[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

I don’t want to take medication for sleep because I have a 3 year old and I have to at least be able to wake up if need be but something has got to change. I try to do everything I can to get better sleep. I stopped drinking caffeine after 10am every day, (and only one 16oz bottle a day), I turn the lights off, I turn all the TV’s and the radio off, I typically avoid foods with high sugar, I take a long shower and lay down for a while trying to clear my mind but nothing works.
I fall asleep with ease, once I roll over to sleep within 3 minutes I’m fully asleep. The problem is staying asleep. I go to bed at 9:30. I’ll be awake again at 11, then at 12:30 then again at 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30, then 5. I end up staying awake at 5, tired of fighting to get sleep. I don’t need to be up until 6 but I get so tired of trying to sleep.
I can’t take sleeping meds, I have a 3 year old and I already have a strange sleeping pattern. Alarms (including the fire alarm), knocking on doors and such don’t wake me up but her saying my name, even if it’s not yelling and she’s in the other room, that will wake me up. I can’t be on meds that will stop her from waking me up if she ever needed to.
It’s a really strange pattern… I just need help figuring out how to stay asleep without meds… I need sleep, it’s driving me bonkers!!!!!

[Perna]

It sounds like you may be a little hyper-attenuated to your daughter maybe needing to wake you and fearing you won't wake?

Do you nap at all during the day? I would cut that out if you do and I would try going to sleep just a little later, maybe 10:30-11 (since you get up at 5 instead of 6 anyway). I do not know what your day is like but I would try to make it as active as possible, see if you cannot use up a bit more energy so you are genuinely, physically tired when you go to bed.

I have heard that you should turn the clock around so you cannot see it; that looking at it when you wake just makes things worse, winds your head up.

[PurpleFlyingMonkeys]

Thanks Perna! I am very very tuned in to my daughter I guess you could say. I'm very paranoid to say the least. I still go in and check on her numerous times before I fall asleep at night and about once or twice during the night when I'm waking up. Just to be sure she didn't fall out of bed and for the nights she wets the bed. This could be a big reason why my sleep is so bad.

As far as naps, I used to take them all the time because I was so tired from this, but after reading about 6 months ago from another post I had done about my sleep, I stopped taking naps. I fight the sleep as long as I possibly can. I sometimes will get to bed at 10:30-11 but my sleep is still broken up and I'm exhausted even more the next day.

I try to be active, I used to be overweight and don't want to be again and want to keep my daughter active so we go out and do things most of the time. Like today we will be going "marsh hunting" looking for antique bottles in the marsh, it's pretty physically demanding because you sink the whole time and are walking through mud the whole time that you sink average 4 inches every step. When you sink, you sink knee deep. Not to mention the places we have to walk it's about 3-5 miles each time and we do this a few times a week. I don't bring my daughter on the long ones though and not deep in the marsh considering aligators and such. She is in daycare or with my mom for those.

I'm also thinking of taking up tennis but really I'm so busy every day I don't know how much more time I have for "hobbies" I play drums which is also physically demanding, cleaning up after a 3 year old and 2 adults takes about 3 hours a day then it's off to marsh hunt, throw balls at the park, go for walks etc... We like history so we are always going on old trails and such... Basically for someone who feels like crap all the time and is exhausted non stop, I'm very active.

The clock thing though, that would be a really good idea. Every time I wake up I will look at the clock and it only frustrates me and makes me feel even more awake because I know I'm having a horrible nights sleep. I'll try that.

I don't know how much more I can do to make my sleep more stable, it worries me because you read about the people who die from insomnia, I've always had sleep issues so the older I get and the longer it takes to find a solution, the more worried I become.

My old t says my sleep, much like my school, is greatly effected by my past. That so much has happened in my life it's distracting me, even if I don't realize it, from sleep and from being able to concentrate. He may be accurate. I don't have dreams often but have been lately. When I do have dreams they are either of huge disasters or they are of an event from my past that is reliving itself in the present sense in my dreams. So perhaps he is right about that effecting my sleep, so how do I stop it?

Years and years of therapy isn't enough time to rehash everything from my childhood, I can't take this sleep problem that much longer!