Posts Tagged ‘sleep’

Trying and failing to get a baby off to sleep at naptime provided another chance to watch my mind in action, ruining another perfectly good 45 minutes of my life.

If we neglect our needs, whether they are for playing sports, or musical instruments, for love, social contact, making things, whatever they may be, the longer we leave them the harder it becomes to break some internal barrier that our organism erects and start fulfilling them again.

One of the Mommy-wars I referred to in a recent post is the sleep war, in which CIO (Crying It Out) advocates sing the praises of leaving a baby or young child to cry until they fall asleep, while anti-CIO mothers think that this is psychologically damaging and offer a variety of alternatives, including the ritual chanting of ‘this too shall pass’.

I’m filing this under mindful awareness, which seems like an exalted term for going to bed when you’re tired. But it sometimes seems like such hard work to keep aware on a simple and basic level. The thoughts suck me in and go at a million miles an hour. It’s thrilling, terrifying, creates adrenaline — which is what I think I need in order to get things done.

It is of no surprise to anyone that women in their thirties or forties coping with work, young children and ‘running a home’ are exhausted to an extent which is dangerous to their health. What can we do about this dramatic state of affairs?