Trying to Quiet the Anxiety Bones in my Body and Stop the Spiral

Reflecting on this weekend's spiral over sleep where I now, looking back, seriously question my sanity and well-being but, in the moment, was on the verge of losing my shit. So just another day??

Hi my favorite people. Coming at you on another Sunday night post a very busy weekend to try to put my thoughts into words in a coherent (enough) way to send this out tomorrow morning. I’m not going to lie to you, my brain feels a bit like mush today. I went to bed way too late for my liking or normal routine and still was up to see the sunrise. The lack of sleep actually is the perfect segway into what I wanted to further dive into: me this weekend trying to actively stop the anxiety spiral over my toddler’s (and my) sleep. Let me set the stage for you…

We were going on a “mommy and Squash” adventure weekend to LBI to spend some time at my friend’s house with some of my college girlfriends, their husbands, and kids. Because Joe had plans already during one of the days, I decided it was easier to take just one of the boys and picked Squash to give him some quality mom time. (Plus, I thought it’d be extra nice to have some beach-focused time fully dedicated to him without also trying to accommodate a baby nap schedule). To say he was pumped is an understatement. The boy was freaking ecstatic. All week begging “I WANT TO GO TO LBI” and “when are we going on our mommy adventure???”. We decided to do the (2 hour) drive around bedtime in hopes that he’d fall asleep in the car, we wouldn’t hit traffic, and I could transfer him to bed once we got there. HA HA HA that’s funny. A tale as old as time that surely did not happen. What actually happened? The opposite, of course.

He didn’t sleep one wink in the car (but he was very well-behaved thanks to our favorite Disney Storytime playlist so I am very grateful for that!!!) and then when we got to the house he was so excited for something I had been hyping up all week that there was zero chance he was going to fall asleep. I brought him into our room and laid him into bed and realized I had made the other colossal mistake: I had promised him that we could share a big bed this weekend so I actively did not pack the pack n play and there was zero, and I mean zero, chance I was going to be able to leave that room until he was actually asleep. Doing it at my parent’s beach house in a big-kid bed and house that he’s used to is one thing, but here? No shot.

So as I laid in bed with him, watched summer house on my phone behind his back with one headphone in (new low for the obsession), pleaded him to “pleaseeee fall asleep”, and texted my friends that there was no shot I was going to be able to leave him with the babysitter watching the other sleeping kids and meet them out, I felt the anxiety spiral coming on. Like a tornado coming to town, I felt it in my bones (I jokingly call them my “anxiety bones”) from a mile away and knew exactly what my brain was about to do: I was about to convince myself that I had royally fucked up, we were never (and I mean never) going to fall asleep, and tomorrow was ruined.

Now I said this in my stories (that so many of you replied to and I love you), but if you cannot relate to this emotion, I am honestly so envious of you and your brain. Truly, I am. Me on the other hand? I recognized these feelings very clearly. This was the classic case of my brain telling myself that everything was going to be okay because, conceptually, I knew it would be. It was only 10PM. He would be fine. My anxiety bones on the other hand? They were telling me the complete opposite: everything is FUCKED. So, let the spiral begin. Here’s what happened next…