Sleeping the Night Away

Life has been somewhat crazy round here lately.  Not that it has been peaceful, serene, or boring for quite some time!  But recently, it has been busier than even our usual busy.

Sleep has been a problem.

Sleep is still a problem.  Well, not so much sleep, but a lack of it.

With starting work so early, I am up at 5:15am four mornings a week.  Boyo was coming to bed around 1-2am.  Munchkin has been waking one or two times most nights.  On Friday night, it was FIVE times.  I broke out the pamol to add to the teething arsenal (he has a teething and a sleep remedy which usually work quite well).  Today I bought more bonjella.  The bottom two molars are definitely feeling more pointy than a few months back.  I hate teething.  I really, really hate teething.

Of course, I've been adding to my lack-of-sleep problem too.  Movies.  Why is it that most movies seem to finish after 10:30pm these days?!?  Yet there I was, watching them.  You see, I'd spend so long tidying up, doing washing, putting food in the fridge, and so on after getting Munchkin into bed, that I'd then feel like I needed to vegetate infront of the tube for at least an hour before I could possibly go to sleep.  My mind gets too wound up.  Yes, even by doing the washing.  Annoying.  But then of course, I'd lose an hour or two of sleep.  Now, an hour or two doesn't sound like much.  But when you compound that by two or three or even four nights a week, it all adds up way too much.  And when you aren't actually getting enough sleep to start with, before any late-night movie watching.  Well.  Silly me.

So here is my resolution.  I have taken drastic measures.  Firstly, I am telling all of you.  So that I will feel like a total hypocrite and really bummed if I don't follow through.  Grin.  I am hoping you will hold me accountable.  Ask me in a few weeks if I did what I said I was going to do on that blog post.

Secondly, I have set a recurring alarm.  New mobile phone, which means I can actually do that (my previous one only let you set one alarm at a time, this one I can do up to 6, and choose which days of the week they are for, amazing!)!  My alarm is now set for 9pm.  That is my reminder that whatever I am doing, it is not as important as sleep.  Very difficult to remember when faced with a huge pile of washing, or the deep and burning desire to read one last blog post or sort one last batch of photos before heading off to bed.  So my alarm will hopefully help me remember that there should be no work after 9pm.  Movies are out.  They go too late.  I must be in bed, with the light out, by 10pm.  That's a whole hour to get ready.  Surely, even for my waffly bed-time routines that should be enough (I drive Boyo nuts with how long I take getting ready for bed - he takes about 5minutes).  I figure that if I get to 9pm and feel like I haven't wound down enough to go to sleep, then I can do something for half an hour that is relaxing, with the deliberate intent of calming down.  Do some wordfinds, sit in bed and knit, that sort of thing.  But I still need to be in bed by 10. 

I am also hoping to have some shorter lie downs during the day when Boyo is at Polytech (starts next week, yikes!).  Just half an hour, maybe 45minutes.  Enough time for me to rest, but without taking too long out of my afternoon. 

So there you go.  That's the plan.  Whatcha think?
Amy