Sleep

In these days of enforced rest (I have a pseudomeningocele), I may as well write on my blog and sleep is one topic that fascinates me. Thankfully, I have never really had a problem with it and my sympathies go out to those that do, whether their own sleep is poor, or someone else (usually a small child) is disrupting it.

My childrens' sleep has usually been pretty good, something I try not to admit to my clients who are struggling with their own child's sleep. That won't actually help.  No one really knows whether a persons sleep is "inherited" or the result of how they've learned to go to sleep, but quite often I've found that when a baby is a poor sleeper, there is also a parent that is too. Anecdotal,  no science here at all, but still interesting.

As a kid I was a good sleeper and this continued to adulthood, with the occasional off night like everyone and nights that sleep was interfered with via drink/chemical means. On the whole, I could go to bed, turn the light off and seemingly five minutes later wake to the alarm. This, of course eventually wore off and sleep became just that bit harder to attain, to the point that I am aware of moving around regularly and needing a ridiculous routine to go to sleep. The only point that I had a nostalgic return to the sleep of my 20s was when I had brain surgery in 2010 and I'd hardly reccomend that as a solution to everyone's sleep problems.

My sleep has progressively gone something like this.
infancy: NFI and don't expect me to remember. I was a child of the 60s, so I imagine that I was fed, burped, changed and put to bed, crying or not.
Childhood:pretty good, although when we got sent to bed, we damn well went, no protests, daylight savings or not. Of course, we all learned the trick, as we got older, of sitting silently on the couch, hoping that our parents would forget we were there and thus forget our bedtime.
Teens: became a bit more changeable, particularly as I got older and started going out. My parents developed a horrid habit of vacuuming or mowing the lawn just outside my bedroom 8 or 9 of a weekend morning, in order to get me out of bed. Gaarh! Mum happily admits it was all her idea.
20s: the era of the aforementioned "coma sleep". Blessed days. There was the odd night that I laid awake for hours, worrying about money, evacuation in the event of a house fire, uni, break ins, the local serial killer (I'm not actually jesting). One of my friends tapped on my bedroom window for about 5 minutes one night, 3 of which I was frozen in terror, before she spoke my name and I got up to let her in. She wanted panadol for her boyfriend's migraine....yep. I started to put vaseline on my lips as I woke with severely cracked lips from mouth breathing while pregnant (actually still in my teens).
30s: married now to someone that had started to snore! Not to bad at first. Was no longer sleeping on my stomach because I got a sore neck and pins and needles at my shoulder blade. Weird. Started using pillows during 3rd pregnancy and kept using them. Eventually started to wear ear plugs to enable any sleep. I had a particularly vile night with Gs snoring that ended with me striking him on the head and yelling at him to shut up. He was most offended, still doesn't really believe that he snores, despite multiple people complaining of it. Go figure.
40s: G still snores, still wear earplugs, vaseline/ pawpaw ointment on my lips, have pillow between knees and under top arm. Sleeping on left side because of surgery (and the soft spot above my right ear and the meningocele which has been christened squishy) at present. My left leg is getting sore. I also have a splint to wear over my top teeth at night now, because I have woken myself multiple times clanging my jaw shut on my tongue or inner cheek. The results include waking myself up and mouth ulcers down the track. I also like to make sure my feet are clean in summer (barefoot see) and I read in bed most nights (part of the settling routine).

God, I'll be drinking horlicks before you know it. I still sleep alright though, just not as deep as when I was younger. I have heard you need less as you age. I do still have a nanna nap at the present, but I expect that will stop fairly soon. Actually, I've always enjoyed the nanna nap on the odd occasion. I've often thought I should live in Spain, but they're broke now......