On Sleep, or lack thereof.

Sleep has always been my nemesis. Well, not always but for a really, really long time. Since this is a story about 2 peoples horrible sleep, it'll be in bullet points and besides, I slept very little last night so gimme a break.  

•  I remember having recurring nightmares as a small child that I killed my grandfather. Hows that for fun, when you're 7 years old, eh? they stopped promptly after I found out (as a teen ager) that he was a pedophile. My guess is that I witnessed this atrocity (he died when i was less than 3) and my subconscious wanted to finish him off.  I hate that this happened, but truthfully, I was so glad the nightmares stopped, they were gruesome and wicked, and nothing a small child should ever imagine. Needless to say, I had difficulty falling asleep at night. 
• Sometime in my mid teens I had a horrible bout of full on insomnia. I don't remember much about it, or how long it lasted, but I think I hardly slept for a week. After that, I had more trouble falling asleep. Sometimes I would lay in bed for hours, waiting for sleep to overtake me, only to find that I still had to get up at 6 am to be at school at 7:15. Awesome. No matter how tired I was, i still couldn't fall asleep before midnight at the earliest. Ouch. 
• When I finally became pregnant with Ruby, sleep was a dream. I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow and would fall back to sleep easily when i was woken by potty breaks, or kicking baby. I slept 9-10 hours a night and it was brilliant. 
• Ruby's first year, she nursed every 2 hours or less round the clock. You'd think this would have been exhausting, but mostly it wasn't. I don't know if it was the oxytocin, or just the sheer exhaustion of mothering a newborn, but I fell asleep easily and mostly (other than teething and sickness) felt rested.
• Ruby has always had sleep issues. As an infant  she would only nap in arms, or next to me, or in a carrier. Sometimes this was no big deal, i'd just nap with her, or keep her on me while she napped, but sometimes I would have loved to have a free moment to myself during the day. 
• After she turned one, and she was only napping 1x a day, getting her to sleep became increasingly difficult. Sometimes it would take 45 minutes to get her to fall asleep, only to have her take a 45 minute nap. Bedtime became the worst time of day, making me feel like a failure as a gentle parent and a complete jerk, as I loathed the 2-3 hours it took for her to fall asleep  every night. 
• She stopped napping all together around 26 months, and for a brief period, sleep was awesome. She'd be asleep at 7 pm within 5 minutes of getting in bed, and she'd sleep for up to 11 hours without waking. I'd still have trouble falling asleep, but even falling asleep at midnight allowed me almost 6-7 hours of sleep some nights.  And then the roof caved in. 
• About a year ago, my insomnia went up a notch, and Ruby started waking up for hours in the middle of the night. She would fall asleep easily at 7 pm, but then wake up anytime between 1-5 and be awake for a couple of hours, tossing and turning, some nights going back to sleep, others not at all. We never got her out of bed, or allowed her to play, just spent hours telling her to go back to sleep. She would have 2-4 nights of this, followed by 1-3 nights of sleeping through the night. It didn't seem to matter if she had eaten a big meal, not eaten, whatever... there was no rhyme or reason. Perhaps this made it harder for me to fall asleep, as tired as I was, I started developing anxiety around sleeping at all, since I never knew what my night would be like. This is the period I'd like to call 'sheer hell'. Ryan would get up and go sleep in the guest room during the week when she'd wake up so that he could  hopefully show up to work with some sort of brain power, but since I only work part time, I would bear the brunt of the crappy sleep. Truth be told, I've learned to survive on little sleep, obviously. One night of being up with her for hours, and he was a walking zombie, some people just aren't cut out for sleep deprivation. On the weekends, I'd sleep in the guest room, or I'd pass her off to him at 7 am, and go back to sleep for a few hours. Lather rinse repeat. 
• Finally, when we came to the conclusion that Ruby appears to be on the Autism spectrum, the crappy sleep made much more sense. A lot of kids on the spectrum have horrible sleep. (see above = horrible sleep). This didn't solve the problem, but at least I had something to point my finger at with a sneer on my face. We recently ordered a weighted blanket with the hopes it would buy us more good nights, and in some ways it has. However, this coincided with a trip to michigan, (a 3 hour time difference) and unfortunately, the day we came home was also fall back day... so now Ruby is waking up at 4:45 every day, no matter what time she goes to bed. 
• Last night was particularly awesome, as I fell asleep at 12, she crawled into bed with me at 1, and proceeded to shove her feet and elbows into my back and steal my pillow till 4:45 when she was up for the day. I spend 2 hours attempting to get her back to sleep before handing over my iPhone and a banana and letting her watch 45 minutes of Curious George while I try to doze and not lose my cool. It seems on a good night I'll get 6 interrupted hours of sleep, on a bad night, 3. I seem to get more bad than good nights. 
• All of this makes me a very cranky, irritable person. I struggle not to yell, and the tv is on a lot more than I'd like. It's harder to do my job as a chiropractor, and even harder to be a decent mother. 
• I'm not posting this to get advice. Trust me, we've tried everything short of letting her cry it out, and she's 3.5, sticking her in a room to cry her self to sleep at 3 am isn't going to help anyone, least of all my sensitive kid. I'm merely posting this to complain, to bitch and moan about the pitiful state of my REMs. I have it on good authority that even ASD kids eventually sleep... so I'm just biding my time. Besides, even if she doesn't sleep, she's bound to move out someday. 

Comments

[Alexis]

All I have is empathy, cause you know I deal with this, too. (Traveling is also particularly hard on spectrum kids: Remy does GREAT while we're traveling, but has a lot of problems when we get back home. Sleep, eating, social. I have to remind myself of this everytime because he is such a good traveler otherwise.)

[Lee]

I just think you are amazing. I am more like Ryan, I am a walking zombie with not enough sleep so I can't imagine. Just think of all the sleep you can have when you're 60! Har har.
Much love to you.

[mama nomad]

i am confident your sleeping time will come. and i don't mean like the "big sleep" either--lol. it just might be when you are old and wrinkly;-)

that's terrible about your childhood nightmares. just awful. kids should dream about candy and kisses and kittens.

[Heather]

You are a warrior, seriously.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1268033979]

Ah the joys of insomnia....not! Much empathetic hugs to you and Ruby. Eventually she won't need you awake when she is......The only thing that saves my sanity right now is that my oldest take care of the youngest so I can nap/sleep in.

[Jessica]

I feel for you. It's so hard! Ebin is still randomly waking up and crying in the middle of the night. Or just waking up all the way and wanting milk. I weaned him thinking this would stop but now he just wants cow milk. I am so drained by the bad nights. By this age Isaac was sleeping like a champ, and I haven't done anything differently with them. Kids are just on their own individual paths with the sleep thing.