Raise your hand if you love sleep. I mean, really really love it. I mean love it like you sometimes fantasize about it, crave it like chocolate, can’t wait to start doing it. Most of us right?

Well my hand is not up. I do not love sleep. In fact, I almost hate it.

Let me add here that I used to love sleep. I’m a bit of a bedding fanatic, and as such my bed is very inviting; warm and cozy, clean and soft. But I dread going in there every night. Why? How is this possible? What changed?

It’s hard to pinpoint when I started to dislike sleep, but I think it happened just before Christmas. My daughter had stopped sleeping through the night, so I was leaving my wonderful cozy bed every hour from midnight to six a.m., and even when I was in bed – exhausted as I was – I couldn’t seem to sleep. At the time, I chalked it up to holiday stress. You know, making lists in your head of the things you need to buy or do or decorate before Christmas. I figured it was just the time of year, and I – and my daughter – would get back on track in January.

That didn’t happen. My daughter, Isabel, continued to wake throughout the night, and my mind continued to run. Christmas lists were replaced with to-do’s about the launch of my business, stresses about quitting my job, worries about pretty much everything: health, money, college tuition. You name it, I thought about it. A lot.

Over the past five months we tried everything to get Isabel to sleep, and nothing has really worked. She’s slightly better now, waking only once or twice, but I don’t worry too much about that anymore. I accept that as a temporary part of raising a baby.

But despite her slight sleep improvement, I still hate going to bed. I do all the right things like having a relaxing cup of tea and reading my book before bed. And yet as soon as the light is off I lie awake. I think about the interviews I have scheduled for the next day. I think about the articles I have to write. I think about what time Isabel will wake up for the first time.

And last night I thought to myself, “Should I just get up?”

I’m starting to wonder if I should just give up on going to bed at a reasonable hour in the hope of getting some quality shut-eye. I mean, it’s not getting me anywhere. Maybe I should just go do some work until Isabel wakes up for the first time. And then at least one of my nightly questions will be answered.

So maybe tonight I will experiment with this. Instead of tossing and thinking and turning and thinking and waiting and thinking, I’ll just stop. I’ll get up, get some things done, and work until I can’t keep my eyes open. And then maybe, someday in the hopefully not-too-distant future, I can fall sleepily back in bed, and back in love with sleep.