Sleep!

I do not know when the last time I had a seriously great sleep. You know, those ones where you don't move through the night, where your head is stuck deep in the pillow and you wake up feeling alive and refreshed. Those ones that last eight hours or more. The last one would have been over 13 years ago, before the birth of my oldest son.

My life is sleep deprived because of many reasons… from breastfeeding for a total of 32 months with a pregnancy in between, to being self-employed and needing to work in the dead of the night just to have a clean slate for the following day; to worrying about where my marriage was going, to being jet-lagged in different corners of the world, to being a dog mum for the first time in my life to now, just being a single mum.

Most nights I get 2-3 hours of uninterrupted sleep, then wake to see I still have another 2 or 3 hours before I have to get up again, and just that waking doesn't get me back to sleep, because my thoughts race around with what I have to do when I get up. I have mini cat naps in the car between appointments, that some how recharge me for the next few hours, but nothing gets me that total feeling of being refreshed.

So I'm a light sleeper… I guess that's what kids do to you. I do hear every little noise in the house, but weirdly tune out to most of the street noise even though I'm on a main road. I have resorted to the Swisse sleep tablets to at least get into a deeper sleep, and sometimes they help, and sometimes they are no use at all.

Over the past 2 months, my work loads has been so extremely, that I was averaging 12-16 hours of sleep between Monday-Friday. But I just couldn't sleep in on the weekends, due to dog walking duties or kid's sports. I'd take nanna naps on a lazy Sunday afternoon, but all I could hear was the blaring TV or my kids beating each other up. It just feels useless trying to even go there.

Last night, I actually decided to go to bed at a reasonable time.. For once I had no work to do, no work to do for my book (as it is now officially submitted!), I'd helped my boys with their homework and the house was clean for a rental inspection we had this morning. It felt so weird that there was actually some order in my life. So I took a book to bed, read a chapter and turned the light off at 10pm. I thought 'WOW! I might actually have a chance of 8 hours of straight sleep!'

I had set my alarm for 6.15am to take Dexter (the dog) for a walk, and relaxed in bed, hoping for a chance of 8 straight hours of not waking up. Did it happen? No… 12.38am, 2.15am, 4.46am… and that's when I changed the alarm from 6.15am to 6.30am, because it was driving me insane.

What is it that's going to give me a peaceful night sleep again? Sex before sleep (how I wish), prescription sleeping pills, weight loss, alcohol, warm cocoa, a heavy duty exercise program, existing rather than living?

I'm sure there are plenty of mums out there who feel the same. Constantly drained from lack of sleep or interrupted sleep. But I guess the only thing we can do is look after ourselves more and stop thinking so much!