Who Needs Sleep Anyway?

I DO!  But it's rare that I actually get a good night's sleep.  Between trying to calm my racing mind, an ever changing work/sleep schedule for Josh, and a 19 month old child I can barely fall asleep let alone stay asleep. 

It wasn't a surprise.. I expected to sacrifice my sleep the majority of the nine months I was pregnant plus the first year of Vaughn's life but after Vaughn turned a year old I had become so exhausted that I could hardly see straight.  If you're a parent you know that you do things when you get the chance and normally that chance came between the hours of 9pm-9am for me.   So I would find myself up till 1 or 2am before I would even make my way to bed then spend another hour just trying to fall asleep. Of course I had some time during the day but for some reason the night hours were what I took advantage of most.  I could really get things accomplished without having to worry about the fact that in an hour or two, I would have to stop because Vaughn woke up or I had to get dinner ready etc.  

Now on to problem #2... I'm a woman and I've had a baby which equals a non-existent bladder!  There is nothing worse than your own body being the reason you can't sleep at night!  I am lucky enough to have a child that sleeps through the night yet I can't make it more than 3 hours at a time without a potty break interruption!  So even if I was in bed for a full eight hours, it was eight hours of broken sleep with the possibility that I never actually hit the REM stage.  

Do you know how important a good night's sleep is to your overall health?  Did you also know there is also a link between those extra pounds and the quality/amount of sleep an individual gets?  I had to get a handle on this to begin to feel human again and to get into my skinny jeans!  

So during my yearly physical, I brought it up to my doctor.  Now for most people that know me well, you have to force medication down my throat as well as get me to the doctor.  I'm not a big believer in traditional medicine.  I would much rather take a holistic approach to healing (which also means I keep my chiropractor busy).  But now I was desperate for something to help me 'through the night'.  He prescribed melatonin.  Melatonin is a hormone that your body (pineal gland) makes naturally so to take melatonin as a supplement was a natural remedy that I was willing to try.  

I took it consistently for a little over a month but the results were far from my expectations.  It didn't help relax me nor did it keep me asleep.  As a matter of fact, when I would wake in the morning, I would feel sluggish and like I wanted to sleep the rest of the day.  Not to mention I was still getting up my normal 2-3 times during the night (which my doctor thought would stop while taking this).  

So back to the drawing board to find an answer... AND I think I found it!  The last two nights I slept through the night without waking once AND I didn't pee the bed! (I want to be clear) I had ever had an accident before but let's be honest part of the problem here is a non-existent bladder so I was amazed to think I could have possibly cured both issues!  Now... it's only been two nights.  Could it last?