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Sleep Deprivation
By bella | July 22, 2005
Last night, Baby AB slept for an entire 8 hours in a row. 8 hours is generally recommended as the amount of time an average person should sleep every night. I can’t remember the last time I had 8 hours of uninterupted sleep. It was probably over a year ago, before baby and before pregnancy and before moving to Las Vegas. It’s been one long year of sleep deprivation, really. I looked it up today, just out of curiosity… this is what sleep deprivation can do to a person:
“People who don’t get enough sleep may lack energy, be depressed or irritable, have trouble remembering everyday things, and get sick more often than people who get enough sleep. They seem to age faster and they may have problems concentrating at work or school. Some scientists believe a lack of sleep may have a role in diabetes, high blood pressure, heart problems, and even obesity. “
Umm..yea, that’s my life in one descriptive paragraph. As I’m sure it’s yours if you have any children under the age of say 5 years old. I am sure HOPING it gets better as the kids get older. I do expect to be able to REALLY sleep again in my lifetime, and I would like it to be sooner rather than later.
Of all the adjustments to parenthood, this has probably been the most difficult. With my older son S, it wasn’t AS bad, because #1, there was just one child in the house, and #2, he was a better sleeper (because he was adopted at 2.5 months of age, and I didn’t have to go through the early stage of feeding every 2 hours). With Baby AB, I have to bluntly say that it’s been ROUGH. I had a tough pregnancy, during which I probably had maybe 3 or 4 good nights of sleep (but definitely NOT 8 hours at a time!). And since AB’s birth, I don’t think I’ve managed to sleep longer than 5 hours at one time. And I can count the times that has happened on 1 1/2 hands.
But, I see light at the end of the tunnel. I forsee a time very soon when I’ll get 6, 7, and maybe 8 hours of sleep again. It will be up to me to be disciplined though. I will have to go to bed when AB does, since crazy S likes to get up at the crack of dawn. It will mean putting my laptop down, turning off the TV, and crawling in to bed before I’m “ready”. But, if I want to reverse the irritable, stressed out, depressed, unfocused rut I’m in, I better plan on it. Otherwise, I’m standing in line for diabetes and more heart trouble. Cause everything else on the “symptoms/consquences list”, I already have…
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
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