Sleep Deprivation

Ok, so I’m a new mom. Which means I have a very intimate knowledge of sleep deprivation. For the most part, I have a very good sleeper. She is 3 months old and eats only once a night. She typically wakes up two additional times but just needs some comforting (nothing like a good butt pat to calm her down) to get back to sleep. Which means I get up an average of 3 times every night. Add to that the reduced capacity of my bladder since childbirth and many nights its 4 times. I checked into the hospital for induction on December 16. So, I’d say my last really decent night of sleep was December 15th (and that was pregnancy sleeping so really you could say my last decent night of sleep happened even long before that!). But, lets use December 15th just for the sake of it. That means that I have not had a decent night of sleep in 105 nights. (For the sake of full disclosure I should mention that one night during the early weeks my sister was visiting and I slept in the basement without a baby monitor and got a 6 hour chunk of uninterrupted sleep and she took baby night duty– that was heaven!) It’s a wonder that any of us new mom’s can get the pregnancy weight off…who wants to exercise when you haven’t slept well in months??

I remember once hearing that Angelina Jolie said something about how she does everything by herself with her twins. The only help she hired was a night nurse. Basically implying that she’s “just like us”. I don’t know if its true or not…celebrities get blamed for saying all kinds of things they never said…BUT it angered me then even though I hadn’t had a kid yet. If all mom’s could just have a night nurse at their disposal it would make motherhood so much easier! Sure, Angelina still does a ton of mommy stuff…but she does it with sleep on her side! Now that I’m actually a mom, the thought of that quote bothers me even more.

Last night was one of our worst nights ever. S woke up before midnight even hit (she RARELY does that) and was up for a nice long 2.5 hour chunk from 2:00-4:30. By the time I dealt with her and then was able to relax enough to get myself back to sleep both times I ended up getting less than 4 hours of sleep. And those 4 hours were not consecutive and not very restful. Having one night of this surrounded by a bunch of nights where I got a good long restful chunk of sleep might make it easier to deal with. But when it is preceded by 104 nights of crappy sleep it can have some major effects! I dragged myself out of bed and skipped showering all together. It was definitely a “ponytail” day. I have to be out of the house by 6:40 to make it to work on time. I left at about 6:45 and then sat in the parking garage and did my makeup (does it count as being ontime if you’re in the parking garage on time? LOL).

Today has definitely been a challenge in the ways you would expect. Hard to keep my eyes open at my desk, very difficult to concentrate, daydreaming about my bed. My emotions have been a total mess. Crying this morning before leaving for work, crying on the way to work , and breaking down in tears at my desk a few times. But…what has surprised me more than anything is the effect it has had on my appetite! I am so much hungrier today! It started at about 3am when I was sitting in the rocking chair with a very awake baby. My stomach growled so loud I’m surprised it didn’t wake the dog up! It was not perceived or emotional hunger…it was real hunger. I ignored it and managed to make it through the whole night without eating anything. But the hunger has continued all day. I had my normal breakfast but was starving again by 8:30. Had another breakfast and found myself hungry again at 10:30.

With my emotions in such a precarious state, I’ve had to pay very very close attention to my body’s cues to make sure that I am only feeding REAL hunger and not just eating to calm my emotional needs. It has been REAL hunger though. I wonder why? Maybe my body is trying to replace the energy it usually gets from sleep by taking in more calories? Or maybe it burned more calories over night and so is trying to replenish? I’m not sure…but what I am sure of is that this is a physiological need, not a psychological one.

I have to say that I am quite proud of myself that I have gotten in tune enough with my body that I can actually tell the difference in the two. I remember in the past when I’ve done WW they’ve always told us to pay attention to our body’s cues of real hunger. And I’ve never really been able to do it. But, this very difficult day has given me the opportunity to see that I’ve come a long way. And I must say…it feels good.

Oh..and one more non-scale victory. I ended up getting invited to a lunch meeting at the last minute and was told there would be Jimmy John’s. I could have brought my own lunch to the meeting but have a mental block with that…a topic for another blog entry for sure. So, when I got to the meeting I picked up my boxed lunch and first ate the pickle (safest thing in the box and definitely a way to get my belly started towards fullness!). I made a point to eat really really slow and to pay attention to my bodie's cues. I ended up eating between 1/2 and 2/3 of the sandwich, about 1/2 of the chips, and 1/4 of the cookie. I'm left with basically no points for tonight but I'll dip into flex points...no big deal...we are having a fairly low point dinner anyways (egg salad sandwiches and roasted carrots).

What amazed me is that I felt full! Not deprived at all. My eating habits truly are changing. My tummy simply doesn't want to hold as much as it used to. In the past I would have plowed through that whole meal, no questions asked. I've done it many times. Hubby keeps telling me that he thinks the way I'm cooking is making him eat less at all his other meals. I keep kind of laughing it off...but I'm starting to agree with him. My WW leader said she thinks this happens because as you learn to satisfy your bodies actual nutritional needs your body stops telling you to eat as much. Maybe she's right?

So, I’ll close this post with a little something to make you smile. This is what has kept me up every night for the last 105 nights…and you know what? She is TOTALLY WORTH IT!