jennifer
If you had presented the week two challenge to me anytime between mid-July 2014 (my ninth month of pregnancy) and the end of January 2016, I would have just thrown in the towel.  The second challenge in this series is sleep.  Get seven to eight hours of restful sleep every night. 

I have always been a self-proclaimed night owl, so much so that I named my own business "Night Owl."  I come by it naturally.  My grandmother, even at age 90, stayed up until around 3:00am every night and slept in until about noon.  Both my parents are night owls.  And although I love the feeling of waking up early and getting a good start on the day, I always choose sleeping in if I can.  And even though studies and textbooks and doctors will tell you that the average adult needs seven to eight hours of sleep each night, I actually need nine to ten.  More than that is even better.  My brother may be the only other person that understands that need, as he can easily sleep fifteen hours on a Sunday.  So, when we had our baby in August 2014, the through-the-night breastfeedings were rough on me.  And as time went on, we quickly realized that our little guy was not a good sleeper.  So re-read that first sentence--for the last 18 months--yes, EIGHTEEN MONTHS, I haven't had a solid night of sleep.  And then, just like the flip of a switch, our miniature night owl started sleeping through the night at the beginning of February.  That means I've had four weeks of really good sleep, and man, can I tell a difference.  (I'm sure everyone else that sees me regularly can verify the difference, too.)

I really could see and feel the side effects of my lack of sleep over the past year and a half.  I was more irritable and moody, obviously fatigued, I had more headaches and migraines than usual, my memory and thinking wasn't as sharp, and after losing my baby weight, I started gaining it back. 

The night owl in me posed a major problem when the baby wasn't sleeping.  We would get him down for the night about 6:30pm and even though I knew he would be awake again by 10:00 or 11:00, I would stay up.  Then I would get anxious when he did wake up at 10:00 or 11:00 knowing I would spend 30 minutes getting him back to sleep and should be sleeping myself.  After getting him back to sleep, I would want to stay up again and take advantage of the non-baby time, and it would be 1:00am before I was in bed.  Of course by that time, the baby was awake again and I was no longer "in bed."  Then I'd be up again at 3:00am and then up for the day at 6:00am.  So I was basically getting about five hours of very interrupted sleep.  The funny thing is, once he started sleeping through the night, I totally lost my night owl desires.  I have been in bed by 9:00 or 10:00 most nights over the past month.  And now that the baby is sleeping until 7:00am, I'm getting about 9 hours of sleep every night. 

The really fun thing about this challenge is that my Garmin Vivofit tracks my sleep every night, so I have an official chart of my sleep patterns.  Over the past week, I have averaged 9 hours and 38 minutes of sleep per night.  That's an AVERAGE.  To break it down more, I've averaged 7 hours and 3 minutes of deep sleep, 2 hours and 23 minutes of light sleep, and 17  minutes of awake time (which is most likely a few minutes falling asleep and a few minutes after waking up.)  The week before that I averaged 8 hours and 49 minutes per night.  So I feel like I've mastered this challenge at 125%.  And just for the record, for me personally, this is a BIG change, not a small change.  Fingers crossed that everyone keeps sleeping like this.

Oh, and my water intake has increased a little, but I'm still not at the book's target goal.  How is it going for you?



0 Responses