infoxicated

The orthopaedic pillow experiment ended but a week after it began, as (even more) sleepless nights, coupled with uncomfortable neck pain, had me return to the relative bliss of a regular pillow.

As someone who doesn’t sleep very well, ever, I’m always keen to try out something that might be the silver bullet as far as getting a good night of rest is concerned. I’ve bought a mattress topper to make my bed more comfy, I wear a hat to stop my head getting cold, I wear a sleep mask thing that Fliss & Elisha bought me earlier in the year, and I just about ended up addicted to the nasal spray Otravine this year, due to the fact it helps me breathe through the night. None of which seem to be the key to the vast, towering gates which surround and bar me from the Land of Nod.

Having weaned myself off of the Otravine the week before I picked up the orthopaedic pillow, I really did think that this particular new hope would not only cradle my head and neck in a similar way to which Angelina Jolie’s left breast might, but would keep my airways aligned in a way that would promote a deep and refreshing sleep. Heck, come to think of it, I’d have settled with one out of those two ideals. In the event I got neither.

So I’m almost back to square one. I’m off the Otravine until hay fever season deems it necessary, so that’s good. However, although the regular pillow has been more comfortable to sleep on, I’m still enduring neck pain caused by my brief stint on the fancy orthopaedic pillow – the sole reason of which is to avoid neck pain.

I didn’t even have any bloody neck pain in the first place – I just figured it’d do the trick for my breathing, but no – this cant just be a mild £25 failure – this has to be a spectacular £25 and residual neck pain failure.

I’d wager that Atlantis, the ends of rainbows, Lord Lucan, polite teenagers, the Holy Grail, and, lets be festive here, Santa Claus are all much easier to find than a good nights sleep.

With a previously untested morning schedule that, somehow, went without a hitch, Elisha started nursery school on Wednesday, while Fliss went back to work for the first time in a year.

I was a bit nervous dropping Elisha off, to be honest, as she’d started teething again the day before, and I didn’t know how she was going to take to being left with strangers. I was worried that she’d have a really bad day and be miserable with her sore gums, and that might spoil the experience and put her off for the following days.

All day long at work I checked and re-checked my phone, waiting for a call that would tell me she’d gone postal and was holding one of the assistants hostage in the milk prep room with a loaded water pistol.

Even though the call never came, I was out of the door and on the way to collect her the moment it was half past five. When I got there I could see her through the window as I waited at the door, and she didn’t look like she’d had a particularly harrowing day. Once I got inside and she saw me, she seemed to understand that it was time to go home, even if she didn’t appear to be elated to see me.

The nursery school lady gave me a bit of paper that outlined what Elisha had been up to during the day – looks like kids these days enjoy playing with blocks and “singing action songs” – whatever they are. The activities had taken it out of her, though, and once she was in her seat in the car she slept all the way home.

Day two was similarly successful, with the new morning routine proving to be much less challenging than it appeared beforehand, and the drop-off and pick-up’s going smoothly. Sadly, when I dropped her off this morning, she started crying when I went to leave, but hopefully she got over it and had fun with the rest of the activities after that.

I’m quite glad she’s dealing with it well, plus the dropping and collecting process makes me feel all grown up and responsible (a false sense of maturity, I suspect!), so that’s an added bonus.

Before we left for the trip back home on Monday, we visited my mum in Rowatt’s – the furniture shop she works in. This is a regular thing, actually – we’ve picked up all sorts of odds and ends from the shop before we’ve headed back in the past, from bedside tables, to a mattress for the spare room.

On this occasion we each took a new pillow, with Fliss opting for a fancy memory foam one, and me taking an orthopaedic style to see if it would help me sleep and breathe at the same time.

Soon after we’d got home that night we introduced the new pillows to our bed and I was quite looking forward to mine bringing instant teleportation to the Land of Nod.

Instead it brought neck ache, and lots of it. I woke up feeling like I’d rolled over a couple of times and left my head behind. Figuring that this was due to me not being used to such a cutting edge pillow, I hoped that the following nights would bring some improvement.

So far that’s not the case. My neck still aches and I’m just not sleeping well at all. Part of that was due to Elisha screaming her head off in the middle of the night for no apparent reason last night, I’ll concede, but the new techno pillow isn’t exactly helping, either.

Maybe it’s all the years of sleeping in a non–ideal position that are now being undone by the techno pillow?

Or perhaps the new pillow is, in fact, crap, and I’ve thrown away the best part of thirty quid on a torture device, while Fliss is snoozing it up on her utopian memory foam pillow.

This is just like when we get take away food delivered, you know. I take time and care over ordering something I’ll like, and when it arrives the meal that Fliss ordered is always much better than mine.

Still, I’m going to give it another few days before I give up on it. Probably until I’m hallucinating with tiredness, but before I have a permanent crick in my neck.