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Hi Kjs16,
Thank you for sharing and I am glad CBTI is helping you. This is really inspiring.
I can see how one bad night can bring back worries. I think when I have bad nights every nights it’s in some way even easier because this is my reality and I am starting to accept it and feel okay about it. Interestingly, last night I had a very good night, and you would expect me to feel happy about it, but strangely I am not! I know it sounds crazy but now I am worrying that I have ‘killed’ my sleep drive and won’t sleep tonight at all. Plus, I feel more tired today after sleeping 8 hours than I feel after sleeping 5. It just does not make sense.Hey Kjs16
I don’t have good or bad nights, I just have nights, if that makes sense!
I go to bed at bedtime. I have no idea when I fall asleep. I wake up when baby cries. I browse Facebook for way too long. Then I put my phone away and close my eyes. Then it’s morning again.
Sometimes I’m not that tired at bedtime. Or I wake up at 4am somehow full of energy. I just browse Facebook mindlessly for a bit until I get sleepy or bored. Then I close my eyes again and let myself drift. I always have my phone on hand at night to entertain me if I’m awake. Nothing is more boring than lying in bed, not sleepy enough for sleep, with nothing to do. So thank God there’s Facebook and the internet. I know, blue light is bad. But it doesn’t really bother me, so….yeah xD
One thing I learned from my insomnia journey is:
Sleep is not the escape from insomnia.
The escape from insomnia is the acceptance of being awake when your body isn’t ready to sleep. Acceptance of being brain dead the next day. Acceptance of having those obnoxious, illogical, catastrophic sleep thoughts randomly firing through your head throughout the day (“What if I don’t sleep tonight. What if I don’t sleep ever again. What if I lose my job because I can’t sleep. What if… what if…sleep sleep sleep sleep SLEPTWERJSDL:FKJSD:LKj)
But you can’t practice that acceptance without actually being in the situation of not ready to sleep and being brain dead the next day, right?So, to cure sleep anxiety and therefore insomnia in the long term…is to just have more insomnia LOL.
If you can desensitize yourself to being okay with being awake, okay with being tired, okay with being scared of never sleeping again…your sleep will fix itself.
There is never such a thing as a bad night. There’s only desensitization practice haha!
Cindy,
Your post has given me hope during these few months of intermittent insomnia with my young baby. I’m having a harder time coping with anxiety and rebound nights and not reacting. It sends me into a tizzy. I resist. What helped you to stop resisting?
Hello @tiredmom
I believe you must have derived a lot of lessons and learning points from Cindy’s inspirational posts. Well, if you have to ask, then technically you are still resisting. It truly doesn’t matter what other people did about their dilemma or how they stopped resisting. It is more about finding your own way to do this in line with your own circumstances and your own values. When you are no longer resisting, you have nothing more to ask or the answers that you seek just aren’t important anymore. Because they change nothing! You just accept whatever nights you get and whatever consequences from a perceived lack of sleep. As Cindy has said herself, she still sometimes feels tired from 8 hours of sleep but could feel energized from just 5. Numbers aren’t important. The quality of sleep may influence how you feel but this is technically out of your control. Nobody gets to dictate how and what kind of sleep they must get. Why would you anyway? Sleep truly doesn’t define who you are, what you can do during the day or the kind of mum you aspire to be. Good luck and best wishes to you.
I’m in a anxiety peak where I’m having a tough time relaxing, which is making me frustrated which is creating more arousal. I got one hour of sleep at 6:30am. What if that happens again? Will I die without sleep? How long can this go on? The messed up part is that each time I rebound and have a trigger night it’s an enormous amount of effort to remind me that it’s okay and it’s normal.
And I’m a fantastic sleeper more than I’m a terrible sleeper. I just want it so bad. I’m chasing the cat right now because my five month old is sleeping and I should be too.
Hi!!
I’m not sure if you will see this but your post and video interview were so helpful to me. I just had a baby in July and right when my baby started sleeping slightly longer stretches around 6 weeks postpartum, I experienced three consecutive nights of no sleep. I was SO panicked. I was breastfeeding and basically just laid there until he needed to feed. I thought it was the hormones from breastfeeding (low estrogen maybe?). I tried Benadryl and melatonin, which worked for a few nights and then didn’t anymore. Then my doctor finally put me on Ambien, which has worked consistently and I’ve finally gotten consistent sleep. However, I am about to hit the 2 month mark of being on it and my baby is 4 months old, so I attempted to not take it the past few nights and immediately went back to experiencing insomnia. I was so discouraged and have been scouring the internet to find any moms with insomnia like me, and your story resonated so much with me! Everything you said is what I have experienced, even putting safety measures in place like sleeping with a certain temperature. I’m so relieved to know you are better now and it’s a relief to know I don’t need to “work harder” to sleep. I loved the way you guys talked about retraining your brain to not be stressed about not sleeping. I never used to have issues with sleep and miss the old days when I’d fall asleep on the couch scrolling my phone or watching a movie or when I’d be able to nap without even thinking about it. This is actually my third baby and the first time I’ve experienced this (but I also didn’t exclusively breastfeed with the first two). Anyway, thanks again for sharing your story and all the helpful tips!
Hi Msr 0129,
Thank you for sharing. I am now 8 months into breastfeeding my second baby. Changing my perspective about sleep helped me so much this time around! I see a sleepless night as an opportunity. I have a list of good films I always wanted to watch but never had time. If I have a sleepless night I watch a film from my list or two. Ironically, since I’ve decided to watch films I didn’t have many sleepless nights, and wasn’t able to watch many nice films, which is a shame (maybe?)
Good luck with everythingHi Ksenija and Romans828!
Apologies for my delayed reply!
Thank you Ksenija for the tips!! I actually love old movies (The turner classic movie channel is my favorite) and so I have started watching movies again before bed. I know it’s a no no to have screen time before bed but this is something I used to do before when I slept well so I’m allowing myself to watch movies as a way to relax before bed again. It’s also comforting to know if I wake up, I can turn one on so I’m not just laying there panicking. It is the worst feeling not sleeping! It’s so nice to hear that you’ve had less sleepless nights lately and that you are on the other side of this!!!
And thank you for posting Romans828!! It’s comforting to know we are both experiencing the same thing after having our sweet July babies! None of my mom friends have experienced this. I actually am still taking 5mg of zolpidem (ambien) each night. I’m usually asleep within 30 minutes of taking it, although I have had a few nights of my brain trying to override it but most nights it’s worked. I also just started to slow down on breastfeeding and got my period back this week, so I can feel my hormones going crazy. I’ve made the decision to stay on the zolpidem a bit longer before I try to wean off since my hormones are going crazy right now. I do think that initially this started because my circadian ruthym got messed up from breastfeeding during the night. I also would experience pain during each feed for a while and I think my body just began to get used to the adrenaline at night. It’s interesting because through all my research online, I’ve noticed other moms say this started for them around the time their babies started doing longer stretches of sleep. I’m really nervous to wean of the ambien but In the meantime, I’m just trying to do my best to relax my brain and think of something else anytime I worry about sleep (which is often😅). Even though I’m sleeping with ambien, it kinda feels like artificial sleep if that makes sense? Im so excited for the day when I can get some good REM sleep again!! If you find anything that helps you, please let me know!! I love hearing others stories on how they have overcome this.
Hi Cindy – I know this is an old post but would love to connect. I have struggled with anxiety my whole life and it often takes a “focus.” I struggled with insomnia with post-partum with my daughter a few years ago and have had a few sleep disturbances since then, but, overall have been good. I have had a few weeks of insomnia now at 23 weeks pregnant and feel like I know all of the advice to recover – you can’t control, make the bedtime focus to relax, be OK with being awake, etc. – but can’t seem to actually make that mind shift. Any ideas?
This is an old post of yours I see, but I just wanted to say that what you were doing at that time asking this question. In the anxiety world, this is known as REASSURANCE SEEKING. It happens after you understand and have been given all the solutions and then say, I know what to do “but”…. or “how do you do it” just after they’ve explained how.
I hope you are doing much much better these days. That was 5 months ago now I see 😊 Its a good practice in mindfulness to catch yourself when you are reassurance seeking and simply say, I notice I am reassurance seeking or seeking reassurance and kindly acknowledge I know what to do I now need to practice what I know.
Hii clindy, were you able to taper off anxiety medicines. I am taking melatonin from past 4 months and now not able to taper off. Please advice
wow great post! So happy for you that you beat insomnia. Your post gives hope to others so thank you
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