[Malayamommy]

My insomnia started in November, so about 3 months now. Steroids induced. It has been so hard being a mom of a 3 year old and being a walking zombie. I’m on a week of CBT-I doing it myself since I can’t afford the course and it’s so hard not to get frustrated/inpatient. I have a lot of worries about being stuck like this and feeling “broken” for the rest of my life. I try to keep about my day and enjoy life because it’s so precious and short but find it hard living in a daily fog with headaches. I find comfort and support in your videos along with The Sleep Coach School. I now fully understand insomnia even though I have my doubts, and fully understand sleep! Something that I never really knew about education wise, I just did. I’m hoping to be another success story with CBT-I.

[Scott]

Hi @Malayamommy,

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on the new addition to the family! It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to learn that sleep disruption is common after having a baby but it usually recovers when the baby settles into a nightly sleep routine. You’ve taken a huge step forward in your sleep recovery by exploring the evidence-based techniques on this site and reviewing the videos you mentioned. The key to starting any new program – diet, exercise, sleep – and seeing long-term positive results is to remain committed to the techniques. At first, it may be difficult and you may not begin to see immediate results but if you consistently implement the steps in the program, I believe you’ll find them beneficial. Are you having difficulty or have questions about any section of the program?

Scott J

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If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Malayamommy]

I really don’t know much about the actual course since I haven’t bought it and I’m doing this on my own. But I have studied CBT-I over these past months and know how to do the sleep restriction and have been doing my best to stick to it. I guess my question would be how long of my sleep window before I start making changes? I only average 5 hours a night, up at 6 or by 6 with my sleep window of 12:30-6. There has been moments where I slept through to my alarm which was magical but I still feel like crap so I’m guessing 5 hours isn’t my number for sleep and I need at least 6 or 7. If I could get to 6 I would be sooo happy! But once I wake up that’s it, I don’t be frustrated at all I tell myself I’ll relax if I don’t go back to sleep but I don’t ever if I close my eyes until sun comes out. I know this because if I’m getting 5 and slept more by having my eyes closed for hours I would be less tired. I’m in the boxing ring with insomnia feeling defeated.

[Martin Reed]

Welcome to the forum — it’s great to hear that you are becoming familiar with cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) techniques and that you have started to implement sleep restriction to help build sleep drive and reduce the amount of time available for nighttime wakefulness!

As you mentioned, it can definitely be more difficult to be a mom to a three-year-old when living with insomnia! However, you have evidence that this is something you are still able to do!

On a related note, I am really encouraged to know that you are keeping about your day and continuing to engage in activities that improve the quality of your day and improve your quality of life!

So often, the temptation can be to eliminate daytime activities from our life because we feel we simply can’t do them or because we worry that they might affect our sleep. The end result is that we remove enjoyable things from our life, end up being more sedentary, spend more time thinking/worrying about sleep, put more pressure on ourselves to sleep, and virtually guarantee that difficult nights generate unpleasant days. This only serves to perpetuate insomnia.

Nobody needs to live with chronic insomnia for the rest of their lives — a quick browse of the Insomnia Coach® Podcast is proof of that!

I am encouraged to read that you are currently averaging five hours of sleep each night — that’s better than averaging four hours, three hours, two hours, or one hour — and means you are close to what you feel your ideal sleep requirement is.

You might want to try a sleep window a little longer than five-and-a-half hours if you feel that you are averaging five or more hours per night. A sleep window of closer to six hours might make you feel a bit more comfortable.

Remember that we have no control over sleep duration — as soon as we try to get a certain amount of sleep or try to fall back to sleep when we wake during the night, we increase arousal and make sleep more difficult. All we want to do is make sure we are creating good conditions for sleep — and implementing a consistent and appropriate sleep window is a great first step!

I hope this helps.

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Malayamommy]

Thank you for taking the time to respond. Everything you said was very encouraging and helpful. Sometimes I get lost in the lack of sleep and Forget how far I’ve come from months ago. I plan on stretching my sleep window after it being 2 or 3 weeks of consistency. I’m only about 2 weeks in and just started sleeping 5 hours straight so I don’t want to rush things. I’m trying to trust this will work and more sleep will come in my near future. So thankful for great resources like these! I will update as time goes and reach out as needed.

[Martin Reed]

It’s easy to feel despondent following difficult nights — the brain naturally wants to focus on stressors and perceived threats to our well-being! None of us would be here today if that wasn’t our brain’s default wiring since it helped us avoid saber-tooth tigers and other prehistoric dangers! Of course, things are different now — however, the brain can trick us into believing that our thoughts are just as dangerous as a real threat (like a saber-tooth tiger!) when that isn’t the case!

With this in mind, it’s good to know that you are training your brain to also appreciate just how far you have come over the past few weeks (and months). Sometimes it can also be helpful to test any beliefs your brain seems to have about sleep (for example, the classic “If you don’t sleep you won’t be able to enjoy/get through your day tomorrow”) that tend to generate worry. As you know from experience, you can still have enjoyable moments even after difficult nights.

I hope this helps! We are all here for you!

—

If you are ready to stop struggling with insomnia you can enroll in the online insomnia coaching course right now! If you would prefer ongoing phone or video coaching calls as part of a powerful three month program that will help you reclaim your life from insomnia, consider applying for the Insomnia Mastery program.

The content of this post is provided for informational and educational purposes only. It is not medical advice and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease, disorder, or medical condition. It should never replace any advice given to you by your physician or any other licensed healthcare provider. Insomnia Coach LLC offers coaching services only and does not provide therapy, counseling, medical advice, or medical treatment. All content is provided “as is” and without warranties, either express or implied.

[Malayamommy]

Hey. After 2 nights of some hiccups which I believe was from negative emotions going to bed, I managed to get my 5 hours back last night. I was feeling like I was going back to a hole but I did positive sleep thoughts and journaling, this time decided to embrace the nighttime/bedroom with a mindset if I sleep okay, If I don’t I will close my eyes and relax. I fell off eventually and woke up once then I told myself it’s okay that you are awake, everyone wakes up just rest and enjoy the moment. I think I fell off until my alarm went off at 6 but not sure since when I wake up it’s like my brain is like time to get up. I been stuck with this and don’t know what to do since I can’t control sleep, don’t want to try to control it because I know that makes it worse but I’m yawning so sleepy/tired everyday feeling like ima fall over sleep off just 5 hours so I know I need more and want more but simply don’t know how if my brain is set at 5am-6am you need to wake up. How do I extend my sleep window this way if the added on time I’m not sleeping because I don’t fall back asleep. I really want to learn and accomplish getting back to sleep. I used to wake up in the middle of the night, use the bathroom and go back to bed then eventually fall back asleep within 30 minutes no problem. Rather that was 6-8 hours I went back to sleep. Now it’s like I wake up I’m soooo sleepy can barely keep my eyes open, know my body wants to sleep but it won’t do it feeling broken and confused.

[Chee2308]

Hello there!
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with your sleep then and now. If before you were able to sleep after waking up and using the bathroom, you should be able to do it today too because the human mind process both sleep related or non sleep related thoughts exactly the same way and they have no bearing on your body’s ability to fall asleep. It is simply your reaction to sleep thoughts and the awakenings that’s generating anxiety and causing your sleep disruption. So if you find yourself awakening too early, then just do exactly like before. Go to the bathroom and go back to bed. Go timeless and don’t look at the time. Tell yourself it is still early anyway and if you can sleep before then you can sleep now also. Have complete confidence in your own sleep ability. I experienced the same as you. I used to wake at 4 am against my out of bed time of 6am but I slowly built up my confidence as I slept for 15, 20, 30 minutes, 1 hour and now I could sleep for almost 2 hours until my get out of bed is now 630 am. Your recovery path should be the same as mine, it is a bit slow and will take time but you will get there eventually if you have absolute confidence in yourself. But what I found is that sleeping more doesn’t make a difference in how refreshed I feel after I got my minimum 6 hours of sleep. I can now sleep from 10pm to 5 am straight, but I usually stay in bed until 630 am anyway. I find I can sleep in that 2nd stretch from 5 am onwards but I get mostly just light and REM sleep with lots of brief awakenings and dreams, this sleep has little effect on how refreshed I feel after waking up or the rest of my day, it would be exactly the same if I just got up at 5 am. So bear in mind, sleeping more doesn’t mean feeling better.

[Author]

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