So how is everyone doing with their New Year's resolutions? I've seen a lot of interesting recipes being posted on Instagram. I conveniently scheduled my diet goals for after Valentine's Day, lol.
So, I mentioned before that I'm doing a "sleep challenge" for January. Meaning, that is my focus area and I'm giving myself permission not to stress about other areas of life for now.
I'm sooo tired.
First of all, small victories:
-During the first week of January, we conquered the New Year's Eve jet-lag, going from waking at noon to waking more like 10 o' clock. And we got David back to his pre-holiday bedtime. Progress!
-I managed to discipline myself to set my alarm to wake up earlier even when it seemed like it was going to be a bad night. (I wouldn't do this if I had a newborn or an illness but sometimes the timing is right.)
-I was able to avoid certain late-night vices, some of the time.
-I started taking my vitamins again regularly which was a secondary goal for this month.
-I started easing back into exercise which will hopefully lead to better sleep as well.
Continuing challenges:
-Sophia's continuing sleep regression makes it virtually impossible to go to bed earlier.
-Nobody is getting more sleep or feeling more rested.
Other notes:
-I inquired in forums, and it seems somewhat common for toddlers to go through a regression where they are awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night. :/ Unfortunately this usually hits around the time we would go to bed, so we don't get any sleep before the vigil begins. Not sure how to survive it but hopefully it will end soon.
-I've been reading a book on SAD and exploring the idea of light therapy. David actually seems pretty well-adjusted but I like the idea of trying to get a stronger start to the morning to help get into a good rhythm and feel more energized.
-I've been trying melatonin, too. While I find that it helps for getting over jet-lag and inducing drowsiness, it doesn't make up for other factors. For example, I had a few nights where I was in a melatonin-stupor but unable to sleep because of noise, chronic pain issues, or my mind racing. It gave me more anxiety than usual because of feeling so dead tired. Having kids makes the sleep challenges worse because I know I can't just sleep it off in the morning if something went wrong. And I had nightmares. So, I think I will end that particular experiment.
-I always want to challenge myself to go to bed at the same time as David instead of puttering around once he's in bed. I need the sleep, but I need the time for mental health, too. Trying to motivate myself to at least try it.
-For an unexpected reason, I was motivated to quit reading in bed cold-turkey. More on that in the next post.
Funny - I am trying to get back INTO the habit of reading in bed! I am fortunate to not have sleep problems, and even to have always had littles who slept well - if (in Monnie's case) not as much as I'd like! I keep thinking preschoolers should need more sleep than adults, but apparently not.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely try light experiments if I lived where you do! I am very affected by changes in light....
I want to try audio-books. My wrists are so sore lately. I have read probably 20 books this year so far, but many of them were novels. So it's definitely when my reading gets done, but I don't always stop in time. Yes, I think of preschoolers as needing more sleep. Does she nap? David sleeps almost 12 hours a night. But I think Russian kids his age tend to get more like 8 hours of sleep and then take a nap at kindergarten.
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