Trying to build a sleep pattern before it’s too late!
I’ve been a night owl for decades now and when my brain gets going with work or stress it’s next to impossible for me to shut down and get rest. Even being as exhausted as pregnancy has made me there are many nights I’m up until 4am reading or working on one thing or another. The main difference between being preggers and not is that I’m now starting things, not finishing those that aren’t truly important to me, and then well, the cycle continues & stress builds because I can’t juggle it all, and then I don’t sleep more, and well, humph. The problem is that since I’ve always been prone to not sleep much, my body when truly exhausted and utterly worn out just shuts down for a day or so - usually when my mind decides I’ve completed all tasks successfully. Now considering there will be two twins around, and doing their own part to keep me up, not being able to sleep on demand, or regular hours will be problematic… so I’ve been trying to figure out how to counterbalance this natural tendency of mine before they get here.
Early on, probably around month 3 or so, Kev & I were in a boutique kids store in the Beach browsing and looking at cute and hip onesies and I saw a tester jar of “Earth Mama’s Belly Jelly” on a shelf (linking to Grassroots because it’s the cheapest pricing I’ve found on it so far). Although thinking I would prefer not to have stretch marks, what really sold me was the over-powering scent of lavendar emanating from the test jar. I am a sucker for lavendar, but it usually doesn’t put me to sleep, so when I picked it up I wasn’t thinking “sleep aid”, but it has become a crucial part of my un-winding at the end of the day nevertheless.
It doesn’t always knock me out (as is evidenced by my posting this at 2am), but it does always work to calm my stress, deepen my breathing, and yes, make my belly feel soothed :) I plan on taking it with me when I head to the hospital to use as part of my comfort regimen and keep me focused and calm during the birth.
The fact that it’s made by two herbalists is something that I can feel good about using every day safely - if you’re anything like me, I highly recommend checking it out, and I don’t think you even need to be preggers to use it, seems like it’ll be a perfect massage oil as well.
[photo credit: TONI.R via Flickr]
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Posted: December 8th, 2008 under body&soul, eco-shopping, pregnancy tips.
Tags: comfort, earth mama's belly jelly, sleep, stress, stretch marks
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December 8, 2008 at 7:08 am
Blog post: Trying to build a sleep pattern before it's too late! http://bit.ly/GO9d