I love sleep. Nothing feels better than curling up in a warm bed and drifting off. But something has changed about sleep as I get older. I generally wake up four or five times a night. I glance at the clock, figure out how much longer I have until I need to wake up, then fall right back asleep. I get a lot of sleep, but it is broken into smaller segments.<\/p>\n
I probably should be more worried about my sleeping habits, but I don\u2019t feel overly tired so I just let it slide. I actually should be mad because I have never had sleeping problems in the past.<\/p>\n
As a kid, I was so difficult to wake up that one of my siblings would have to carry me upstairs for breakfast. I was just a little spoiled.<\/p>\n
When they got me upstairs, I would curl up on the top step outside our kitchen to try and catch a little more shuteye. And I would make the rest of the family eat breakfast with the kitchen lights off so as not to disturb my slumber.<\/p>\n
OK, I was really spoiled.<\/p>\n
As I got older, I was less demanding about my sleep pattern, but I managed to get as much sleep as possible. Like any teenager, I would stay up as late as possible and sleep pretty much all of the morning on weekends and in the summer.<\/p>\n
Things accelerated when I got to college. Sometimes, I could schedule my classes around my sleep patterns.<\/p>\n
I could make sure to have a 9:20 class, but nothing else until the afternoon. That way, I could get enough sleep to make it through class and still catch a nap without impacting my lunch plans.<\/p>\n
But the more people I met at college, the more I realized that I was a rank amateur. My friend Brett could have turned pro in sleeping, which would have been beneficial because his love of the nap pretty much sunk his academic career.<\/p>\n
I remember introducing Brett to a girl I knew who wanted to date him. They hit it off, but I couldn\u2019t believe what they talked about.<\/p>\n
Naps. They compared the best times to nap. They shared their opinions on the best place to nap. They swapped notes on the most comfortable place to nap.<\/p>\n
Now that\u2019s dedication to your sleep.<\/p>\n
I tried to monkey with my sleeping patterns even as an adult, working odd shifts at the newspaper and enjoying the freedom to sleep all afternoon after pulling an overnight shift.<\/p>\n
Then we had a kid. And sleep turned into a chore instead of a pleasure.<\/p>\n
First of all, Bridget doesn\u2019t believe in napping. She won\u2019t even consider crashing for a few hours in the afternoon, which means my nap opportunities are limited.<\/p>\n
Secondly, I know pretty much know when I have to wake up with a 4-year-old in the house. I have a human alarm clock instead of staying in bed as long as I want.<\/p>\n
Maybe that\u2019s why I wake up so much. I know someone is going to come and get me eventually. Unfortunately, she can\u2019t carry me to the kitchen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I love sleep. Nothing feels better than curling up in a warm bed and drifting off. But something has changed about sleep as I get older. I generally wake up four or five times a night. I glance at the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,26,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-family","category-naps","category-sleeping","wpcat-3-id","wpcat-16-id","wpcat-26-id","wpcat-35-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}