Did my lovely readers have a wonderful and restful Thanksgiving with your families? According to an article on The Huffington Post, tech users reported sleeping an extra 27 minutes on Thanksgiving Day. What do you think, did you get to sleep more?
This is my second Thanksgiving post-baby, and while I can say it was more restful than the first one with a brand new baby, it still was a bit exhausting with the 8-hour round trip drive to my sister-in-law’s. I definitely understand the food coma causing folks to take a nap, or maybe call it an early night (especially if any early shopping is to be done the next day).
Here are some sleep habits we have implemented ourselves that have worked great.
Beds Space is Important
Before we got our king-size bed, we actually slept in separate full-size beds pushed together. because the mattresses were separate, Mr. Wrestles-Alligators-In-His-Sleep didn’t disturb mine. Now we sleep on a king-size bed and it is large enough that we rarely get in each other’s way.
Building on that, since we had separate mattresses, we also had separate bed sets and our own blankets. For a brief time, we tried sleeping using one blanket for both of us, but we quickly found that to be a bad idea and now each use our own. That way I can be a Julie Burrito in peace. This especially helped while I was pregnant and used a body pillow.
Do you Snore?
I have learned that I am a snorer. Since I spent most of my pregnancy quite a bit congested, I snored a lot. I used nose strips to help increase my airway to reduce my snoring.
An option to help with snoring noises from your partner are these Bedphones, these light-weight headphones that you can wear while sleeping, and you can listen to your music, soothing sounds, or white noise.
White Noise
Using the ceiling fan to circulate air, and add some white noise, is really helpful in a room that can get stuffy with multiple breathers.
When we had the baby, we added a white noise machine to help drown out the noises everyone makes at night with a soft ocean sound.
Relaxing before Sleep
I used to read to help myself fall asleep. Of course, if the book is too exciting, that caused other problems. But the idea is to turn your brain off by doing something relaxing and enjoyable just before sleep. Now baby exhaustion helps me fall asleep fast.
De-stressing is also helpful to get more deep sleep.
Below is a lovely infographic that highlights these and other sleep struggles and suggests solutions to help with the sleep dilemma.
Do you have any sleep tips to share?
adrian says
My biggest problem is getting OFF the computer and getting INTO bed. Once I get into bed, then I sleep like a log, unless Mr. Blanket Stealer does his patented tuck and roll maneuver.
Julie says
Ha! Mr. Blanket Stealer just needs his own so you don’t wrestle for it.
Charlene says
I used this same info-graphic for a post a while back. You have some great tips! When my husband and I were first married we used a single full sized bed and it was kinda terrible. I wasn’t used to sharing a bed with anyone. But we quickly upgraded to a queen and everything was better. We got used to each other pretty quickly and now our dog even shares the bed with us.
Julie says
Yea one full-size bed for two adults just does not cut it. That’s awesome that your dog shares with you. Dixie used to be allowed up with us when we had the two fulls pushed together on the colder nights, also while she was the only dog. When we got Diesel there was just too much dog noise at night and they got exiled lol
Robyn says
I had bad congestion when pregnant too, such a pain isn’t it? Too funny that your husband wrestles alligators in his sleep! I’ve always been a pretty good sleeper, my only problem is I can’t seem to get enough of it especially now I’ve had a baby. My top tip (and something I aim for every day!) is to go to bed earlier 🙂
Julie says
Oh yea, there just isn’t enough sleep with baby in the picture. I find that I can’t go to bed earlier cause when I finally get him down, then I finally have time for myself and getting ready for the next day. There aren’t enough hours heh.