Sleep (and wake up) more peacefully!!
Sandra Dodd
Our culture, and "rules" and health classes and advertising have persuaded many of us who are over 30 that if we wake up at night, there's something wrong with us, we will be "sleep deprived," we have a condition called "insomnia" (fancy word for "can't sleep"). They make drugs for that.
Increasingly over the last few years, people have been discovering clues in historical mentions, and experimenting with the "normal" and natural reality of waking up at night without freaking out and feeling shame and fear and panic about it.
I have some notes on my site here:
http://sandradodd.com/sleep/outside
And here's a very happy bit of writing with more historical clues:
http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/
After I started reading about that I stopped feeling bad when I woke up at 3:05 or whatever, night after night (it varies overall, but there are likely to be a few weeks of the same time, repeated). When I started accepting it calmly, and hopefully, life was better right then.
Sandra
Increasingly over the last few years, people have been discovering clues in historical mentions, and experimenting with the "normal" and natural reality of waking up at night without freaking out and feeling shame and fear and panic about it.
I have some notes on my site here:
http://sandradodd.com/sleep/outside
And here's a very happy bit of writing with more historical clues:
http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/
After I started reading about that I stopped feeling bad when I woke up at 3:05 or whatever, night after night (it varies overall, but there are likely to be a few weeks of the same time, repeated). When I started accepting it calmly, and hopefully, life was better right then.
Sandra
Andrea Q
We visited Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire this summer. It is a museum of sorts with a collection of homes in Portsmouth's oldest neighborhood that shows how people have lived from the early 1700s through the mid 1900s.
In one of the historic homes, there is a sign about two sleeps. I had planned to research it, but lost track of that until this post, Sandra. Thanks!
Andrea Q
In one of the historic homes, there is a sign about two sleeps. I had planned to research it, but lost track of that until this post, Sandra. Thanks!
Andrea Q
--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> Our culture, and "rules" and health classes and advertising have persuaded many of us who are over 30 that if we wake up at night, there's something wrong with us, we will be "sleep deprived," we have a condition called "insomnia" (fancy word for "can't sleep"). They make drugs for that.
>
> Increasingly over the last few years, people have been discovering clues in historical mentions, and experimenting with the "normal" and natural reality of waking up at night without freaking out and feeling shame and fear and panic about it.
>
> I have some notes on my site here:
>
> http://sandradodd.com/sleep/outside
>
>
> And here's a very happy bit of writing with more historical clues:
>
> http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/
>
> After I started reading about that I stopped feeling bad when I woke up at 3:05 or whatever, night after night (it varies overall, but there are likely to be a few weeks of the same time, repeated). When I started accepting it calmly, and hopefully, life was better right then.
>
> Sandra
>
fishbeeandsnail
Our son has always been a non standard sleeper. At eighteen months he ditched naps and because children that age are supposed to need a nap I fought him over it. It was miserable. We would spend a few frustrating hours a day doing every soothing thing I could think of to get him to sleep. The days I got him to nap were the ones he didn't get enough sleep because a nap pushed bedtime back by more than the length of the nap. Such nonsense, and for what? To make him fit in with an average that clearly did not apply to him.
At three he is still sleeping differently to the average. He sleeps ten hours a night, sometimes nine or eleven for a short while, but ten is his baseline and it suits him just fine.
I could drive myself mad worrying about every news story reporting on how harmful it is for children to sleep too little and how terribly it impacts on their performance at school. Instead I shrug and wonder if the children in these studies are naturally night birds and the harm might be a little bit because their natural sleep pattern is being distorted to fit in to an early school start.
And I see my beautiful son who is thriving on his late nights and earlyish mornings and I know that no study or news report can tell me what is true of my son. He is himself entirely, not an average.
At three he is still sleeping differently to the average. He sleeps ten hours a night, sometimes nine or eleven for a short while, but ten is his baseline and it suits him just fine.
I could drive myself mad worrying about every news story reporting on how harmful it is for children to sleep too little and how terribly it impacts on their performance at school. Instead I shrug and wonder if the children in these studies are naturally night birds and the harm might be a little bit because their natural sleep pattern is being distorted to fit in to an early school start.
And I see my beautiful son who is thriving on his late nights and earlyish mornings and I know that no study or news report can tell me what is true of my son. He is himself entirely, not an average.
--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
>
> Our culture, and "rules" and health classes and advertising have persuaded many of us who are over 30 that if we wake up at night, there's something wrong with us, we will be "sleep deprived," we have a condition called "insomnia" (fancy word for "can't sleep"). They make drugs for that.
>
> Increasingly over the last few years, people have been discovering clues in historical mentions, and experimenting with the "normal" and natural reality of waking up at night without freaking out and feeling shame and fear and panic about it.
>
> I have some notes on my site here:
>
> http://sandradodd.com/sleep/outside
>
>
> And here's a very happy bit of writing with more historical clues:
>
> http://slumberwise.com/science/your-ancestors-didnt-sleep-like-you/
>
> After I started reading about that I stopped feeling bad when I woke up at 3:05 or whatever, night after night (it varies overall, but there are likely to be a few weeks of the same time, repeated). When I started accepting it calmly, and hopefully, life was better right then.
>
> Sandra
>