I had a conversation with a friend last week and we were talking about sleep patterns. I admitted that I take an Advil PM pretty much every night and my friend's tone changed to one of deep concern; which startled me a little, until I did some soul searching.
Here is my defense...
1. I have spent the last 10 years going to sleep with the very real possibility that someone will wake me up before dawn, at least one time if not more. I have a job that being a zombie could actually injure someone else. I think we can all agree that no one wants a tired nurse.
2. I currently live in a home with 4 children (ages 9,7,3,and 1). The older two sleep well, as does the baby, but the 3 year old is in the habit of waking up about 4am. Why? He is potty training and I think his need to pee wakes him. I take him to the bathroom, get him some milk and back to bed. (against all parental books, I do give him milk if he wakes up. Why? Because if I don't, his begging and crying will wake up the others and then the agony of me being up in the middle of the night just gets worse. I gotta do what I gotta do, you know?)Does this motion wake up my hubby - ABSOLUTELY NOT! I am the only privileged one.
3. Speaking of hubby, the children are so afraid of waking him that they will navigate their way in the dark to the far side of the bed to wake me. They never go to him first. Not even on Mother's day or my birthday (which is tomorrow)so I know tonight is nothing more to look forward to... more of the same.
4. I don't have a problem falling asleep, I have an issue falling back to sleep when I get woken up. This was true during each pregnancy and little-baby-in-our-room days (which have been repeated four times over). This is true now - listening to-the-monitor-crackle days. I even have turned off the monitor lately to get the extra 15 minutes of morning sleep before the baby's talking wakes up the whole house.
5. My house is up and running at 6:15 weekdays - 6:30 weekends. The only difference is that I get up at 5:45am during the week to get coffee inside of me before I start the morning craziness. On the weekends I just sleep until someone wakes me at the crack of dawn.
6. I am the last to bed - most nights - and the first to get up. I need my sleep to be uninterrupted.
7. I sleep in the same bed as someone who works overtime. Some nights he is out until 2am. If I go to bed at 11pm... get woken up at 1am when he is getting home... then again at 4am with a child who wet the bed... How is this a restful night? I need to be in a C-O-M-A during those precious hours of darkness.
8. I see myself aging and place much of the blame on the fact that I've had broken sleep, every night, for years. My goal with Advil PM is to stop the cycle.
9. It works!!!! About two hours after I take a precious pill (sometimes I double up, depends on whats on the schedule the next day) I get a wonderful feeling of sleepiness; my eyes start closing as I'm reading my homework. I live for this feeling... it is an open invitation to go to bed and know that I will fall asleep, without thinking about homework, class, work, kids, school, projects, laundry, birthdays, Christmas, cooking, shopping and just life in general.
10. I don't have the ability to nap during the day. Sure, I could easily close my eyes and nod off. I'd love to be able to watch Oprah and just chill for an hour each day. But I don't have that luxury! I can't rest... I have dinner to cook, kids to pick up, homework to turn in, laundry to fold, phone calls to make and I don't even talk about the broken window that needs to be replaced, or the hospital calling to collect $700 because of an insurance mix up; or the need for my 9 years old to have surgery and all the effort and doctor visits it took to get that done. I still need to have the seven year old seen by an oral surgeon to see about having a tooth pulled.
11. I'm sure that the day will come when I can go to bed and know that I have a good chance of 8 hours of wonderful sleep. It is the fear of lack of sleep and the knowledge that tomorrow is not a guarantee either, that keeps me going
to the medicine cabinet.
12. If I get a good amount of sleep, guess what? I have a pretty good day...
Good mood = happy mommy = happy kids = hubby doesn't get yelled at = rainbow at the end of every rainshower.
Bad night = bad mood = unhappy, scared children of psycho mother who slams pans on counter and throws homework in the garbage = hubby is sleeping on couch because wife is C-R-A-Z-Y!!!!
Get the picture?
As far as I'm concerned, I am just fine with my little sleep aids. There is never a night that I don't need a good night's sleep because tomorrow isn't a busy day. Even if I don't have a hectic schedule, I just want to sleep.
The active ingredient in Advil PM is benadryl. It is not physically addictive (they say, I won't know because I won't test the theory yet )and I consider myself lucky to be part of the 60% of people that it makes sleepy. (Bet you didn't know that 40% of people take the stuff with no effect.)
So, I bid you goodnight.
My body is becoming relaxed and I am looking forward to my favorite time of the day - crawling into bed. Which is the exact opposite of my least favorite time of the day - when I hear the pitter patter of feet (big or small) and I realize that it is still dark.
It is odd that my most favorite and least favorite times of the day are always following each other. The sleep aid allow me to have the 'I got two more hours of sleep' excitement when I get little ones back to sleep each night.
It is a good partnership - I love them... they help me.
We work good together.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment