Time to Snoogle Up!

That's right, I typed "Snoogle" on purpose. That's because the Snoogle is the most fabulous body pillow ever when you are pregnant and only allowed to sleep on your side. It's like a long, heavenly noodle of pillow that is shaped just perfectly to curl around under my head and between my knees. My husband calls it the "Floozy," but I think he's just jealous. I got it on a recommendation from a very dear friend when I was pregnant with Miss and it saved my life. Well, okay maybe not my life, but at least my sanity.

See, I love to sleep. Unfortunately, I'm an insomniac. Sort of. I used to sleep like it was my job. In college I could sleep until noon or later, no problem. My alarm clock would blare, my second alarm clock would blare, and I would blissfully sleep on, not even hearing them, sometimes right through my classes that I intentionally didn't schedule until after 1 pm. Ever. Oh yes, I was a roommate's dream. Fortunately they were usually all awake by the time my alarm clocks began their fruitless efforts to wake my snoozing self.

And this gift of sleep continued on through graduate school, where I sometimes had to get up before noon, but I didn't if I could help it. Then the real word smacked me in the face when I started my internship and had to be at work every day at 7am. Yes, 7am, I had to be there. What kind of horrible place makes you arrive to work at 7am??? Oh yeah, it was a federal prison. So I learned to go to bed before 3 am and managed to adjust to a grown up schedule. And still I totally took the ability to sleep for granted until I had worked in another federal prison for a few years as a program coordinator. This consisted of endless work with people who tried to manipulate me all day long no matter how much I tried to help them, and lots of additional responsibilities piled on top by my boss because I was such a "fantastic hard worker." I started to get burned out, lost my appetite, lost 30 pounds, and *gasp* lost my ability to sleep!!! I developed terrible work-related insomnia that was at it's worst while I still worked in that job. Fortunately I was able to leave the prison and open my own private practice. So my appetite came back, some of the 30 pounds came back, but my sleep never did really return to it's former glory. I left that prison job almost four years ago and I have continued to have problems with insomnia off and on since then.

So, why did I just tell you all that? To bring home the point that I have known good sleep. I was once a sleep expert, if you will. And I have known really bad insomnia and moderate insomnia. And of course as a mom I've known major sleep deprivation of a different sort. My hubby wants me to sleep better so badly that we just got a new Tempurpedic mattress, which also does wonders for improving sleep by the way. But now that I can't sleep on my belly and I'm not supposed to really sleep on my back too much so I have to do the pregnant flip from one side to the other all night, the Snoogle really had to come out of retirement. And man it is a welcome friend, and even better than the last time I was pregnant because of the new mattress. The combination of the Tempurpedic and the Snoogle has me sleeping so well these days I'm almost bursting with energy. Almost. I'm quite sure I will never again sleep like I did back in the day, totally dead to the world, not waking up once between the time my head hit the pillow at about 3 or 4 am and I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed midway through the next day. But getting good deep sleep for several hours at time (between trips to the bathroom or getting up for a snack) is a welcome change. And who wants to sleep until noon anyway??