Insomnia: Such a beautiful sounding word

[Spark]

Insomnia - it's so melodic, isn't it? Say it out loud... In-som-nia. Just gorgeous, I think. Really, it could be a girl's name.

But, then, when you have insomnia... it's not quite as pretty sounding. Don't you think?

It's 4am here and i've given up on going back to sleep for the time being. I'm drinking some sleepy time tea and hoping it doesn't kick in just when Jude and Cicely get up.

Anyone else having trouble sleeping? (seems to be an early 1st, latter 3rd trimester issue of mine)

[littleteapot]

Yup. Totally wishing my sleeping pills were pregnant-safe right now. :-/
I drink lots of sleepytime tea.

[Spark]

:balloons Woo-hoo! Let's have a party! :balloons

I'm trying a little food now... I KNOW the computer isn't helping, but heck, I'm tired of laying awake tossing and turning in bed!

[Spark]

Alright, 5:20 here in EST. I'm going to try to sleep some more. I'll pass the insomnia torch onto a CMT or PST mama... let's see who do I choose....

Judybean! I tag you! Wake up now and come party Insomnia style! :D

(sorry for tagging you, you were the only one that I could remember as being in a different time zone... besides Kir, but i think it's afternoon in India right now)

[StarCat]

you guys are way too funny. I was up at 4am, too, I should have gotten on the computer. But that was because darling dd has decided she doesn't want to sleep anymore. I think shes teething, or has a cold, or maybe teething WITH a cold. who the heck knows, shes driving me CRAZY!!!!

[Spark]

Hmmmm, perhaps Josie needs some SleepyTime tea then??? :wink

Sorry you were up, too. Esp not by your own doing!

[Jeanne_L]

If I'm up tonight I'll get on the computer! I've been crashing at 9 or 10 pm, and then sleeping until sometime in the wee hours of the morn... then I'll lie awake in bed for what seems like a couple of hours... then I fall asleep again somewhere around 5 or so and can hardly drag myself out of bed at 8 or whenever I might have to get up... sigh...

[atozmama]

I am with Jeanne, I'll fall asleep with the kids at 9 or so then wake up 4 or 5, or rather be woken up by DH when he comes home from work or wakes me up again to tell me he is leaving again to go to the gym, and not be able to fall asleep again, until the kids start to wake up 7 ish. Last night was the wxception, I awoke after about two hours of sleep and was up until after DH got home, early last night at 1 am. So I was able to sleep until the alarm went off at 7, with a really bizzare dream-sci-fi style about aliens taking over SF. Hunger frequently is what makes a simple wake/dash to the bathroom into a can't go back to sleep thing.

[kir]

My sleep is ALL messed up, and the problem is that I'm never really, REALLY awake. You know? I wake up at night, but I'm not fully awake. . . . And even during the day, if I lie down, I can fall asleep. We have this little settee which is so narrow and way too small for a pregnant person to sleep on, and I fall asleep there almost every day. It doesn't make any sense. My DH suggested we bring that uncomfortable thing -- basically it's a BENCH -- into our bedroom, which is ridiculous, because our bed is, objectively speaking, much more comfortable. I don't know what my problem is!
Kiran

[darkpear]

I have been sleeping poorly also. It's just really hard to get comfortable lately. Am thinking it's about time to transition dd into her own bed... last night she kept trying to roll over my head.

I do the Sleepytime Extra (has some valerian) myself, it does help.

[birthjunkie27]

LOL! Great thread! I had this problem the other night. I woke up at 3:30 for no apparent reason, wide awake! Which is odd because I've been SO tired latley. I tossed and turned for about an hour, then got hugnry, so got up and ate a banana....sat on the couch for about 30 mins...got bored so came online. ;) When the sun started to come up I figured I should try to get some more sleep.

[girrllie]

It's horrible. I've had it throughout this pregnancy. I fall asleep pretty well but wake up around 4 or 5 and can't get back to sleep. Read some - lie there tortured if I don't have a book to read - sometimes get up - sometimes try to watch a movie - and then fall back asleep around 7 a.m. until about 9:30 when DD wakes up (yes, I have a late sleeper!) My mw suggested warm milk with butter, sugar, and nutmeg in it. That's great for falling asleep but in the middle of the night? No dice.

[Panthira]

I can't sleep either. I toss and turn, I have that restless leg thing going on. I've also been having phantom itches that are driving me batty. I seem to be sleeping better from early-late morning but that's not cool when you have a 21 month old toddler in the house (thank goodness for my 13... uhh 14?!? yr old DD).
I've been so desperate I've woken my poor husband out of sleep to beg him to rub my legs or back, or something, anything to help me sleep! He's not the waking kind of man so I suffer alone. :p

Not much longer now!

[xmasbaby7]

Hey Panthira! It is just us, right?

I sleep for a while, but I am not comfortable enough to sleep more than 4 to 6 hours at a time. This is when I usually love going to the other boards and reading the recent birth stories.

Read any good ones lately?

Cheers!

[littleteapot]

WAAAHHHH
Be tired!

DD is still asleep, DH is waking up in 2.5 hours for school, and I have to be up in less than 6 with DD... so I won't get my solid four hours, because I ALWAYS wake up to DH's alarm.
Good thing he went and bought that tasty coffee.

[Spark]

Ah, sorry I didn't join the insomnia party (well, actually I'm glad I didn't). Rare night of sleep last night. It was a really long day I just finally stayed up late hoping it would help me sleep through... and boy did I sleep through... Cicely woke up crying and DH was home (thank goodness) and was up with her for an hour. I think I got an almost straight (got up once to nurse/pee and once to pee & laid awake for 1 hour only listened to hypno tapes & fell back to sleep) through 5-6 hours last night. That feels so good.

Golly, gals, do we realize insomnia is probably going to get worse before it gets better? Sometimes I think it's nature's way of preparing us to be awake with a newborn... and maybe being on the same mental capacity , too! :nut

[IncaMama]

i'm having sleep issues but only because i'm a friggin MORON.

we finally have Rowan in the most wonderful bedtime routine ever. at around 8 or 8:30 i take him up to our bed, nurse him for about 10 minutes, then leave the room and he falls asleep ON HIS OWN after a few minutes of babbling to himself. (!!!!!!!!!!!)

and then DH and i have time to ourselves....which hadn't happened in so long that we're still like newlyweds with it. LOL only not the sex part. LMAO!

so anyway, we've been watching movies, playing games, talking, doing whatever, until about midnight every night!!!! KNOWING that rowan wakes up every day between 6 and 6:30!! STUPID STUPID STUPID!!!

but somehow, every night, we do the same thing. somehow i CANNOT bring myself to "waste the night" by going to bed early. WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????

last night we actually did go to bed a TINY bit earlier...at around 11:20 or so...and i actually feel so much more rested than i have in about 3 weeks. LOL it helps that rowan didn't wake up until 6:45 this morning too...so last night was great.

i know i could fall asleep earlier if i wanted to. but we're just having so much fun making up for lost time that we don't WANNA go to bed! LOL

so like i said. morons. LOL

[judybean]

It's nearly 1 a.m. in the mountain time zone (and Claire, I'm tagging *YOU* now!!) and I haven't slept a wink.

It's been snowing here like crazy after raining much of the day... and a lot of power lines were downed by falling branches. Since we just had a huge branch (aka, just about half of one of the tress out back) fall and narrowly miss breaking the power line to our house a couple of weeks ago... this crazy storm has me totally on edge!! It's pretty much stopped snowing for now, but the wind is howling like mad (and it was actually a wind storm that took down the other branch). Every time I look out back, there's a tree right by our house and its branches are drooping So Far Down that they're almost touching the ground (whereas normally you wouldn't even hit your head on any branches walking around back there).

I should be sewing some diapers ... I finally made my first one today (an organic cotton sherpa contour)... but the diaper I used as a guide is upstairs -- I forgot to bring it down with me. While I love our nearly 60-year-old house, the wood floors upstairs are... creaky to say the least! And I don't want to wake anybody. So instead I decided to get in some uninterrupted internet time. Ooh... and I totally needed a glass of milk. The tacos for dinner and hot chocolate afterward are giving me The Worst Heartburn (ha... the story of pregnancies with me) and even my papaya enzyme tablets aren't touching it. So I'm hoping this milk works... or at least makes enough of a dent that I can try to think about sleeping.

I figure dh can get up with the girls tomorrow morning. He doesn't work until noon, so hopefully I can get a few extra z's in the morning (provided of course that I can *ever* get to sleep!).

[Panthira]

Up again, wide awake. I was exhausted last night and went to bed around 10pm, which is very unusual for me. I usually have trouble even falling asleep, but this time I did and awoke at 1am with pain in my belly.
I've been having pains there when I sleep and I don't know if it's the weight of the baby or what, but it's not pleasant.

[Spark]

I clocked in 4 hours last night in little bits and pieces. I am soooo taking a nap before DH leaves for work! Judy, I should have come and played with you!!! And, would you QUIT talking about the yummy things you're making!?!? You make me so insanely jealous that i don't know how to sew!!! :D

Michele - That's not moronic, that's love, baby! :LOL When my DH is home at night I end up doing that, too!

Panthira - What kind of pain are we talking? I get woken up by stronger B/H ctx sometimes.

[StarCat]

Sorry...I got a decent nights sleep last night, too. DD is FINALLY feeling better and sleeping more than 2 hrs at a time. We are trying to get her on a good sleep schedule for the same reason though. We want to spend some time enjoying each other before it all gets crazy again with the new baby. I think its a fabulous reason to lose sleep!

[Geofizz]

And, would you QUIT talking about the yummy things you're making!?!? You make me so insanely jealous that i don't know how to sew!!! :D

Claire, I'll let you in on a little secret. Buy a sewing machine out of the freebies section of the AA News. Read the manual for the machine. Start playing. Aparently diapers are a good thing to start on, cuz really, they're for peeing and pooping on, and if you cover 'em up with a nice cover, who cares what they look like? I got a sewing machine for $20 out of the paper, and made a Maya-like sling the next day. Since then I've made wet bags, an apron for DD, pad covers for foam we got to put over brick in our house, a Halloween costume for DD and most recently flannel pjs for DD.

Back on topic....

My insomnia seems to go in two week cycles. This week we bribed DD to stay in her bed all night long :bag:, which is nicely coinciding with actually being able to sleep from 10:30-6 am (minus 2 bathroom breaks).

[judybean]

Well I was very lucky that Madeline and Katherine *both* slept in a bit! Then, after they woke up, dh *did* go and tend to them while I got.. well, just about 30 more minutes of rest. It was very nice... especially since the girls slept until 9 a.m.!!

And really, Claire, if *I* can figure out a sewing machine (and, um, I even have to get out the dang manual every time I go to reload the bobbin because for whatever reason I can't get it in right by myself) then you probably could. Besides, I recall you selling an apron pattern on ebay a while back... did you get the pattern to sew yourself or have somebody do it for you? ... And for diapering, contours are easy... I haven't messed with the hard stuff yet like elastic, FOE, snaps, PUL, etc.

But... back on insomnia... I so wish somebody had joined me last night! Maybe if we keep this going we can try to keep everybody company at some point! :D

[Spark]

Wow, guys, if I didn't know better, i'd think you were trying to peer pressure me into sewing! :LOL This is why I haven't taken the plunge - 1. No room for the piles of fabric I'd fall in love with. 2. I'm messy enough, if i left the machine out on the kitchen table, my DH would have a melt down. 3. Attention to that kind of detail is not my bag. 4. With running a felted wool toy business, having 2.5 kids, teaching part time, trying to figure out to return to LLL leading after this pregnancy or not and all the other stuff, i feel like I just don't want to do one more thing! So... perhaps I shouldn't be jealous. Perhaps I should just offer trades for a sewing slave! :LOL

But... back on insomnia... I so wish somebody had joined me last night! Maybe if we keep this going we can try to keep everybody company at some point!

Hmm, that's a great idea! Do you think we shoudl open it up to all of pregnancy though and each night post a preggo insomnia thread in the general I'm Pregnant? Or just keep going onthis thread?

[judybean]

Do you think we shoudl open it up to all of pregnancy though and each night post a preggo insomnia thread in the general I'm Pregnant? Or just keep going onthis thread?

Well, for more company we'd have to open it up to everybody... but... I must admit, sometimes it's nice with just the Dec. mamas because I've grown rather comfortable and close with this nice bunch :love

Plus, it forced me to check out all kinds of boards I don't always have the time to catch up with since I have slower-than-slow dial-up!!

[Spark]

Good point, Judy. Let's just stay here where the love is!

Ok, it's 1am. I think i finally get to sleep.

Let's see who comes to party tonight!!!! Ooh, I'll leave a question here for the next person to answer. Then, ask another silly question of the next person, ok?

If you are currently up with insomnia... tell me this --
Would you rather dispense ketchup or salsa from your belly button? (you have to choose one... telling us what you'd eat with it is optional)

[xkoliex]

Good point, Judy. Let's just stay here where the love is!

Ok, it's 1am. I think i finally get to sleep.

Let's see who comes to party tonight!!!! Ooh, I'll leave a question here for the next person to answer. Then, ask another silly question of the next person, ok?

If you are currently up with insomnia... tell me this --
Would you rather dispense ketchup or salsa from your belly button? (you have to choose one... telling us what you'd eat with it is optional)

I would choose salsa. Ketchup is kinda gross to me, but salsa is so spicy and inviting, just as long as it's not less than 2 hours before I go to bed (darn heartburn) As for what goes with it, some tortilla chips, of course, and if I wanted to really eat I'd make my infamous taco casserole. Dp LOVES it!

<---- Up with insomnia every night, it gets really boring at 3am

As for my silly question for the next person:
How much wood could a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck could chuck wood?

Haha, couldn't think of anything else, I'm a nerd :bouncy

[Panthira]

I'm up again, but it's only 10:45 m here right now. Maybe I can sleep tonight?
Today I drove my daughter into San Francisco for her 14th(!!) birthday and on the drive back I was seriously having difficulty keeping my eyes open and nodding off to sleep. It was horrible! I took a little nap this afternoon and I just know that's going to keep me awake again. I'm still beyond exhausted all the time.

Spark: The pain is in the lower abdomen, on either side depending on which side I'm laying on at the moment. It seems to help if I tuck a blanket under my belly there, so I think it's ligament pain but stronger than any ligament pain I've had before. This baby is also measuring big, and since I didn't take the glucose test I hope this doesn't mean I have GD or something weird.

Yeah so... how much wood would that wood chuck chuck? I don't know but I hope I know when to duck. :P Lame, I know!

I can't think of any silly questions!
If your husband was able to carry the baby instead of you, would you miss the whole pregnancy deal?
Best I could do, sorry! :o

[wawoof]

Claire - If it makes you feel better, I have a sewing machine, but found sewing elastic in diapers to be a huge PITA. I find knitting a lot more relaxing than sewing.

About insomnia, oh boy...

I wake up about 4am every morning with my left hip and left ear throbbing from sleeping on my left side. I end up switching to my right side even though I feel guilty about not giving my baby optimal oxygen. I have a super cushy latex mattress and pillow, so I must just have sensitive hips and ears!

I have crazy dreams most of the time during the early morning.

DS cuddling in our family bed is driving me crazy. I don't mind if he's behind me, but if he's in front of me right in my face, it drives me nuts. I've taken to sleeping on the far right of our bed, facing outward, so he has to be behind me. I like the theory behind the family bed and I liked not having to get up when DS was breastfeeding, but I don't like snuggling while I sleep and it's really interfering with my sleep. However, I don't feel like kicking DS out of our bed on top on the 9000 other changes he's going through (moving, changing schools and friends, baby brother arriving) would be fair. So I suck it up... I hope we can transition Ethan and baby brother out of our bed, into their shared room *together* in a few years.

Right now I'm away at a conference (for 4 nights) and I always have trouble sleeping when I'm away. I don't like to snuggle at night, but like to have my family around. Ok, so I'm picky! I miss DS already, especially when I look at the wooden animals he sent with me to keep me company :love