Tuesday, June 28, 2016

On Getting Him To Sleep

It's no secret that around here there are issues with sleeping. Mostly those issues are with either the newborn (there's a shock) or my husband, who has his own share of demons and for whatever reason has problems getting his brain to turn off at the end of the day.

Man, do I know those feels.

We've tried a lot of different things to help him. I think honestly the only things we hadn't tried were melatonin (which is tempting but I've heard of people having serious issues with) and prescription sleep aids. Given that we cosleep, though, we've been trying to avoid anything. 

But he needs help. Something to help him calm his mind and let his body and brain shut down in tandem instead of managing to exhaust one but not the other, or leave him feeling more jostled thanks to nasty side effects. It's hard to find that balance, let me tell you. I feel for the poor guy. I'd feel worse, but I can pass out at the drop of a hat now thanks to the sleep loss inherent with raising a tiny baby, so unfortunately I just don't remember what those days are like right now.

I ended up getting an opportunity to get him a free trial of this ZzzQuil sleep aid stuff from NyQuil, though, so since it sounded like a good bet - free thing from Influenster, and maybe it might work? - I handed it over and told him to go to town. I won't lie, we worry constantly about issues between his migraines and IBS, and are vigilant about possible triggers for either. These, though? No side effects. No drowsiness afterwards. No incredible exhaustion beforehand. Just an easy slide into a good night's sleep. It makes me wish we'd gotten more for him to try a few nights in a row. Oh, well. You can't be too upset about free stuff, I guess.

So there's that - a freebie turns out to be a good thing. All in all, I think we'd recommend them. :)