Seeking Help for Insomnia!

My sleeping greatly improved when I cut way down on eating sugar, MSG and acid. (Sugar includes fruit juices.) I sleep like a champ now.
A.

Same thing happened to me after my daughter was born. So far I have only tried Tylanol PM and it helped. I acctually cut back to 1/2 a pill cause it was making me groggy in the morning. Otherwise my Dr suggested Benadryl or another allergy med that causes drowsiness.

Hi A.:

Sorry your not sleeping it is very tough to go w/out sleep and be a mom. After I had my son I developed a thryroid disorder and now I am finding actually also adrenal function problems. I had problems not getting enough sleep, things had to be just right for me to fall asleep and then I would wake from 3 to 5 and feel terrible by 7 when i needed to face my cherubs. I have just come across a very helpful web site www.drrind.com Check out the overview on metabolic function. See if anything feels true for you. Hormonal imbalance Estorgen/Proges and adrenal function play a major role in sleep. Also simply doing some sort of exercise can really help the quality of your sleep. Yoga is great for me because it releases the stress I carry in major muscles.

Good LUck.

M.

Mom to 8 and 2 year old boys.

My husband began having sleep issues as well. They did discover that he had sleep apnea and wore the machine for 1 year. When he lost 30 lbs, his sleep apnea went away. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with behcet's disease and they believe it has caused his brain to stop being able to put itself into the sleep cycle even when he's tired. Yes, he's tried all the various sleep prescription aids but they don't help him live the life he wants. He now uses benadryl and takes it early enough so that he will fall asleep. If he's having trouble, he will also take a cyclobenzaphrine (muscle relaxer) which also has the side affect of making him sleepy. He keeps different hours from me though. He can't fully wake up until between 10-12noon and then stays up until 2am in the morning. I'm sorry you are having these issues. I know that the lack of sleep is just horrible. Good luck.

This may not be helpful to you at all, but I am also a SAHM and really had trouble sleeping after my first daughter was born. I would be so physically exhausted but my mind would be racing and I couldn't sleep. Often I would fall asleep but when the baby woke me to eat, I couldn't fall back asleep again. It went on that way for nearly 4 years and was very frustrating and exhausting. Anyway, what finally worked for me was taking up a hobby that kept my mind engaged (in my case, crosswords and sewing). I think that while my body was getting tired, my mind was not. It's been almost a year now and I have another baby, but I am able to go back to sleep after feeding him.

I hope you're able to find a solution. Insomnia is dreadful.

Have you tried Benedryl? I usually don't have side-effects and like a charm.
Hope you get some sleep!
:) M.

I developed sleep problems after my son was born. I also had postpartem depression, but when that was treated the sleep issue remained. My psychiatrist tried many medications that are not traditional sleep meds. I did eventually find one that helped me more than any others. It's called Gabitril and is actually for Epilepsy. But it seems to help with sleep architecture as well. I'd prefer not to have to use meds, but this is all so far that has helped.