[Bdiz]

Hi all, just looking for some solidarity and advice. Almost 4 weeks ago I had a totally sleepless night due to a cold. Since then I’ve had insomnia. This follows a very stressful winter, I’ve been worried sick about my son who is starting School this year and has a speech delay. Although I’m now a lot calmer about that, have accepted it and he’s progressed and getting help, it is an ongoing thing. The insomnia was worse at first, a lot of panicking in the night, about the insomnia itself – sleep anxiety basically. Then it shifted to a night where I’d get 4 or 5 hours broken up followed by a sleepless night. Falling asleep initially was the problem. Now it’s shifted a bit. The totally sleepless nights are becoming more rare and I tend to get 4 or 5 hours broken up most nights over the last week, sometimes a bit more, but according to my Fitbit it’s mostly light sleep in those cases. And I feel it. Also now it’s leaning more towards maintaining sleep rather than sleep onset. I started watching boring shows on my iPad to get to sleep, not ideal, but as a short term solution it keeps me calm enough to drop off. The logic being that I can fall asleep in minutes downstairs in front of the tv, so I tried to replicate that in bed for short term. The bed is the problem. Last night I did drop off without the iPad, though. I am spending a lot of time in bed as after putting the kids to bed I’m exhausted and sleepy so I take advantage and get in bed. I went to the doctors and they prescribed an antihistamine tablet for sleep – nervous to take it though as my 4 year old son often gets in our bed at night – again, not ideal. Just worried about potentially being knocked out while he’s in the bed too. My husband also sleeps in the bed with me. All of this is very debilitating. I never struggled with sleep before! I’m trying to carry on with my days and think positively. It’s like my brain has forgotten how to sleep and even though I’m not really anxious and panicked in bed, it seems to be on a higher alert, hence the wake ups. I take magnesium and have a herbal tea and that’s about it for supplementation. I don’t mind waking up in the night, I used to do that a little bit. it’s more the quality of sleep and getting to sleep/back to sleep.

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