7 Tips for Sleep-Deprived Insomniacs
Insomnia is one of the most perverted jokes life can play on parents who are getting horrible sleep. It’s like getting nauseated at the sight of food even though you’re starving to death.
Cruel are the hours, with the little one asleep at last, when all is quiet and dark and you find yourself in a death-match staring contest with the ceiling, unable to fall asleep. And you know that every minute that passes is another shovel-full on the pile of crap you’re going to feel like tomorrow.
So! Seven. It is both the number of tips on this list for inadverdently-sleepless parents as well as, coincidentally, the number of times I figure that I would have to punch myself in the face to achieve unconsciousness.
1) Skip a night, gain a day.
Hey, why fight it? When you know the little one is probably gonna keep you up half the night, just skip it. Stay up all night long! It’s almost like you’re living longer, even if it’s also like you’re dying faster.
2) That’s a spicy meat-a-ball!
Eat massive amounts of garlicky pasta right before bed. Chase it with a nice chianti if that’s your style. Fava beans are not necessary. Sure, you’ll regret it in the morning, but it will put you out.
3) Ahhh, the good ol’ days…
Some people can make themselves pee by thinking of flowing water when it just isn’t coming, so why couldn’t that work for sleep? I don’t mean taking up bedwetting. I mean imagining a time when you slept deeply, or at all. It doesn’t matter if it’s a time you crash landed on a couch during a Twilight Zone marathon or that witch’s curse of a sleep you get as a child.
5) Yeah, step four, whatever.
Counting skills get pretty shaky when the measurement of a night’s rest is reduced from the increment of hours to minutes. Try practicing on sheep. Counting them may not work to put you to bed (it doesn’t for me), but at least in the morning you’ve improved your chances of being able to count to ten without using your fingers. Win / sort of win situation.
6) Homeopathy.
Most people know this word just as “some alternative health thingy” or the expensive stuff at Whole Foods, but what it actually means is “the treatment of disease by administering natural substances that in a healthy person would produce symptoms of the disease.” So, for insomnia, just drink a ton of coffee! Maybe you can just sorta break on through to the other side and wind up in a twitchy coma of sorts. Even if it doesn’t work, the next day your child may be delighted by the crazy look in your eyes as you repeatedly smash into furniture.
7) Unconsciousness is almost like sleep.
Seriously. Punch yourself in the face 7 times (or however many times it takes). Try to avoid your nose, it’s probably hard to sleep with one that’s just been broken.
“”
It’s true, not very sound advice at all. But what’d you expect from someone with 3 hours of sleep… Zzz Zzz Zzz … whu? Huh? Why is my computer still on? Gross! I got drool on my iPhone screen.
Wendy says: 
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