Sleep anxiety is real. We’re having a particularly rough week sleep-wise. I feel like I have a newborn again. Booboo decided that she doesn’t need sleep. Plus she’s teething. She’s not particularly upset which is why I’m not sure if the sleepless nights and lack of naps is from that. When time for bed rolls around I don’t look forward to getting some much needed rest. Instead I dread going to sleep because I anticipate being rudely awakened less than two hours later. So I sit on the couch scrolling through my facebook feed for the millionth time. When I finally do get in bed, every noise and movement keeps me up. Is that the baby stirring? Is she going to start crying again? I’m afraid to close my eyes because it seems easier to just stay awake than to be woken on the verge of sleep. When I do fall asleep I’m haunted by the potential of being woken up at any point. My brain refuses to give in and I spend the rest of the night in limbo, not quite awake but not quite sleeping either.
This is enough to drive someone mad. PPD, PPA, mommy-brain… These are all symptoms that get exacerbated by sleep anxiety. It isn’t only the lack of sleep itself. It’s the mental torture of not knowing when I’ll be able to get some rest and for how long. Sleep being interrupted at the wrong parts of the sleep cycle to make me feel more tired when I wake up than when I go to bed.
We actually had a pretty good rhythm going for a while. Not ideal, Booboo was still waking up around 4am every night wanting to nurse. I was starting to plan for the next level of slowly getting her to sleep through the night. But that’s all gone to hell the last few days. And of course, the more tired I am the harder it gets to do everyday things. Like make and drink coffee. Yesterday morning I accidentally knocked over the cold-brew coffee carafe that was sitting on the counter. Then I dropped the travel mug full of hot coffee on our way to the park. The whole morning was a disaster.
The good news is, we’re going on vacation to Disneyland! It will be our first time going to any Disney park. I’m really looking forward to it. Lulu is really excited to give Olaf a big warm hug. I really hope we get to meet him. What I am not looking forward to is trying, and failing, to get some sleep in the hotel rooms we’ll be staying in. Disneyland has coffee right?
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