We told him it was still nighttime, to go back to bed, but he wanted to sleep with us. In our exhaustion we acquiesced. So, every time I started drifting back to sleep I’d get a foot in my back or hear the jingle of his plush puppy. Sigh. I gave up and made coffee at 5:30, and he was up complaining he was hungry at 6:00 (guess who's going to bed early tonight if it's the last thing I do?).

So I dropped him off at school early and treated myself to a breakfast burrito from a gourmet food truck. The end.

how to get your toddler to sleep - extinction

I have a book that I have read parts of at various times: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth M.D. It is one BIG reason why my son sleeps pretty well now and, if I have anything to say about it, far into the future.

When the boy was several months old, getting him to sleep at night was a nightmare. We had first trained him early on (like, 6-8 weeks of age) and experienced early success. Sleeping 12 hours a night at 4 months old was due to part training, part natural tendency (I don't think I can take all the credit since every child is different). We used the book and got him back on track.

However, recently his bedtime ritual has included several drinks of water, more stories, longer back rubs, blah blah blah. I'd had enough. I picked up that book and searched for our situation: reluctance to go to bed. Whatever the reason, whatever the age, their recommended method for retraining is the same: extinction. As in, quit reinforcing that behavior and leave him alone when it's time to go to bed. Does he cry? That's okay. Give him time to settle himself down -- he's apparently forgotten and needs to be reminded.

My poor, exhausted husband emerged from the boy's room last night, and I pointed to this extinction method. Sometimes us parents need to be retrained too! So we left him alone. Did he cry? Yep. We ignored him. Did he stick his fingers under the door, randomly whine, and say "Hi Mommy...?" Yep. Ignored him again.

Within 10 minutes he gave up and went to sleep on his own. Training and a lock on the outside of the door work wonders.

random thoughts: does anyone over 40 get eight hours of sleep?

I used to have trouble going to sleep. Now I just wake up about an hour and a half too early. Sometimes I think I just can't win and I'll die of exhaustion. Sigh. Maybe it's a sign of the times -- the times being too old to get enough sleep.

weaning myself from milk

For two years, I have depended on a half cup of hot milk (at a minimum) to help me get to sleep. This was my nightly ritual, my evening crutch, and I would practically have heart palpitations if I ran out because I knew I was in for a long night.

For several months, I've been wanting to wean myself away from this dependency. Not because it's so dangerous (geez, it's just milk), but because it's the kind of crutch that I know is largely psychosomatic. I believe this because, on rare occasions when I'm sick and too exhausted to care, I can actually fall asleep on my own. Well, I got my chance to test this theory recently when I was flattened by a cold that turned into a sinus infection.

For more than two weeks, I have been able to sleep without milk or any other sleep aid (with maybe one exception when I'd had too much caffeine that day). The first couple of days, I was so tired from being sick I could barely muster the energy to do anything. I had no appetite for food or beverages since I couldn't smell or taste anything. As I started to feel just slightly better, food still didn't matter. I started skipping the milk on purpose, and when I woke up in the night I told myself "You don't need milk -- just go back to sleep." Sometimes I wake up and don't realize that I've been sleeping, and I mistake it for insomnia. How goofy is that? Talk about old habits...

I have rather enjoyed not having any appetite. Let me tell you -- cooking for the family is the farthest thing on my mind when I don't give a hoot about food, so my guys have subsisted largely on frozen or delivered food. Poor things. I suppose they miss my appetite! I promise, I will cook again. As soon as I can get around to thinking about food.

I still have four more days of antibiotics, am still nasally even though I can breathe, and still tired. I finally got my taste buds back three days ago, but I'm holding back on food a lot and trying harder to listen to my hungry/full queues. Actually, the tiredness is probably more from working to xeriscape our front yard. Ugh.

I did pray for the Lord to remove my dependency on milk, didn't I? Is this His way of answering my prayer? Maybe. Not that He would make me sick, but He would certainly allow normal circumstances to bring about change in an organic way.

My sleepfullness and wakefullness are in a weird transition now. I'm exhausted in the morning from not having quite enough sleep, then I fight sleep driving home from work, then I decide whether to take a short nap (I rarely do). I also recognize the role of hormones in my sleep patterns (perimenopause? me?) and am trying to accept the unusual as the new normal. I'm hoping I don't take after my mother, God bless her, who has endured decades of horrible sleep. If that happens I may lose what's left of my mind, but I'll be sure and consult a sleep therapist first.

Just don't ask me to remove my morning crutch.

guess who slept past 6:00 today?

I want to take credit for the self-declared genius, if not Pinterest-approved, idea of nailing the curtain to the wall for helping my son sleep later. I might if he sleeps later on more than one day. But I'll take this first day as a victory.

Yup, kiddo slept until at least 6:30. It's a win, people. A win.

I, however, was awake at 5:30 from the blazing sunlight invading our bedroom like a visual megaphone screaming "Get the hell up!" This does not make me happy. But the boy's sleep made up for it pretty quickly. Living farther north than my birthplace near Los Angeles has its downsides.

toddler bed transition tips and trials

In my last post on the crib to toddler bed transition, I talked about the initial transition. Well, weeks later we're still transitioning. In a sense.

It may be a transition to needing less actual sleep. It may be the east-facing window in his room. It may be the excitement of being able to get out of bed. I don't know. But this kid is getting up too damned early. Like 6 a.m. For me, it's a mental battle to not get irritated at the sound of him laughing and playing in his room while I'm wishing I could out-sleep the daylight invading our room (I just ordered dark wood blinds to help with this). As a working woman in my 40s, I've learned to be kind of a mid-morning person. But I'll never be a first-thing-in-the-morning person.

To see if it's me waking him up before it's time, I've already tried showering downstairs, laying in bed longer to avoid creaking the old wood floors -- even delaying making coffee, heaven forbid -- to no avail.

To help him start to recognize daily wake/sleep patterns on his own, I finally bought one of those toddler alarm clocks that turns green when it's okay to wake up. After several days of him not waiting for the thing to turn green, I moved the alarm from 7:00 to 6:45. This is starting to prove successful, and he is actually starting to wait to emerge from his room after seeing it turn green. That's why I'm considering it a tip.

This is good, just not quite good enough. Last night we kept him up until just after 7:30, a full half hour later than his regular bedtime, to see if this is truly a sleep issue. No difference. Though we'll likely move his bedtime to this time permanently, I'm convinced the early daylight is waking him up as much as it does me.

This morning, I literally nailed the curtain to the wall just under the curtain rod to block out some the early-morning light that insists on shining right on the corner of my son's bed (it actually worked quite well). I'm getting desperate. Maybe I'll paint that wall black.

What I want most in those hours is the delight of getting up before my son so I have time to get my wits together, pray for a few minutes, and maybe even take a whole shower without having to get up at 5:00. Then I am ready to embrace the day with smiles and giggles and breakfast.

Am I asking the impossible? Maybe. But it won't stop me from trying! It might stop me from trying to "sleep in" past 6:00, however. We'll see.

a good night's sleep (no more hormones, baby!)

I quit the pill. Five days ago, five days into my cycle, I stopped altogether. And guess what? I've been sleeping well ever since. Not amazing, not terrible, but well. And well is wonderful. I'm starting to feel like I'm coming to life instead of managing a state of feeling half dead.

I'm really hoping this is the beginning of the end of my walk through insomniac hell. I don't suppose I can or should go back to my nearly 3-cup-per-day coffee habit -- decaf after my first cup will have to do. But I'm feeling less paranoid about going to sleep in the first place, which I'm sure is half the battle.

The next decision is what to do in the meantime. I'll be 45 this year, so the prospect of having another seems downright foolhardy (not to mention that our incredibly active and energetic toddler kind of makes up for it). Something permanent? Something temporary? Eh, just one more thing to work out.

Meanwhile, we finally have an offer on the condo. We won't celebrate until closing, which is more than a month away, but I'm choosing optimism in the meantime.

anxiety and the search for peace: part 4 (hormones, baby!)

In my continuing effort to find out what it takes to get my sleep patterns back to non-dependence-on-drugs, I checked with my doc. Sure enough, she agreed that the week-long increase in progesterone could easily be a source for insomnia. So she switched me to a mono-phasic cycle (the same level for 3 weeks).

I started it last Sunday. I'm giving it up altogether today.

I'm so tired of being tired and wondering whether I'll have another hellish sleepless night every time I hit the pillow. It's ruining me bit by bit.

So, I will try going pill-free to see if this is what I need to do. I'm also doing so prayerfully, asking God to guide me through this.

The search for peace goes on.

anxiety and the search for peace: part 3 (hormones, baby!)

Somewhere in the last few months it occurred to me that there was a pattern to my insomnia and I started paying attention. This is a bit easier to do since I've been on the same pill formula since I stopped breastfeeding when my son was 8 weeks old. Sure enough, the second week of my cycle is when I can't sleep and I must rely on a number of sleep aids to get me through. So I put a call in to my doc to see what she thinks I should do.

Is it the pill? Is it my post-pregnancy body and one of its many new quirks? Is it because I'm in my mid-forties and starting to experience the many pleasures of peri-menopause? These all sound completely wonderful, but I need to know what to do. I'm dead sick of having insomnia for about a week every month.

Naturally, she's on vacation until the middle of next week. Soon I will begin the hormone experiment in my ongoing quest for better sleep.

random thoughts: nobody ever said to never wake a toddler

If I can't remember how long my son has been sleeping, does that mean I have to wake him up?

is house hunting more stressful than an infertility battle?

Yesterday morning we got the news that our bid on a really cute house in a great neighborhood with lots of upgrades fell through. We were back at square one. Does that sound stressful? Not really. Except that we had already sold our condo and are on a deadline to find a house according to the contract.

My husband said that this whole shitbag is more stressful than our miscarriages, visits with the infertility clinic, and waiting for the results of those early ultrasounds. It's not for me to argue with him -- those are his feelings, after all. But it sure made me think.

Disclaimer: I would never EVER judge anyone else's journey -- this is only about ours.

I'm not sure whether it's the constant scrutiny of possible homes, seeing a bunch that are either great but expensive or affordable but scary, jumping through insurance and closing date hoops to see if everything can align properly, or what, but holy shit this is the most stress I've been under since I can remember. Yes, even compared to the long, dark valley of death known as our journey through infertility. Even compared to my weakest days as a middle-aged mother to a toddler. I have had moments when I've been crying and trembling, not knowing what to do next, and desperately crying to God to give me peace and wisdom.

Why is God letting us go through this the hard way? Why can't he just make it easy for us? Why am I letting it get to me so intensely?

Ridiculous questions, right? But questions we ask in just about every really difficult situation. I suppose it's because the stress is tightly compressed into a looming deadline that makes it harder. I know in my heart we'll find a house that's right for us. I know it will happen sooner than later. But I can't control it -- I can pick a house I like and want to make an offer in good faith, but the rest is completely out of my hands and I seriously hate it because I have to wait until the next day to find out what comes next. The dichotomy of immediacy and drawn-out waiting is agonizing. Our journey to parenthood, by contrast, was made up of days and months and years where we could completely lose ourselves in other things or spend time exploring issues. Not so with house hunting. It's hurry up and wait, be wise and make a good investment but don't fall in love with a house and start decorating it in your mind because you could lose it the next day. The search for a house could be over this week, or it could take another month. There's no way of knowing.

In this process, I'm trying to lean completely on God. I'm pretty sure there is a lesson in this to draw closer to Him, to really listen for his voice. The other day I was at the end of my rope, at the end of myself, and I asked Him to carry me. 

I have actually slept really well the last two nights and have found other things to think about (which is really handy). 

I am learning that when I hold on tighter to God, I can start to let go of everything else. 

To be continued.

anxiety and the search for peace: part 1

I am one anxious woman. From the time I get up until I go to sleep... well, assuming I get to sleep, I have a little rock of tension in my gut. It's the never-ending list of shit that has to be done, walking away from temper tantrums (literally), weighing a new top against a shrinking budget, cleaning the dickens out of the condo to sell it, blah blah blah. Not only that, but there is constant tension in my home from various sources.

Meanwhile, my sleep issues continue to escalate. If I fall asleep fast, I wake up about 5 times a night. Sometimes I am awake for an hour. Sometimes it takes over an hour to get to sleep. I try to do all the right things to get a good night's sleep: restrict alcohol and caffeine, exercise earlier in the day, have a bedtime routine, cut off nighttime electronics, and a few other things that have become my way of living. It feels like a lot of things I do during the day are to try to ensure a decent night's sleep, and I'm getting tired of being preoccupied with that stuff.

I usually drink half a cup of hot milk before bed. Depending on my anxiety level I mix it with a strong small cup of nighttime tea. On rare occasions I take NyQuil or ZQuil or whatever. Sometimes I take melatonin, but I hate it because it disrupts my REM sleep so I feel like a zombie the next day.

Once, I went to a general practitioner. His immediate response was a prescription. I tried it. It failed. I stopped. I thought -- is that his only answer for me? I know at least two women for whom a prescription is the answer. That's cool. I just have a feeling that God wants me to do something else. To dig deeper and search for Him in this.

So far, all I know is that I want to sleep well and I believe this begins with peace.

So that's what I'm doing (while I'm brewing tea and heating milk and whatnot): searching for peace and rest. I know that anxiety among women -- especially moms -- is pretty common if not assumed. So I'm documenting my journey in hopes that someone else might benefit from it and shorten their own.

My first baby step: cut back to one cup of coffee per day. This, my friends, is no easy thing. Exhaustion is usually beating down my door and threatening to take over. Caffeine is my morning crutch and it's hard to imagine having fewer than 2-3 cups a day. But I have done it before -- granted I was pregnant and didn't have much choice for the health of my baby, but still.

Here's to a good night's sleep. Stay tuned.

rise and shine

My son didn't sleep so well last night. In fact, we took turns coaxing him back to sleep 3 times, and even then we'd hear him blabbing to himself. Did he sleep in this morning? Hell no. 7:00 found me bewildered at the sound of him chattering in his crib. Apparently he was hungry, as he drank his milk faster than I've ever seen him, and he's been harassing me for the past half hour as I prepare some oatmeal. My work is cut out for me today.

All I could think as I poured my second cup of coffee was "This is a test of the emergency mommy system."

In divine irony, today's devotional topic in my inbox is A Word for the Weary. "The Sovereign LORD has given me a well-instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being instructed." Isaiah 50:4 (NIV)

I'm ready for whatever you want to teach me, Lord.

random thoughts: sometimes bedtime comes too quickly

I want to rock you, my son, in the rocking chair by the window, and sing you to sleep until the stars come out. But it's summer, and I would have to rock you for hours.

Your eyes are nearly closed, your head is already slumping against my breast, your lips are plumped out while you suck your middle fingers, and your other hand is slowly falling away from your lovey. Dreamland is snatching you away from me as you embrace another night of beautiful sleep. I kiss your head over and over, inhaling your scent in the dark of the room before I reluctantly lay you in your crib.

Lord, that I could hold you like this forever. A mother's indulgence. A love that knows no end.

random thoughts: sleeping

I wonder if the Proverbs 31 mother/wife/business owner extraordinaire ever had trouble sleeping, or if she was just so exhausted at the end of every day that she fell into a coma for 6 hours a night? sigh...

loosening the reins

Tonight I'm re-typing the guidelines I've written down for daycare and babysitters. I was looking at the incredibly regimented schedule we had for the boy and was amazed at how much we were really operating by the clock. Well, maybe not that we were, but that we no longer are.

Example: I had set times for every meal, every snack, every nap, plus bedtime and waketime. Now? Uh... well, the bedtime and waketime are still set in stone - 7pm to 7am. But he's in transition from two naps to one so I can't really control that anymore. We're pushing him to stay awake until at least 10:30, at which point we hope he sleeps at least two hours. It's a total crapshoot right now. So, the meals and snacks are still kind of close but it depends on when he naps.

A complete reversal from my regimen.

At first it drove me a little batty (not that it's a far trip). I wanted to plan things around him. But I really can't anymore, so I'm starting to relax and respect the fluctuations of his rhythms. It still bugs me but I'm trying.

As for that bedtime and waketime - I will keep that 7pm bedtime in place until he's 12 if I can, so help me! Not just because he really needs the sleep, but also because it gives me a solid two hours to chill out every evening - and that's worth staying regimented for.

sleep (and the pursuit of rest), part 2

So I went to see a doc (I don't really have a primary - I just see whomever they suggest at the clinic I go to) about my sleep issues. After a brief back-and-forth, he gave me a prescription for a mild sleeping pill. I took half of one that night, half the next night. I guess I slept a little better but felt like I had a groggy hangover the next day. A few days later I took a whole pill. Slept okay, but really not any better than when I drink half a cup of hot milk - and the milk gives me calcium and vitamins that the pill does not. Plus it's just more wholesome to me; I like the idea of feeding myself something completely natural that just helps me calm down, rather than taking a chemical that forces my body to do the same. Part mind over matter. So, I've decided to stick with the milk and I think I'm making more out of this than I should. Ironically, I've slept really well the last couple of nights - probably because the boy has a horrendous cold which makes him miserable, which gives us both a lot more to do, which takes a lot of energy, which exhausts me all the more. So I'm tired but at least I'm getting a solid 7 hours of sleep a night. And that is acceptable. Until I had him, I always knew that I thrived on 8.5 hours of sleep a night and that's probably still true. One day, that sleep will come back to me. Until then, I'm leaning on God to give me just what I need every day.

I'm convinced that what I really need is a better way to rest within my mind and heart. I can't always just stop what I'm doing and chill out (yoga helps, but it's only once a week). I remembered Jesus' invitation to "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matthew 11:29 NIV) but I just didn't understand it. I wondered if 'taking up a yoke' was an expression in that day, but an expression for what? A burden? That's what it sounded like to me. I wondered what kind of burden Jesus has, and why it would be so light.

Then one day a friend posted this on her Fa.ceb.ook wall:

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." http://bible.us/Matt11.28.MSG

Ohhh.... that's just what I needed to see. "Yoke" doesn't make any sense to me, but "unforced rhythms of grace" definitely does. A little gear in my soul clicked into place.

So now, before bed, I read that passage and consider each part. I am meditating on it. Every time I read it, God reveals something else to me bit by bit, angle by angle. And it occurs to me that all I really want is to be closer to Jesus. His life is the key to mine.

At our small group this week, one of the leaders asked us each to answer the question "What do you love about Jesus?" I immediately had a picture in my mind of an ocean with turbulent waves, dark clouds, swirling winds.. and in the middle of this a small island: no waves crashing on it, no rain falling on it, no clouds covering it, just perfect sand and stillness. Since I was near the end of the circle I had a few minutes to consider putting it into words. I said what I love about Jesus is that he is always an island of calm and peace, no matter what storms are going on in my life. I am finding rest for my soul, even if I constantly have to keep swimming back there.