Mixed Bag Of Rant

No this is not a picture of me.

I was super stoked to FINALLY get accepted into the SheSpeaks Philips Wake-Up Light Better Mornings program. It is just a really cool product and might just be the answer to my prayers as a person who wakes up at 5am the majority of the week as well as suffers from SAD (Seasonal Appresive Disorder).

Not sure how important daylight is? Sunlight and daylight have positive effects. They raise energy levels and help align our daily rhythm. The Philip Wake-Up Light gradually wakes you up in a gentle, less abrupt way- the way nature intended. Starting a half hour before your set wake up time, the Philips Wake-Up Light gradually fills your room with bright light, similar to the rising sun. The light raises energy levels, slowly preparing you to slowly wake up.

I decided to give this thing a try for 5 days. My initial concerns:
– The light would wake my husband up (who actually gets up with the rising sun like a normal human)
– The light wouldn’t wake me up at all
– That nothing would change and I would still be hitting snooze every 10 minutes.

Night 1: This dumbass probably should’ve read the instructions fully as I was somehow blissfully unaware that you are to set it a half hour before you are ready to get up. Being a snooze button lover, I had set my clock to my “snooze” time: 5:05am (gives me about 30 minutes worth of snooze slamming). So to my limited knowledge, the light started firing up at 4:30am. At about 4:45a, I sensed that it was light (holy crap… this thing works??) and I panicked. Full on freaked. Shot up in bed thinking that it was about 7am and I was about to be very late for work. Worried that it worked so well on me (and it was much earlier than I am accustomed to anyway) and that I would wake up my snoring husband, I turned off the light portion and stuck to the good old fashioned FM radio wake up. Baby steps, right? I asked my husband if he noticed the light being on. He said no but that he heard the radio. LOL. Going into Night #2, I’m going to give this thing a REAL try. Set my alarm for 5:30 (light will start at 5) and see if waking up is a little easier without having to hit snooze a hundred times.

Night 2: Yup. Got a kick from my husband this morning to turn the light off. However, can we agree that this thing works?  

The full intensity brighter than the sun light which woke my dear husband up. Yes, that is my backup former alarm clock in the background. And the video monitor. Also wonderfully bright for my husband’s annoyance.

Night 3: I knocked down the light intensity by half (to just a 5 out of 20) and it still woke me up about 10 minutes before the radio alarm sounded. Husband didn’t wake from it this time; however, that may have been more because he was up at 4am with the kid. I am definitely feeling less apt to hit snooze- I actually want to just wake up and get moving!

The intensity used at half and still more than woke me up.

Night 4: Thanksgiving Eve = sleeping in (or rather, waking up to the natural sunlight beating in my window)

Night 5: Thanksgiving Turkey coma. Yet the light woke me up 10 minutes before my alarm as usual. Up and not entirely thrilled to be going to work the day after Thanksgiving.

I spent a whole week testing out the Philips Wake-Up light and my final assessment? I love it. Love, love, LOVE IT. I love being woken up naturally rather than beating down my alarm clock every 10 minutes. In regards to my initial concerns, I found a light intensity that doesn’t seem to disturb my husband, it actually does wake me up and I have yet to touch the snooze button. My biggest issue is lack of trust. As parents, we are often woken up in the middle of the night by our preschooler’s dreams, potty needs, illness, monsters, MiMiMi scaring him (who the heck is MiMiMi??),  ETC ETC ETC and are freaking tired. So tired, that often the sudden shrieking of an alarm clock is what it really takes to wake up before the crack of dawn. I don’t trust that the light is going to wake me up, so I wake up every hour worried that I’m going to oversleep. Regardless of whether it worked just fine for an entire week and I woke up without an issue every day, I was still restless overnight.

No lie, I was pretty skeptical. I didn’t think it would work. I thought I wouldn’t want it. I confess, I was wrong. This is a great product. If you struggle with getting up in the morning and are a chronic snooze smacker like I used to be, this product will do wonders for you.

Thinking Light Therapy is the right thing for you? Click on the button to the left to get $10 off your Philips Wake-Up Light!

Bleary-eyed Zombie Mom Approved.

* I was given a Philips Wake Up Light to review through www.shespeaks.com. All opinions are mine and mine alone.

I’ve seen the book “Go the F**k to Sleep” by Adam Mansbach and found it to be absolutely hilarious.

For those that actually thought this was a children’s story and are offended? You’re an idiot. Don’t read it if you don’t like it. For cripes sake, grow a sense of humor (and keep the book safely out of reach of tiny hands).

I also saw a comment about the book saying “If you don’t know how to get your child to sleep, you are a terrible parent.”

Apparently the person who made that comment never had a toddler.

Parents may not say the words “Go the f**k to sleep” out loud, but you KNOW you have thought it. Last night I lived it at 2:00am when my 2.5 year old cried because he lost his soccer nuk (and no, there are no other substitutes) and again at 4:00am when he cried out in the night because, yes, his pillow was upside down and Buzz & Woody were facing the wrong way. I won’t even bring up the two additional times that are a haze and maybe had something to with monsters and robots (perhaps watching an Ironman cartoon was not quite appropriate before bed).

As I stumble around in my sleep deprived yet incredibly caffeinated state today, I can’t help but chuckle at the absolute brilliance of this book. While I didn’t say, “Go the f**k to sleep,” I’m pretty sure I said the words “You’ve gotta be f**king kidding me.”

The audio version of the book is making the viral rounds now, but I couldn’t help but sharing it today because there really isn’t a more perfect narrator: Samuel L. Jackson.

I hope you enjoy. I also hope you get some sleep someday.

I know sleep seems to be the only topic I have to talk about lately, but when it is EVERYTHING about your life, is there anything else to discuss?

DH and I have delved deep into the mystery that is baby sleep. I feel like I have combed the internet for hours researching and trying to find an answer to why we can’t get our 6 month old to sleep through the night. Have I found the answer yet? Not necessarily. However, I have found that what Jack is doing is actually more normal than we thought. Jack typically goes to sleep around 8-9pm depending on his level of playful, maniac-ness. He goes right to sleep without any struggle and we usually get a solid 2 hours before the night goes awry. We have found though that there is always a reason for his waking up and being upset: his Nuk fell out, his Nuk is in backwards, he rolled over and is uncomfortably wedged into the corner of the crib, he rolled onto his back (he hates his back) and the list goes on. These are all fairly easy fixes- we re-position him and give him his Nuk back. This takes all of 10 seconds with little interruption to my own REM sleep. Lately though, Jack has been starting to stir around 4am. This is seriously a no-go in our book. Too damn early. No way in hell is either of us starting our day at 4am. The more I read though, I’m finding that 8-9 hours of sleep, including these minor interruptions is normal. So. He goes down at 8- 4am is 8 hours. Not brain surgery to figure out what is going on here. He’s hungry. We’re not ready to get up. We struggle with getting him back to sleep. Now, if we were alert, awake and intelligent, we would simply give him the darn bottle and chances are, he would go back down until 6 and be ready to start the day at that time (normal for us as we are up getting ready to go to work anyway). Why do we fight this? I’m not sure. Probably because we are afraid that it will become habit and we will have to get up at 4am every morning for the next 18 years to feed him. Truth of the matter is, we probably just need to go with it. Until he is old enough and not in need of a bottle or baby foods, then this really is the reality and there is no use in fighting it. This is what we signed up for!

In other news… The discussion of baby #2 has definitely begun. Initially we’re thinking, dear God. Are we crazy? That would be hell to have 2 babies under 2. The other part of us is: let’s just get this shiz over with. I can’t imagine waiting a few years, having Jack sleeping peacefully through the night and then start all over with screaming baby every single night. We might as well just make a few years of sleep deprivation and the blissfully be done with it. I can’t even believe I’m going to say this, but, I’m excited to be pregnant again. As many times as I barfed and could barely walk when I was preggo with Jack, deep down I loved it. There is just something about having that life inside you. So miraculous. So wonderful. This is all a lot of talk right now though. I’m hoping to wait until this summer before we actually starty to really try.

One other thing that has really been on my mind is my loyalty (and addiction) to my mommy web forums. They are both wonderful and awful all at the same time. I go there to get advice, but then, I constantly sit there and compare Jack to all these other babies and think “Why isn’t Jack rolling?” or “Why doesn’t Jack have his teeth yet?”. I know a lot of mommies are just excited about reaching these little milestones, and normally I love that they share these things, but secretly? It annoys me a little. Not that a mama shouldn’t brag about her little ones, but sometimes I just have to roll my eyes. I feel like I’m constantly reminding myself that there is no manual for parenting and that my baby is an individual. He will meet these milestones at his pace. As long as the pedi says he is doing great then I am not going to sit and compare. I find it a little funny that suddenly there are a rash of posts about babies who previously STTN (slept through the night) who are now waking up in the middle of the night every hour (secretly I think to myself… HAHA). Now. Don’t you think this is a sign? All these babies. All around the same age. All of them are waking at night. IT IS DEVELOPMENTAL FOLKS!!! There is nothing you can do about it but let them figure out how to sleep on their own and that is the best thing you’ll be able to teach them. I love that DH praises me for keeping Jack on a rigid schedule both with feeding and sleeping and is convinced that is the reason we have such a mild mannered, less whiny baby. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know, but I’ll take the praise nonetheless!

P.S. Just want to say that I am jumping for joy that Tatiana didn’t make it through to the top 13 on American Idol!!!