I'm Tired All of the Time!

    I don't know anyone who doesn't like to sleep... that is, anyone past puberty. When I was growing up, I always protested nap time. Sometime around junior high, maybe high school, I got past that phase and took naps when I could. I usually went to bed around 9:00/9:30 on school nights (if I wasn't caught up in a really good book)  and stayed up later on the weekends. I always had the chance to sleep in on the weekends and take naps after school if I didn't have to go to work. I took sleep for granted.

    I'm a mommy of three now. If I take a nap, it is completely by accident and it usually isn't a good nap because I am ALWAYS aware of what my kids are up to. If I try to nap when my husband is home, it's usually pretty unsuccessful because I always have a kid who finds me and wants to snuggle up close and be all in my business. If I fall asleep on the couch, my oldest and youngest take that time to use the couch as their own personal jungle gym or play the game, "Let's jump over mommy" which usually results in bruises from the kids landing on me.

                                    

       Above, is a screenshot of my sleep schedule based on my Fitbit. This was a lucky week. It shows that I averaged 8 hours and 13 minutes of sleep each night for the week. That would be great for almost anyone, but I'm still tired all of the time. If you take a closer look, you can see little light blue lines throughout the dark blue lines. Those are minutes that I was restless throughout the night. This could be from all of the weird dreams that I have, (I really should write them down because some of them would make awesome books or movies) because I'm uncomfortable and need to switch positions, my husband has rolled over onto my side of the bed and his elbow now rests on my face, or because I hear the kids moving around. The red bars show the times that I was actually awake during the night.

       My youngest son has been waking up in the middle of the night and making his way to my room. Since my husband has to work, I generally find myself getting up as soon as I hear him and walk to his room to lay down with him until he goes back to sleep, otherwise, he will cry and wake everyone up. Sometimes I'm awake enough to move back into my room when he's fallen asleep, other times I fall asleep in his bed and get rolled over and kicked all night. I think with many women, we just tend to be light sleepers and hear everything and aren't able to ignore it- it sucks.

       In the picture above, you can see that I slept 9 hours and 33 minutes- great right? Well you also see that I was awake 5 times during the night and restless 30 times- I was awake/restless for 67 minutes. This is why I'm tired all of the time and I suspect this is also why other women (some men too) might also be tired. How restful is our sleep when we are constantly waking up or moving around from restlessness all of the time? I suppose I could go to bed earlier, but I'm an adult and don't want to miss out on being able to watch shows or play games that I can't normally do when my kids are awake. I get to do so much more when I'm not being constantly interrupted by my kids to kiss boo boos or stop the 3 year old from annoying the 5 year old.

     Do your nights resemble mine or are you lucky enough to sleep? Do you glare at people who say they're tired and have no idea?