An important lesson that I forgot

Another trip down memory lane to that foggy time when Jude was a newborn and I wasn't getting any sleep. This was during a time when Jude's day sleeps were 20 minute naps and, while he slept for a few hours at a stretch during the night, I was so stressed I couldn't sleep at all.

After several months wondering what I was doing wrong, the community nurse came around to see what was happening in the home. That particular day Jude decided to sleep for hours, but after he finally woke and fed the community nurse explained something that changed everything for me.

"Watch and listen carefully," she explained, "and learn the difference between crying because he needs you and crying because he is having trouble falling asleep." It hadn't occurred to me that he might be crying because he wanted to be asleep, I kept assuming he needed me to do something, and it was killing me that I couldn't figure out what that was.

As a long-term insomniac I know how frustrating it is to not be able to fall asleep. I often lie in bed groaning and bemoaning the fact that I seemed to be absent the day they taught everyone the trick of lying down, closing your eyes and falling asleep. It seems I never grew out of the problem that so many newborns face.

So I learned great patience with Jude and I paid close attention. I soon learned that there is a difference between crying and sleep anguish. I don't believe in controlled crying, so I would not abandon him during the trying time while sleep alluded him, but I realised that I shouldn't pick him and carry him around, either. I would sit by his side and pat him until he was calm and then, when his whimpers had turned to moans, I would leave him to find sleep on his own. It didn't take too long before he was sleeping well.

Recently, however, I realised how much time I was wasting during the day running up to Jude's room when he was supposed to be taking a nap. He would lie in bed and talk loudly to himself and his toys and then whimper and moan. I would run up and try to settle him. I'd try to coax him to sleep. I'd remind him he was tired and had asked to go to bed. I would inevitably end up frustrated and angry at him for refusing to sleep when he was clearly tired.

Then finally I remembered what I had learned when he was a newborn. He wasn't up there in bed crying or calling out for me, so I fought the urge to tend to him and left him to fall asleep on his own. Amazingly it took barely a few days for sleep to start coming easily and naturally to him. By allowing him to figure it out for himself, I hope I have prevented a lifetime of insomnia for him.

Pregnancy and Insomnia

There are a million reasons why I'm not sleeping so well lately. Number 1 contender is probably the mug of raspberry leaf tea I keep drinking right before bed. That's got to account for at least 3 trips to the toilet in the early part of the night.

Then there's the misaligned pelvis and associated hip pain that makes sleeping quite uncomfortable, despite the Snoogle body pillow having helped somewhat in that respect.

On top of physical causes, such as a full bladder and pain, there's the mental aspect as well. I close my eyes and start thinking about everything: baby, pregnancy, labour, husband, house, money, jobs, family ... you name it, it's floating up there in the dark recesses of my mind, emerging when I want to sleep.

Jeremy has been trying to go to bed earlier than adults usually go to bed because he's always tired and he has to work at either 8am or 8:30am. Sometimes he likes to walk to work, so he sets off earlier than he really needs to. This means I'm waking up at the crack of dawn with him. I try to sleep in after he leaves but I get hungry for breakfast and I have to get up, and so begins another day with heavy eyelids and a constant desire to sleep.

I have finished work, but I have a lot of personal projects I want to be working on. I sit down to my computer and my head screams at me "please don't make me think, I'm too tired." My body wants to nap, but I've never been good at taking naps during the day. The only time I can nap is when I'm exhausted to the point of passing out, which often happens when I'm travelling around the world on a limited time frame, but not when I'm sitting around the house doing very little (because I'm too tired to do anything, damn this catch-22).

Everywhere I turn people keep telling me to get lots of rest before the baby comes because after that I'll never sleep again, but in what universe are they living that getting lots of rest at this late stage in pregnancy is actually possible?