Sleep Begets Sleep

Some people don't need much sleep--I'm not one of them.  I love my sleep. I like to curl up in bed and wrap a blanket around me like a mummy. I love feeling the wave of tiredness take over, and I love to dream.  Sleep is a time for you to refresh your mind, sort through the events of the day, and let your body and your brain reset for the next day.  Think about it as putting yourself on the charger, just like your iPhone. 

Vampire Chicken Princess Darling Daughter doesn't need much sleep.  She almost never goes to sleep until 9:30 PM.  She will wake up in the middle of the night and come down to my bed to cuddle with me, or rather to throw her arms and legs on my head, kick me and sleep as close as possible to me as she can on our king size bed.  I don't know why, but her little body just doesn't seem to need the 12 hours of sleep most kids her age need. 

I had all intentions of going for a run this morning, but Vampire Chicken Princess was in bed with me, and when I woke up to "It's Time," playing as loudly as it could on my iPhone, and stealthily put my foot onto the floor, she sat up like a Jack-n-the-Box and said, "Mommy, where are you going?"

I knew there was no hope then.  She was up.  When she wakes up there is no going back.  She will not quietly close her eyes and go back to sleep.  She will follow me out of bed, into the living room, and then my day as a Mommy begins. 

Sweet kid.  I just wish sometimes she liked sleep as much as I do. 

Sleep begets sleep, but not in Darling Daughter's case.

 

Elusive Sleep

3:30 AM.  I was staring at the ceiling, noticing that we don't have cracks, and listening to the soft breathing of Darling Daughter next to me as she slept soundly.  She sleeps soundly whenever she has her security blanket with her: ME. 

I hate waking up at 3:30 and wanting to go back to sleep.  I think the more you wish sleep would come, the more it eludes you.  Your brain starts to wander, and then suddenly you are the Queen of Egypt and it's 600 B.C.  When I was little, I thought creating stories in my head would help me fall asleep, but now it makes my mind WIDE awake.  My brain is ready for more, ready to be creative, spill the words out, and suddenly I am more awake than ever, and I'm still staring at the ceiling but now the clock says 3:33. 

Things that don't work when you have insomnia:

• Counting Sheep: Why would you want to do this anyway?

• Coming Up with Crazy Stories or Alternate Realities in Your Head:  This passes the time, but won't help you get shut eye.  This may help you come up with a wonderful idea for a novel, which may one day be published if you're lucky and/or rich or both.  Everyone can dream right?  Even when you are staring at the ceiling wide awake.

• Drink Warm Milk:  One word: GROSS!!!

To be fair to you all, my audience of 20 people, I don't fight insomnia much these days.  I usually fall off to sleep, and I awake about ten minutes before my alarm.  I think this has to do with my biological clock.  If you go to bed around the same time and wake up around the same time every day, your body sort of regulates itself. 

Yesterday was emotional though and having an emotional day makes you do one of two things: sleep TOO MUCH or sleep NOT ENOUGH.  My body chose NOT ENOUGH last night.  I cried yesterday and then I laughed.  I laughed and laughed and laughed, which was a nice diversion from the crying.  Laughing is a great defense mechanism when emotions are too hard to handle.   

My goal this year was to laugh more, and I think I may have accomplished that in one day.  At 3:30 in the morning, I should have just stepped out of bed and left Darling Daughter Vampire Chicken Princess snoozing soundly, hopped on the computer and started writing.  I could have used the extra time to my advantage.  Instead I reflected on the funeral yesterday. I thought about my friend who lost her mother and how I could help her.  I thought about the color PURPLE.  I didn't come up with any good story lines, plots or climaxes, and I didn't continue to revise my book despite the need.  Part of the reason is my free trial to Word expired, and since I'm a procrastinator I haven't yet downloaded the $9 version my work offers.  I need to get on that, like today.  It's not like I own a typewriter or some other mechanism that could help me set words down on paper: like a pencil and a piece of paper. 

Hopefully if I'm awake at 3:30 tomorrow morning, Word will be installed on my computer, and my brain can relax as I revise, revise, revise.  Or maybe I can work on my 2nd novel, which is a great diversion from revising my first novel. 

Sleep, oh Sleep

I woke up with great intentions to run this morning, but Darling Daughter woke up at the same time too.  I cannot keep the child in her bed.  I decorated her room, and it is adorable.  I mean, I'd like to have her room as my room.  I love her so much, but she is so super attached to me.  She follows me around all day when she's awake, and she likes to sleep right next to me.  Right now she's laying on the couch, in need of a few more hours of sleep, watching Dora.  I need suggestions on how to get the child to stay in her own bed.  Cry it out does not work for her.  She'll generally fall asleep up there, but join me in my room at some point in the middle of the night.  I know I just need to get up from my sleep and put her back, but I get so little sleep that I value every minute of it!

And speaking of sleep, one of my friends told me about this SleepCycle app for the iphone.  I downloaded it for .99 cents.  It was the first app I've ever spent money on (yes I'm that cheap!). 

Here are my graphs for the last two nights:




When I look at these graphs, it's blatantly obvious to me that I'm not getting enough deep sleep at all.  The first night, I spent the majority of the night towards awake.  The second night, I began waking up around 1:00 until finally my alarm clock woke me up at 4:58. 

Oh, that's another neat thing about this app.  If you set a wake up time for 5:00 AM, it will wake you up at the lightest stage of your sleep when you're closer to awake than deep sleep from about 30 minutes before until your latest wake up time that you set.  So, on Thursday it woke me up at 4:38 AM and then today it woke me up at 4:58 AM.  This supposedly leaves you feeling more rested during the day then being woken up during a deep sleep phase. 

I've always thought I was a light sleeper, but these graphs confirm it. I now know why I don't wake up rested very often.  I need to figure out how to get better quality sleep.  Maybe get Darling Daughter out of my bed?