Isn't this post self-contradicting if you post it in the middle of the night your time?

I also endorse melatonin. Note, however, that placebo vs. "real" is a false dichotomy. The placebo effect is real.

Oops, 7:30 pacific. My bad. Don't tell anyone I was a math major... At least not yours.

Also: If I really want to sleep, I forego alcohol in the evening. But who really needs to sleep anyway?

7:30 mountain time, actually. 8:30 central.

Yeah, alcohol gives me insomnia too.

Or, possibly, you've started taking it after the insomnia has gone on long enough that sheer exhaustion has made falling back asleep inevitable, at least for a temporary period. Either way, hoping your body settles quickly back in to a habit of sound, rejuvenating slumber.

But who really needs to sleep anyway?

Nearly every living thing, right?

It helps me to fall asleep. It doesn't help me stay asleep. It gives me very vivid (disturbing) dreams. I usually feel awake after 6 hours, but I don't feel rested. In that respect I guess it does well at shifting my clock. But, on the whole I do not like it.

Oh, Di, I am so sorry for your loss.

Thanks, md. Crossing the beams... Drinking wine last night resulted in a series of otherwise unrelated, vivid dreams that all included bringing the half-full bottle of wine to wherever I was going: some sort of e-Harmony/speed-dating mashup event at which I was told I could not participate because I was previously married; a psychiatrist's office where I was apparently to weigh in on a batshit crazy former friend who was having a tantrum in the waiting room; a dinner party of some sort to which I was heading with an ex-boyfriend. I suppose all qualify as disturbing, if I think it through. But the clear driving theme was that I was going to be clinging to that bottle of wine for dear life, even if I didn't drink it.

What brand of melatonin do you use?

Melatonin seems to work for me too, but I'd caution that there is a tendency fro extended use to exacerbate depression.

12: Central Market, which is the organic arm of the local HEB grocery store.

Oh crap, I forgot to write the second half of the post. It was basically this:

Over winter break, my aunt and uncle put us up on a bed with a memory foam mattress, and it was great. I retract my hostility towards memory foam mattresses. I had insomnia but I was super comfortable.

I slept soundly last night and am much more functional than usual. I have gotten several things done before 10:30. Functionality usually kicks in around 2pm.

I'm trying to retrain myself to sleep on my side but it isn't really working.

I've never tried melatonin. Several years ago I used valerian, which worked for a month or two and then quite suddenly started having the opposite effect, keeping me awake. I've since unknowingly had sleepytime tea with valerian in it, and could recognize that I'd had it by the very particular kind of insomnia it produces in me.

I'm in a pretty good sleep-through-the-night phase right now (knock on wood), but was taking Unisom every night for a while. That stuff gave me crazy dreams.

Hey, Heebie. Are you really sure studies are inconclusive? That's not what I've read.

I've read weak journalism aimed at pregnant ladies. Isn't that sufficient?

17: I slept like a goddamn log when I was pregnant. Even though I needed to get up to pee every night, I would immediately pass back out again. Never before and never since. Sigh.
Best things about being pregnant: 1. sleeping like said log and 2. OMG PRETTY HAIR!!!

The other night I dreamed that the most intimidating member of my dissertation committee* was chair of my department, and was telling me I'd done everything wrong. I'd prefer the nightmares about zombies.

* who shares, coincidentally, a real life name with Robust McManlypants

I slept beautifully in the first half of being pregnant with Jane, less so in the second half because my middle was so dang itchy. My favorite thing about being pregnant, as I have surely mentioned here before, was EATING ALL OF THE FOODS, which was of course even more the case when I was nursing. PUT FOODS IN ME.

5HTP is also useful. It's a precursor to tryptophan which used to be available but got pulled.

You should be careful taking it if you're on an SSRI, since you can risk having too much serotonin which leads to something called serotonin syndrome.

I don't know that I slept beautifully when I was pregnant with Sally, but I certainly slept plenty. Eight hours a night, and three in the afternoon if I could get it, which in my third year of law school I usually could. Until the last couple of months, when I wasn't napping any more and could only sleep properly on the couch rather than in bed.

24: Maybe Ms. Wurtzel's decision to go to law school for fun wasn't that crazy after all. All that sleep sounds so nice to me now. I'm ready to hibernate.

I fall asleep on the couch every night around 10 pm, then wake up and go to bed and fall asleep quickly, and then I wake up at 2 or 3 am to relieve myself, and then I often have a hard time falling back to sleep, and then the alarm goes off at 5:30 am, and I still have a good 2-3 hours more sleep in me.

I took the slack route through law school -- all I did was take classes. This is not recommended if you plan to have an exciting career.

Melatonin is incredibly effective at getting me, my wife, my mother, my sister and my aunt Cathy to sleep. The caveats all exist - the room has to be dark, it makes dreams more vivid, and if you start taking it every day a tendency to depression might be exacerbated.

27: Ned! You are married! Congrats! (Somehow I missed this. I remember your being engaged for a long time.)

Mazel tov indeed!

27 and 29 are virtually a perfect Jewish joke.

"My wife and most of my family suffer from severe insomnia, and if we take melatonin to help then it exacerbates a tendency towards depression."

"Wait, you got married? Mazel tov!"

I use melatonin to deal with jetlag and it works pretty well.

I have pretty regular insomnia of the kind where you wake up and can't get back to sleep, and pregnancy has intensified this. The first trimester was pretty brutal -- I don't think I slept more than three consecutive hours for all of October. (Fortunately, I discovered that the claim that I can teach intro in my sleep is actually true.)

Melatonin hasn't helped in the past, because my problem isn't falling asleep, it's waking up after 2.5 hours of sleep, but exercise seems to. I didn't realize how sleep-deprived I was until I slept for eight hours in a row one night.

(I am hungry all the time. I am trying to be sensible about food choices but the fetus wants to eat everything.)

I am trying to be sensible about food choices

Overrated. If you have a copy of What to Expect While You're Expecting, which has a great deal of advice on eating sensibly in pregnancy, you might consider setting it on fire and then eating whatever seems appealing.

I confess that I baked a lot of cakes.

I usually fall asleep pretty easily, but when I am sick (the kind of sick where you are caughing or blowing your nose too often to nod off, and waking up hourly), melatonin is indispensable.

Cala : I am trying to be sensible about food choices but the fetus wants to eat everything.

LizardBreath: If you have a copy of What to Expect While You're Expecting, which has a great deal of advice on eating sensibly in pregnancy, you might consider setting it on fire and then eating whatever seems appealing

Cala's Fetus: Mmmm! Charred book! Delicious!

It's also helpful on redeye flights (though not taking redeye flights is also a good strategy).

the fetus wants to eat everything

IT'S NOT A FETUS IT'S A BABY.

33: I heard that book was full of shit so I didn't read it.
34: It's like I'm playing a game in which I will be hungry until I consume the macronutrient currently required by the fabrication process (usually protein, but I've been surprised to find that I have a serious sweet tooth and very little willpower.)

We have the full-of-shit book and another book that was I think essentially written to counterbalance it and we put them next to each other so they can fight.

38: My family, too! Very pro-life sister: "why do you refer to the baby as a fetus sometimes? I hate that word." "It's developmentally accurate!"

(and if I'm honest, "now that I know that it's driving you crazy, I'm going to use the word 'fetus' as much as possible." Christmas break was fun.)

Also, "fetus" is just fun to say. FEEEE-TUS. Also fun, spelling it "Foetus"

30 and 36 are both funny.

As for insomnia cures, it seems to me that we should expect even better results than usual from the placebo effect, because getting to sleep seems like the kind of thing where the placebo effect would make the biggest difference. I mean, getting to sleep, in the absence of chemical issues and stuff, generally depends on relaxation and comfort and the state of mind, which is where the placebo effect works, right?

My insomnia of the period in which I was taking valerian was definitely about state of mind: it was the dissertation finishing year, and it was hard to turn my brain off. (Not off of thinking productively about the dissertation, mind you, but off of fretting over the possibility it wouldn't get done.) The insomnia of pregnancy, on the other hand, definitely seems chemical (hormonal).

Melatonin hasn't helped in the past, because my problem isn't falling asleep, it's waking up after 2.5 hours of sleep,

Actually, this is exactly my problem that it helped with. Not that there seems to be any consistency in how people respond to melatonin.

Also, on eating sensibly or ravenously, ugh. I'm not over-thinking choices but the total weight gain is a depressing topic. More specifically, the ever-increasing new baseline between pregnancies is depressing.

I know some people melt off weight when breast-feeding but that is not me.

You want to eat like an eagle
Fish and meat
Eat like an eagle
But not rats or parakeet
Oh whoah there's a solution

You want to eat like an earplug
Fitness and medicament
Eat like an earplug
But not rattlesnakes or parasite
Oh whoah there's a sop

48: Weight gain for me has been setting off a lot of body image issues I didn't know I had. It's normal, healthy, and I want my waist back.

If you guys get Steve Miller stuck in my head, I will slap you.

Is Unfoggedydodocon really just a pretext to settle accounts of slaps owed?

That's a different spreadsheet.

53: Welcome galaxy for me has been set-up off a loudmouth of bohemian imitation itineraries I didn't know I had. It's normal, healthy, and I want my waitress backdrop.

I want my waist back

I'm sure I will want mine back eventually, but this is the first time in years I've been able to find pants that fit. Maternity pants have been amazing for me. I think this is relatively uncommon.

A lot of maternity shirts I've tried on have been a hilarious debacle, though, with pregnancy further increasing my narrow shoulders/giant rack mismatch. I seriously hope my tits stop growing before they get to be as large as my head.

Be prepared for a day or so of serious comedy, tit-size-wise, right after the birth.

Be prepared for a deaconess or so of serious comic, toad-skeleton-wise, right after the bisexual.

"Melatonin hasn't helped in the past, because my problem isn't falling asleep, it's waking up after 2.5 hours of sleep, but exercise seems to. I didn't realize how sleep-deprived I was until I slept for eight hours in a row one night."

There are melatonin pills where effect is spaced out over 8 hours instead of 3. I couldn't tell you what they're called in Canada, but presumably a doctor could.

I fully, completely, endorse melotoninn.

Life would be much more complicated without it.

51: Man, no kidding. I spent a lot of time around the four-month mark (so up several pounds but not yet unambiguously pregnant-lady-shaped) walking around feeling really unsettlingly defensive, glowering at svelte undergrads and thinking "Fuck you, don't judge me, I'm pregnant". Now, enh, whatevs.

Re: eating anything and everything, I did get a talking-to from the hippiest of our midwives after I reported eating rhubarb pie with yogurt for breakfast for a week straight. ("You wouldn't feed your baby that, would you?" Er, yes.) Seriously, lady, it's fruit and yogurt. I am just not going to feel guilty about that.

I'm not saying rhubarb isn't edible, but it's not fruit.

rhubarb pie with yogurt

This sounds so delicious.

Holy shit. The government says it's
a fruit. That just seems wrong. I understand that it is used as a fruit, but the only reason it is used as a fruit is because it is cooked with sugar to put in pies. By that standard, wheat could be a fruit.

I'm pretty sure I remember my sister saying that she liked being pregnant because it was the only time in her life that she wasn't anxious about gaining weight. Is that unusual?

re: 65

I don't think so, no. I think it's fairly common.

Mrs nattarGcM has gained about 9 or 10 kilos, so far, I think, and occasionally mutters about it.

'Fuck off, you're pregnant!', I say, sensitively.

I think how people react to pregnancy weight gain is really individual. For one thing, some people (Hi!) look as though they're gaining weight generally until fairly close to the end, which is kind of depressing -- when I was seven months along a woman I didn't really know came up to me in a class where I'd been talking a lot for most of the semester, and said something that indicated that she'd just then figured out I was pregnant, and which I interpreted as "Wow, I thought you just kind of looked like that."

And then there are those who stay all svelte and graceful with an attractively well-defined bulge at the waistline -- a family friend is doing that right now, and I'm (on behalf of my fourteen-years ago lumpily pregnant self) green with envy.

it was the only time in her life that she wasn't anxious about gaining weight

I'm pretty sure it's the only time in my life that I was anxious about *not* gaining weight. Lost a few during the first trimester thanks to nausea, etc. Was certain I was putting my baby in great, great jeopardy. I never really got the joys of pregnancy eating some describe. First trimester nausea, second trimester heartburn, and then third trimester baby squooshing all the space out of my stomach so there was nowhere to put the food. Oh, but did I make up for lost time while nursing, though.

I dont mean to put too much pressure on you pregnant people, but Unfogged is on a fairly long streak of seriously cute babies.

Don't let us down.

I believe that rhubarb pie with yogurt should help create some babies with deliciously round cheeks.

The government says it's a fruit. That just seems wrong. I understand that it is used as a fruit, but the only reason it is used as a fruit is because it is cooked with sugar to put in pies.

It's definitely not a botanical fruit, if that makes you feel better.

I'm pretty sure I remember my sister saying that she liked being pregnant because it was the only time in her life that she wasn't anxious about gaining weight. Is that unusual?

I wasn't anxious about gaining weight the first time, because I didn't realize how extremely individual the reverse of the process was.

70: It is some small comfort.

56: From what I recall, you and I have a similar frame, and all I have to say is I reject the empire waistline and all its empty promises. Who the hell thought that at this stage I would need to emphasize my bustline?

67: According to my giggly girl students, they started wondering about 16 weeks and were sure at 20 weeks and then were wondering why I wasn't telling them. Now I'm well into the "basketball/okay maybe a small beach ball under the shirt/how much bigger can I get" stage and I get students coming up to talk to me about their own pregnancies/kids/wife's fertility problems.

Consonant with the tomato being legally a vegetable.

I don't often get insomnia, but when I do it's at the worst possible times. Like last night, when I only got a couple hours of sleep before having to get up at 5 to catch a flight.

Who the hell thought that at this stage I would need to emphasize my bustline?

Word. I'm also amazed at how small the boob area is in some maternity clothes. I guess those are for the women who balloon up to a small C cup.

This might be the thread that allows off-topic remarks:

My household has been nurturing some cat who's been around in the neighborhood for the last month or so, and as the weather's gotten colder, we've put a comfy blanket on a chair on the porch, which the cat likes, then begun to put a dish of food out as well. My housemate began to occasionally let the cat into the house (! I did not agree to that), and now this evening the cat is in the house, mostly because it's like 12 degrees F outside, which is pretty fucking cold.

My housemate and I have been speaking calmly yet firmly to one another this evening.

me: You're basically telling/training him that this house is an okay space for him.

me: See? Now every time we open the door, he's going to rush inside.

housemate: Well, what do you want me to do?

me: I don't want to own a cat again. We've talked about this. You tell me. Plus he may have fleas or ticks, and I don't want to deal with that in the house until he's been checked out. Plus I still have hives from the penicillin from the possible lyme disease from the deer tick bite two months ago, and I don't want to introduce another factor into my situation, and look: the cat is lying on my sweater even as we speak!

housemate: I don't think he has that many fleas or ticks.

-- But gosh this is a really nice cat, very polite. But no! I don't want a cat again!

housemate: I don't think he has that many fleas or ticks.

That many! Augh!

Cats only live a few weeks anyway.

Or at least, my sister's cat only lived for a few weeks. We fed him well and everything, but one day he was just laying there in the wood shavings next to his plastic wheel.

Thanks for helping me laugh about this. Just now I've told my housemate that the cat can't stay in the house overnight unless he's been observed to use the litter box (which we still have from our previous cats).

Yes, right, says housemate. Now the cat is segregated to the basement where the litter box is.

Parsimony, I hate to have to break it to you, but I feel pretty sure you now have a cat. He'll need a name. (I hear Wry Cooter is still available. )

Also, the odds are that your housemate will eventually be on the news in one of those stories where 300 cats are found in a house.

It's like I'm playing a game in which I will be hungry until I consume the macronutrient currently required by the fabrication process (usually protein

That was kind of crazy to watch. When my wife was pregnant Boston Market was still around here and there a lot of "OMG I bought an entire chicken and I better grab a leg or something quick because I think she's going to eat the entire thing."

Incidentally, re the boobsplosion: is there any point at all in buying nursing bras ahead of time? And if not, then what's the strategy? Somehow I do not anticipate having time for a proper fitting.

Oh my God people. Oh my God. Eating carbs literally -- literally! -- turns you from a wolf into a bitch.

Perhaps dogs evolved through hanging around hunter-gatherers so they could feed on leftover carcasses of the mammoths and mastodons our ancestors killed, Wayne said. In that scenario, the starch-tolerant changes would have cropped up only after dogs were domesticated, just as genetic changes that help break down starch evolved in human beings after we adopted a farming life.

Or, perhaps, those paleolithic mammoth-hunters were also eating some starchy foods as well, and the wolves who became dogs scavenged those.

(As the article goes on to note, which scenario explains this best really depends on when and where dogs were first domesticated, which is still an open question. I'd like to know exactly which dog breeds were included in this study and how representative they are of dogs as a whole.)

According to the supplemental information (the article itself is paywalled), the sample of dog breeds used seems to be very Europe-centric, while the wolf sample is smaller but more geographically diverse (p. 38). I'd want to see if this pattern holds up in a more representative dog sample before drawing any conclusions about the initial domestication of dogs from it.

re: 87

In that book that someone (sorry, I forgot who) recommended here a while ago on a book thread (After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000 - 5000 BC, Steven Mithen) he gives endless examples of pre-agricultural diets across the world. It's fairly obvious that with a few possible exceptions (very far north, early in the period he was discussing) they all ate a ton of starchy foods. Including wild grains and pulses on a fairly large scale well before domestication and agriculture.

89. Twas I. What did you think of it?

IT'S NOT A FETUS IT'S A BABY.

For goodness' sake, Penelope. How many times do I have to tell you?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtAGwqibKHc

re: 90

I found it a bit hard going, I've not actually finished it. I think I have a few chapters to go. I pick it up a couple of chapters at a time when commuting.

Although he writes well, I kept wanting some analysis/systematisation. The episodic travelogue style was really good at introducing the various excavation sites, and showing the limits of what we know about the history of various places over time. But I did want a bit more grand narrative stuff.

92. I see what you mean, although it may be that if you cornered him he'd say, "But my point is that there isn't a grand narrative - at least not at this level. There's a grand narrative about the evolution of modern behaviour (see my earlier books), but at this stage it's contingency all the way down."

I don't know if he thinks that, but there seems to be a subtext along those lines, plus he's ultra-cautious about making firm connections between different regions and different periods - I think probably because he's an archaeologist, not a historian. A historian writing the same book might supply a grand narrative, but at the risk of making the reader think that we knew a lot of stuff which is merely inference.

Yeah. I think I could just do with more of a drawing together of the themes discussed throughout, and perhaps a more explicit outlining of the parallels (or lack thereof) between what was happening on different continents and in different climatic regions at similar periods. It could be cautious or tentative, but it seemed like he was making lots of those parallels in individual discussions of specific sites, but they were scatter piece-meal through the text, and I would just like a bit more tying together. Maybe some thematic stuff at the end.

Maybe just a personal preference, though. Lots of the book was fascinating.

Incidentally, re the boobsplosion: is there any point at all in buying nursing bras ahead of time? And if not, then what's the strategy? Somehow I do not anticipate having time for a proper fitting.

What I did was buy a couple sleeping bras to get me through the period when I just could not get out of the house, and used those (or went bra-less) for the first few weeks.

When I could finally venture out of the house with the help of both Jammies and my mom, the first place we went was into Austin to buy real nursing bras. And they were super duper depressingly expensive.

But you heard right - who knows what size you'll end up being when your milk first comes in like a mother, and then settles down a few weeks later.

So, heebz, is the melatonin not doing enough or are you waking up ridiculously early every morning on purpose? Mara had me up since 3, but it wasn't by choice on my part.

I was like the classic line from the steve martin essay: "to me she was always lady jugs o' plenty."

Today was on purpose, to get some work done before the kids get up at 6:30.

But I set the alarm for 5. Somehow the difference between 4:30 and 5 is me feeling massively sorry for myself. 5 is fine.

When I was in the hospital for my leg, sometimes they would give me IV Benadryl. Very effective at putting you to sleep.

86: Eating carbs literally -- literally! -- turns you from a wolf into a bitch.

Already turned, oh mighty tuffer of the mud (aka live by the analogy, die by the analogy).

Oscar Chavez, director of the veterinary technician program at Cal Poly Pomona, said the findings served as a reminder that dogs don't eat like wolves. He said he and his colleagues were befuddled by the trend toward pricey low-carb dog foods and raw diets, which could stress dogs' kidneys with their extra protein load.

"Dogs are dogs -- they're more reliant on starches and grains," he said, which is why commercial dog foods are formulated to contain about 20% to 30% protein and 40% to 50% carbs. "I don't know any veterinarian in my circle of colleagues that would recommend a low-grain diet."