A Mombie's Cure for Sleep Deprivation

My quest for more sleep and the surprising realization that more sleep was actually not the answer.

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘sleep like a baby? Well, it’s totally inaccurate and misleading. Whoever started that rumour should be shot!” says the tired, grumpy mom...who is me.

During my career year as a mom, I have slowly come to terms with the fact that a good night’s sleep may be something of the past. I found that whenever I got my hopes up that a decent night’s sleep might soon be right around the corner… BAM....it was a very hard fall back down to reality as it became quite obvious that it simply was not going to happen anytime soon. Then, not only did I have to deal with the physical fatigue, but also the mental depression that follows from floating high on hope then diving down into the wallows of disappointment. Both afflictions were exhausting…but perhaps one is actually preventable. I thought perhaps, was it possible that I don’t have to be tired AND grumpy. And because I knew that I wasn't about to hire Night Nanny, or start living a polygamous lifestyle with multiple moms to tend to the babies, being tired was still a guarantee... so maybe I could take the grumpy out of the equation.

We are all well aware of the unpleasant side effects that a mom suffers from sleep deprivation. But just in case you haven’t had the luxury of experiencing this, I will give you a sneak peek at what it looks like:

A sleep deprived mom usually rises in the morning with a perma-scowl on her face. The sound of any human can often evoke a disturbing growl. So it is suggested not to speak to these sleep deprived moms. Not even kind words. Silence is safer. These sleep deprived mom usually resembles a character on The Walking Dead series. Yes, like a zombie. Ergo the term “Mombie”.

She walks slumped, with a slight limp (likely from sleeping on a hard floor next to a crib or from curling too tightly into the fetal position). Her hair is matted to the back of her head and likely to stay in that position for the remainder of the day or week. She has residual mascara creeping down her eyes from last week, which definitely increases the zombie effect. She has no official language that she speaks – it’s more of combinations of grunts and groans, and snarls. And if she feels even slightly threatened (which is pretty much always) she bares her unbrushed teeth and trust me; her bite IS worse than her bark!

Sleep deprived moms usually experience an escalating mood of misery. Every day starts with a baseline mood of grumpy and usually gets increasingly gets worse hour by hour. Sleep deprived moms experience a higher degree of isolation due to the fact that most humans try to avoid them, unless of course their survival depends on them as a source of food ie. Babies or spouses.

But back to me. I slowly started to realize that every stage of childhood came with some form of sleep interruption, also known as parental torture. It’s unavoidable. There was no such thing as ‘sleeping through the night’ at any stage. So in my new found awareness I came to terms with the fact that I could not wave a magic wand and create more sleep for myself. But could I unzip and take off the grumpy, mombie costume and wear something a bit more attractive perhaps? Yes, I could. It would involve a bit of magic though, or delusion, or …ahem… positive thinking.

So when I rose before the crack of dawn to a crying child I told myself, in the best ‘fake it till you make it voice’, “Wow, Jenny, you got three hours of interrupted sleep – you must feel amazing! Go conquer the world girl!” And this may sound like a bunch of hullabaloo for some of you, but the mind is a powerful thing and something as simple as positive thinking even turned this tired, bitchy-ass mom into a happy one. It’s true. Well, that and caffeine. It’s the magic of delusion or positivity thinking…and it works.

Positive thinking was once viewed as ‘hippy-ish or fluffy’ but today’s science is showing concrete evidence that positive thinking produces benefits beyond just a few moments of happiness. Positive thoughts produce positive emotions. Author and psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, a leading researcher in the field of positive psychology, reveals that experiencing positive emotions leads people to achieve optimal levels of well-being and resilience throughout all areas of their life.

And of course, the opposite is true as well. Negative thoughts, like complaining about lack of sleep, also create negative emotions which in turn spark feelings of anger, anxiety, fear, frustration and threat. So not only are you then tired, but your body feels that it is in great peril as well, all because we complained. So, I decided to reject my inclinations to complain and insert a positive spin to my tired experience. Did it feel like I was completely lying to myself? At first, yes. Yes it did. But persistence prevailed and I soon started to feel the benefits of positive thinking.

But my journey to this acceptance did not happen overnight. I had some pretty epic and tired, “win an Oscar for the Best Actress in a Drama Film’ moments. Memories of sobbing into the carpet on my toddler’s bedroom floor while she and her newborn sister had front row seats left me feeling like a failure. Nothing like crying louder than your two year old to evoke an overwhelming need for change.

It was in those moments, I realized that I would be tired for a long time to come and I had to embrace and accept that fact. And even with all the negative emotions and side effects that our bodies feel during states of sleep deprivation, I had to endure.

So to reduce the side effects like ‘resting-tired-bitchy-grumpy-face’, I would have to reduce my expectations in order not to fall too far down when I set the bar way too high. So I lowered the bar of expectations, inserted a quick dose of positive thinking and allowed a small amount of sanity to prevail. I started to appreciate the little amount of sleep I was getting instead of crying over something that was impossible to achieve. I told myself “Five hours of interrupted sleep never felt so good. And sleep was simply overrated,” and then I let out a big-ass sigh and continued on with my day.

I’ve accepted that sleep will never be as good as I once experienced before, sans kids. I’ve also accepted that the world is full of a bunch of liars who make it sound like sleep deprivation only happens in the early days with newborns – not true! (So, pregnant ladies, be warned.)

Alas, sleep deprivation is no longer a health and safety hazard in this household. But don’t get me wrong, some days you can still see the scary-looking zombie roaming our halls, but she no longer permanently resides here.