I sleep better when my babies aren’t sleeping through the night (here meaning a full night’s rest of 11-12 hours, not the 5-6 hour stretch sometimes referred to as sleeping through the night). Of course, I’m sleep deprived in the first few months. But once they’re waking up once or twice to nurse and going right back to sleep, that’s when I wake up in the morning rested, have energy through the day, and fall asleep easily.
The first few months of E sleeping twelve hours without needing me, I figured my sleep trouble was just me adjusting. But insomnia is still a problem a year later. It comes and goes, and I am never up all night, so I know it isn’t as bad as it is for some people. Yet the fatigue that follows still affects my daily life, especially this summer when I had a stretch of two months without a good night’s sleep.
Before kids, I would try to sleep in or rest in the morning (afternoon naps make my nights even worse), but now I can’t. I have found other things that can help.
1. Sleep Hygiene. In the Internet age most people who have difficulty sleeping will know this, but it should still be said: blocking out light. Winding down before bed. Room temperature. Cutting out caffeine. They often seem so simple and silly, but they really do make a difference. My two-month stretch of poor sleep in the summer was at least partially due to longer days. Even with blackout curtains, light was still seeping in and making me restless.
2. Natural Remedies. I don’t know of much besides chamomile and lavender, but they can be helpful nonetheless.
3. Minimize exertion. On days when I’m exhausted, I do what I can to rest. Exercise helps me sleep better, but I go for a light walk instead of doing an interval workout. I cut down on dishes where I can. We read instead of playing (or play instead of reading if my eyes are too tired!). Ezra does more of the dishes and handles more of the discipline when he’s home.
4. Don’t dwell on it. This is what helps me the most. When I’m tired, it’s so easy to fall into a pity party, which contributes to the lack of desire to do anything. The verse is overquoted, but true, that His grace is sufficient, and His power made perfect in our weakness. While I don’t know what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, I’ve come to see my difficulty sleeping as similar. I know He could take it away and let me sleep like Ezra does (anytime, anywhere), but He doesn’t. So I am learning to not focus on my fatigue but look away from myself and draw my strength from Him, where it really lies all the time. This mostly means thinking more about what is true about Him than about how I feel. It also includes prayer, crying out to Him for the help and strength I don’t have, and telling Him my irritations instead of taking it out on others or complaining. Fatigue may make me more prone to crabbiness, and while knowing that helps me know I’m not going backwards in sanctification, it isn’t an excuse.
I have some ideas as to what’s going on when I don’t sleep well, but until it stops will keep seeking to apply these four things… and continue to pray while I toss and turn, or my occasional 11 PM reading sessions after tossing and turning for an hour. Or maybe I need to try waking myself up for five minutes at 2 AM as if I had a nursing baby again. 😉
Kyleigh Dunn 