Pictured above, the scene of the crime. We don’t co-sleep with the baby, but I added him to make the scene feel less threatening.

Towards the end of this past summer, I got a weighted blanket. It was around the same time I saw that guy with the weighted vest and wondered why anyone would add to the weight they were carrying, metaphorically OR physically. But anxiety was kicking my butt and I was exhausted at night, but often crawling up the walls.

If you’re familiar with weighted blankets, you’ll know they aren’t cheap, which is why I had one on my wish list for a very long time before clicking purchase. They differ from comforters and duvets – they are smaller and come in a range of weights. There is info online to help you calculate how much weight you need depending on your size.

I went whole hog with a 20-pound blanket. I thought I would get the full size, which would just cover the top of our queen mattress with no overhang, and that the Chaplain and I could share it.

The Chaplain and I have been fighting over blankets for a long time. His broad shoulders easily and unintentionally carry the blankets right off of me in the middle of the night when he rolls over in his sleep. It got so bad that while we had a common top blanket, I had an additional blanket just on my side that would still be there when he’d rolled over and taken the rest of our covers.

Given this history, it wasn’t rational that the blanket would work the way I hoped, but I couldn’t make myself buy a bigger one. For a while, my plan worked OK. As long as no one was moving, it was very grounding to be under the heavy blanket. But I was often waking up with one corner of the blanket covering part of me and the rest hanging over the Chaplain’s side of the bed. It was more noticeable than in the past because this blanket weighed a whole lot more than our previous blankets.

During this time, I would either wake up freezing, or in a dead sweat from the late summer heat trapped under the heavy blanket. I tried every combination of jersey, percale, and flannel sheets under the blanket as the weather got cooler in an attempt to continue using it without waking up drenched underneath it or freezing because it had vacated my side of the bed.

In November, I introduced a new plan. I pulled the weighted blanket onto my side, and gave the Chaplain a down comforter for his side. For a few days, it was amazing. I slept in peace, and the blanket stayed put.

Then, the Chaplain told me he now knew what I’d been experiencing since the beginning of our marriage – his lightweight duvet was sliding off the bed each night and leaving him in the wind.

And then I started waking up soaked nearly every night.

My period has been erratic since before Seven was born. It’s been especially bad since it came back after he weaned me (yes, that’s how it happened). My formerly regular cycle has become unpredictable, with 10-day long periods and cycles that don’t conform to any pattern. When I started writing this post, I was on day 9 of a period that started on day 25 of my cycle. I am not happy about it. Dang it if no one needs a period that comes early and stays late. It’s like a bad dinner guest.

You probably know where I’m going with this, but until recently, I’d been blaming my night sweats on the heavy weighted blanket, afraid I’d have to given up its soothing weight so that I could stop having to change my nightshirt every night.

I did a little online research on what could be causing my issues, the word “pre-menopause” was coming up. This wonderful “period” of time, according to my midwife, can start in your late 30’s and then keep going for a decade. Not the best news.

This whole past year has been about personal growth, and like most of it, this has been a tough pill to swallow.

After just a few months of the weighted blanket, I had to give it up for a down comforter, no top sheet, and percale bottom sheet. (The Chaplain got the weighted blanket for his side of the bed.)

I’ve also had to develop an optional relationship towards pajamas. And still I sometimes wake up feeling like I just ran a 5K.

There are a lot of little things that let you know you’re getting older that don’t have to get under your skin – little lines around your eyes and mouth, more gray hairs, skin getting a little crepey in spots. But when you aren’t looking in the mirror, you don’t have to be cognizant of those things all the time.

Having your period for weeks at a time and never knowing when it’ll be done OR when it will come back is harder to ignore. Being unable to find a combination of blankets and sheets that keeps you warm enough without leaving you in a puddle is a little too in-your-face for me as well.

I’m closing in on 40, and my self confidence is improving (I’ll give it a B-), my mindfulness is growing leaps and bounds. In a lot of ways, life has never been better. But man, my sleep habits are not getting into gear. My body is there, revving its engine half the night, and I can’t do anything about it.

After I wrote this, I thought, I’m going to fix this. I’m going to find out if there is some kind of cooling mattress topper out there. Of course, there is.

One of the first reviews of the mattress topper I found mentioned the heat-trapping qualities of memory foam toppers, which is what I have on my bed. Not on the Chaplain’s side. He picked out our mattress because he liked a firm surface. I need a little more cush. So there’s a twin-sized memory foam topper on my side. I’ve read before that these are terrible for air flow and trap the heat against your body, but I run cold because I don’t have a lot of padding. I didn’t MIND being trapped with my body heat until just recently. So I forgot that fun fact.

The quilted topper had all the stars, and it wasn’t super expensive. The reviewers who had been sweating stopped sweating after getting it. The day it arrived, I washed and dried it (mostly. When we got to bedtime, it was still damp. I was eager, and I figured, it’s supposed to be cooling, so if it’s a little damp, that will just guarantee it cools me down. Plus, I’m getting used to sleeping damp.)

We often start the night with a space heater in our room because we keep our upstairs at 60 degrees. But we never sleep with it on, because it doesn’t have an auto-off and it turns our room into an inferno.

Which it did that night, because we forgot to turn it off. But I didn’t sweat! And I didn’t for a while after that.

Then the sweating started again.

I got rid of the memory foam, which was now underneath the breathable topper, and had one dry night.

Then I was waking up drenched again.

I realize that if I wait for this problem to be solved, this post won’t be about the weighted blanket anymore. It will be about another of the many things in my life right now that I don’t know how to fix.

So. If I’m going to be breaking a sweat whether or not I’m using the weighted blanket, do I want my heavy blanket back?

There’s something about meditation. It makes floating feel good. Moments when I was losing control (name your situation – out in public with the kids, in the bedroom, emotionally) used to feel like hanging off the edge of a cliff, windmilling my arms, but unable to fall. And being terrified of both hanging there forever AND the idea of falling.

Meditation has taken a lot of the edge off. Floating feels safe now. So when I think about piling on a heavy blanket to help ground me, it’s not as appealing as it once was. I’d rather bliss out on a meditation before bed to settle down than use heavy weight to do it. Both have worked, I just like meditation better.

The weighted blanket helped for a while. It got me over the hump. Now, I’m meditating. The blanket feels a bit expensive for just being a phase, so I’m glad the Chaplain has been able to use it. And if meditating doesn’t feel like it’s in the cards for you right now and you need a way to chill at the end of the day, a weighted blanket might be the ticket. But if you start sweating balls, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I ended up getting a kid-sized weighted blanket for Six, and he loves it. He calls it his heavy blanket, and he usually falls asleep quickly under its heft. While my experience is not completely a success story, Six’s weighted blanket was a great move.