The Adult Woobie: My Love Affair with a Weighted Blanket

Tim Arndt and I have been together nearly 20 years, and sleep has been an issue with us from the start.

Let me rephrase that. Sleep has been an issue for me. Tim could sleep on the shoulder of IH-35 with nothing but his arm for a pillow and he’d wake up, dust the gravel off of his body, and he would be fully rested and raring to go. For lack of a better word because I really, really don’t like this word, Tim is sleep blessed.

When ER was born, Tim and I were the worst with sleep training. When ER would cry, which was always, we ignored the doctor’s advice and crammed her in the bed with us. It would look something like this. Tim would grab a screaming ER from the crib (that was in our bedroom because our house was so small we didn’t have a nursery), I would attempt to feed her with my body and that would result in both of us screaming. Tim, well rested from 4 hours of uninterrupted snoring, would get up, make a bottle, feed ER, and Tim and ER would happily crash out while I stayed up eating ice cream, watching Golden Girls, and feeling guilty about all of it.

When we moved to a house with an extra bedroom, ER would stand in her crib and wail until one of us came in the room and hung out with her until she fell asleep, or one of us would grab her up and cram her in the bed with us. This lasted until ER was in about 7th grade.

Given that I’ve been sleep deprived for at least 17 years, when Tim recently gifted me with a weighted blanket, I was a little confused. To be fair, one of the many listed benefits of a weighted blanket is to combat anxiety, and I had quite a bit of it over the past year. Weighted blankets also allegedly alleviate PTSD, so perhaps Tim thought the weighted blanket might help me ride out the rest of 45’s presidency. They’re also supposed to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep, so I can see why Tim thought this gift was a really good idea since he’s the one who does the freight train snoring. While Tim is sawing logs yet somehow getting excellent rest, I’ve taken half a Benadryl, played Words with Friends, looked for zebra print block heels on Nordstrom, bought some books and a sleep mask on Amazon.com, and belted Tim on the arm 14 times, begging him to turn over on the other side so I have a chance of falling asleep before the entire cycle starts again.

This brings me to woobies. When my sister was little, she had a yellow blanket that she called “Blankie” that was made by our Great Gran Vera, a saint of a woman who made countless blankets for friends and family out of scraps of 1970s polyester clothing. Blankie had a wayward thread on one corner that young Emily decided was its “hairstyle,” and she had to turn Blankie in a certain way so that his “face” could be turned in the right direction. I think Blankie is still alive somewhere, and hopefully his face is turning out so he can breathe.

We all know a kid who has had a woobie that, if it got lost, couldn’t be replaced by a back-up woobie because of course kids just know. We even knew an adult who had a woobie, but I am not allowed to talk about it because when the kids told me about it I laughed a lot and my husband thought I was being rude and insensitive.

This was until I became an adult with a woobie, and now I hope nobody is laughing at me about it because I need my woobie! My weighted blanket is a plain and ordinary-looking grey blanket, weighs about 25 pounds, and for some unknown reason helps me fall asleep and keeps me sleeping like a baby, even when Tim is snoring right in my face.  I’m intrigued as to why it provides such comfort, but once it’s on me, I kick one leg out just like I do with the regular duvet and I’m asleep within minutes. And I stay asleep!

One of my favorite lines from Sex in the City is when Carrie says, “I want to say: ‘Could one of you lie on top of me for a while?’ I need to feel the weight of a man on me.” Little did Carrie Bradshaw know that all she needed was a weighted blanket, because let me tell y’all, if you’re single or not, the weighted blanket is even better than the weight of a man. It won’t ask you to do any favors, it doesn’t snore, and it’s not at all sweaty! It’s actually cooling somehow! I don’t understand the science behind it, but for now, Tim and I are sharing our bed with a 25-pound weighted blanket, and because of it, I bounce out of bed. It’s changing our lives!

Okay, I should be honest here. I’m not actually bouncing out of bed because that blanket is really, really HEAVY. On the one, sometimes two occasions where I wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I have to work very hard to worm myself from out under it to get up. I always consider asking Tim to help me, but it takes 25 trumpets and a fire extinguisher to wake him up, so I end up heaving my arms and legs with all of their might and flopping the blanket over to one side to get out of bed. But it’s worth it, I promise.

All in all, I’m a big fan of the weighted blanket, and recommend it highly but suggest if you’re super skinny or wimpy that you test drive one with someone there to rescue you if you can’t get out. Also, I wouldn’t recommend using one in the event of a fire or an earthquake, but otherwise, if one or both of you has problems with sleep, the weight of a blanket on you just might be the game-changer you’re looking for.

 

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