Sleep training

No, I'm not referring to the baby - he's been sleep-trained for several months. I'm referring to myself. I've developed conditioned insomnia, according to the woman I saw yesterday in the Orwellian-sounding "cognitive rehabilitation" clinic at the local university hospital. Essentially, I got used to waking up in the early morning. When So.ren stopped waking up, I still woke up at 4 or 5 every day. This stressed me out, which then guaranteed I'd keep waking up at that time. This, in turn, stressed me out more, which began to affect my ability to go to sleep. In short, the bed became a place of stress. That's what she said, and it seems right to me.

So now I'm on a kind of brutal re-conditioning process. I have to restrict my sleep now in the hopes of increasing my "sleep efficiency" - ie, the amount of time I'm asleep while I'm in bed. I am also supposed to get out of bed every time I can't fall asleep or return to sleep within 15 minutes. Last night, this meant I got up nine times and changed venues a few times when I did get sleepy enough to try to sleep. I ended up getting about four or five hours on the couch. I am tired, but I suppose it's not any worse than what I was doing anyway. I am to continue this for as long as it takes, which should be two to three weeks. It's really not any fun, but if I could make it through 20+ weeks of feeling like crap with HG, and nearly 18 weeks of breastfeeding travails, surely I can do this. Right? Eh. We'll see.

Luckily, this weekend and next week, we'll have houseguests who are night owls. This supposedly will be good for me - ie, I can just stay awake until I'm so sleepy I can't keep my eyes open, and then I'll go to bed. We'll see.

In other news, I am very excited about the recent BFPs, but I don't want to jinx them. You know who you are.