Number of days Henry has been on the planet = 520
If I was getting the recommended number of uninterrupted hours of sleep per night since Henry's birth I would have slept a total of 3640 to 4160 hours.
On average, I'd say I get about five hours of uninterrupted sleep. This means I have a sleep deficit of approximately 1040 to 1560 hours. (Even more since during those first few weeks/months I was lucky to get three hours of uninterrupted sleep.)
No wonder I'm so Goddamned tired.
Admittedly I am very bad about getting to bed at a reasonable hour. I could sleep more if I hit the sack when Henry went to sleep. But to semi-function as a human, I need some downtime in which I'm not taking care of Huck. So, I often get to sleep about the same time Henry decides to wake up because he's hungry or wants to play or just needs to move into our bed.
Here's what the Mayo Clinic had to say on the subject:
Although some people feel rested on as few as five hours of sleep a night, recent studies call this notion into question. Researchers have found that people who sleep so little over many nights don't perform as well on complex mental tasks as do people who get closer to seven hours of sleep a night. Additionally, researchers have found that adults who get much more or less than seven hours of sleep a night have a higher mortality rate than do adults who sleep about seven hours a night. ...It's no great surprise that my mental acuity is slipping. I just sort of expected this would happen to me when I was nearing my 80th birthday.
At any age, getting enough sleep boosts your immune system. Sleep also helps your nervous system work properly. Likewise, too little sleep can leave you drowsy and unable to concentrate. Lack of sleep also impairs memory and physical performance.
2 comments:
I'm not usually one to leave unsolicited advice, but have you tried any kind of white noise in Henry's room? Admittedly, it's a bad habit to get into but so worth it in the short-term if it works. All of our kids slept with either a noise machine or a fan (Josie still does), not so much because other noises in the house would wake them up... I'm just convinced it helped them sleep more soundly.
I'm sorry to hear about the lack of sleep--that really sucks. Here's hoping things improve SOON!
Please. We could use some help. I did some searching online last night and came across the baby sleep industry names like Sears, Ferber, etc. We have all of those darn books and they don't seem to be helping. We do not currently have a noise machine but we do play lullaby piano music softly so it's never deathly quiet. I'm gonna give that noise machine a try, though. Something has got to work.
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