Family Time: Sleepless in Kirkland

FEW TOPICS are more highly charged for parents than sleep.

Sleep! SLEEP!! I need more sleep!

I saw a Kirkland mom friend the other day for the first time since she gave birth a few weeks ago.

“He’s adorable,” I said.

“He is,” she agreed, while looking lovingly at her baby like only the parent of a newborn can do. “But you forget that you just don’t get to sleep.”

In spite of the joy, the love, the complete infatuation, sleep was front and center on her mind.

Parents just don’t get much sleep. It was the one thing I was worried about before having kids. I love my sleep. I need my sleep. I couldn’t imagine giving up my lazy Saturdays.

I remember one weekend, I was curled up in bed, covering my eyes as the mid-morning sun streamed through the window. We had lunch plans, so we were pulling ourselves out of bed at 10. Saturday was our sleep catch-up day and without plans, we could sleep quite a while.

“You know, we won’t be able to do this if we have kids,” said my then-new husband. “We’ll be getting up at 6 a.m. I don’t know if you can handle it.”

I didn’t know if I could either. It’s amazing how everything changes though.

When I came home with my first daughter, I discovered how wonderfully refreshed I could feel from four hours of sleep. It was so much better than the two and a half hours I managed to patch together each night in the hospital.

Sure, in those first few days I sometimes found tears rolling down my cheeks unsolicited and I had a sense that I was watching the world around me as if I was part of a virtual reality experience.

But I was surviving. And over the next four years as I settled into a sleep-deprived norm of six, sometimes seven, hours of interrupted sleep a night, I found that my body was amazingly resilient. With caffeine and adrenaline coursing through my veins, I could be alert, awake and functional.

Or was I?

“Short term sleep deprivation can lead to poor cognition, inability to wake up early, poor performance, accidents, mistakes, poor quality of life and marital discord,” said Dr. Henry Su, a sleep expert at the Sleep Disorders Center at . “Over several years, though, sleep deprivation may affect heart function and contribute to development of hypertension, based on recent medical literature. In addition, sleep deprivation may cause hormonal imbalances which can lead to weight gain.”

Maybe powering through it isn’t the healthiest thing to do. But everybody’s doing it, right? It seems like parents wear sleep deprivation like a badge of honor. Even Parenting magazine asks celeb moms and dads for their wackiest sleep deprived moments.

I FELT FINE. I was (and still am) proud of my ability to survive and thrive with so little sleep.

But, I did feel angry quite a bit during those early months – an unusual experience for someone who’s typically pretty laid back. And I was making some silly mistakes –  forgetting things, mixing up my words, going blank in the middle of a thought. But that’s just Mommy Brain, right? It was quickly written off as normal – and funny, in fact.

“The target is eight hours. However, that target can range from seven to nine hours, depending on the person. Our sleep pattern is cyclical, getting into a deep sleep every 90-120 minutes. So, your body is kind of waking up every 90-120 minutes naturally,” said Dr. Su. “Broken up sleep is not ideal. But It is a common symptom that sleep specialists encounter and help patients to address on a daily basis.”

But seven to nine hours of sleep can be difficult for parents, and not just parents of infants. Sure, once your infant is sleeping through the night, you hopefully enjoy more full nights of sleep. But with kids, there’s so much to do during the day, that once the kids are down and the dishes are done and the house straightened, it’s tempting to take some time to relax. “I know we should go to bed earlier,” said a friend recently. “But we just need some time to unwind, so we end up watching TV.”

Of course, parents of older kids still enjoy plenty of nights interrupted by their offspring due to nightmares, coughs, tummy bugs, social angst and more. And then there’s the worry to keep you up. “How can I help her make friends?” “Why is he struggling in school?” “Is she safe?” “Will he be home on time?” “Why won’t she talk to me anymore?”

So how can you catch up? Dr. Su recommends doing what you can to get your target amount of sleep at night. However, if you need to refresh during the day, he recommends a 20-minute nap mid-morning or after lunch.  “In 20 minutes you can get enough sleep to feel alert, but if you sleep longer   some patients feel more tired and irritable when they  wake up.” Dr. Su cautioned nappers not to nap after 3 p.m. because late afternoon sleep can give the body the wrong cue and lead to insomnia.

There are two kinds of sleep deprivation, Dr. Su pointed out. One is a simple lack of the correct quantity of sleep. Because the right amount varies from person to person, you need to figure out what is right for you.

“If you were getting eight hours before you had kids and now you’re getting seven hours on a regular basis but still feeling tired, you’re still at a seven-hour deficit for the week,” he said.

After a few weeks of some additional make-up sleep, you should be able to get on schedule and feel refreshed after getting the right amount of sleep for you.

The other kind of sleep deprivation is caused by a problem with the quality of sleep.

“If people are sleeping 7-9 hours, but still feel tired, then something is fundamentally wrong with the quality of their sleep,” he explained. Common culprits include sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome. However, there are more than 80 diagnoses that can affect sleep quality, including conditions related to neurology, the pulmonary system, ear nose and throat (ENT), psychiatry and more.

For people with trouble falling asleep, it is important to follow good “sleep hygiene.” That means avoiding nicotine, caffeine or energy drinks – especially after 3 p.m.; reserving the bed for sleep only – meaning no reading or TV watching from bed; keeping the room dark; and engaging in a wind-down ritual before bed. You should also avoid exercising at the end of the day because part of what prepares our body for sleep is that our core body temperature begins to drop. When you exercise, you increase your core temperature, throwing off this natural sleep cue.

If you are concerned about the quality of sleep you are getting, Dr. Su recommends paying a visit to your primary care doctor for initial evaluation. Or you can come directly to the Evergreen Sleep Disorders Center to meet with one of their sleep experts and undergo comprehensive sleep evaluation

So, tonight, take off that badge of honor, say goodbye to Mommy Brain, treat yourself to some well-deserved, early unwinding and then unwind as nature intended – with many good hours (or as many as your kids will let you) of wonderful, snuggly, rejuvenating sleep.