How do you deal with insomnia?

We have our stuffie and our fav blanket in our bed always.
We don't usually drink or eat caffeine after noon.

I remembered that I have actually always known that Eric can never sleep. He really can be awake for days. The problem is just that he also takes the pain and that he also knows that sleep is good for the body and he wants to take good care of us so he's forcing himself to do something he cant do.
He originated as a protector and he always kept guard over the kids so they could sleep. It's just that he's the strongest alter now so he's out a lot. Not much has to happen at all for him to come out. I think about him, he comes out. Bf's unfriendly, he comes out. Violence in the street, or even just another alter's fear, he comes out. So many things.
Kids aren't safe here according to him, so if they come out, he comes out. There's always a risk that kids come out in the evenings or nights but the risk is smaller if Bubba is in the bed, and if they come out they can sometimes stay out cause Bubba makes them feel safer and then they can sleep. I don't know why sometimes he can stay away and not at other times. It's like something wakes him up and then he cant control being out either. But there's just so many things that wake him up. Now during this post I have to really fight to keep him in and right after he will be out anyway. always. sigh. He really is out most of the time most days. none of us like that not even he does but we cant stop it.
The littles do indeed worry about Bubba being comfortable and they are also sad that the other stuffies cant be in the bed too.
Sometimes they get really sad idk why and really most things trigger Eric out very soon, if that happens in the evenings he can't sleep. He was ranting so much in the opening post so we edited it a whole lot, but he was still so present that we still couldn't sleep even if he's not on front. He was angry at bf and therapy, and idk. I tried to reply to these posts for a few days but we would always end up in conflicts so it took me a while sorry. Thanks for the replies again everyone.

We're putting all our hopes on going to the gym cause that was Jessica's only real demand, we go to the gym to lose the fat, and she may be able to host again. It's just, I realize that most of my questions come down to not being able to control switching. So I really hope that changing hosts would do the trick cause there would still be so many triggers, just with a hopefully stronger Jessica to withstand them. She's now too weak cause she feels ugly and I guess that it's that important to her to feel pretty. First she couldn't host cause she couldn't deal with being DID. then she couldn't host cause she hates bf. now it's the appearance. I hope that she will be able to live with bf and that fixing the fat will help her be stronger. I hope she wont run off again like she did before the crash. She wants to. and there we go again (arguing).
anyway thanks.

My dad did the melatonin and it didn't really work for him and he found himself building tolerance very soon and having worse nightmares so that wouldn't be good either. If the things I'm going to try don't work I will consider the melatonin but not for now.

Everybody is different, so I can only speak about how things worked for me. I took melatonin nightly for years, but don't anymore, and tolerance/dependancy hasn't been a problem. I took it in combination with prazosin, which is used to prevent PTSD nightmares (only had one, relatively mild nightmare in the years that I took it).

For me, I react adversely to adivan and valerian root in the same way (i.e. panic response instead of sedation), so they must work in a similar manner.

On the topic of medication esp. connected with fibro, have you looked into muscle relaxants? They are non-addictive (tho you can get a tolerance if used too much).
I'm using one called sirdalud and I use the lowest dose (4mg) and it knocks me out in the evening and gives me refreshing sleep. It helps with fibro muscle pain, too.
It's not as enticing as herbal supplements but it works like a charm. I've used it for 2 years now, or maybe 3, and I do not need to increase a dosage. Also I don't depend on it daily, but it's good to know that when I can't calm down or top tossing and turning I have an alternative.

Floundering, I also find cannabis tea and Melatonin work very well.

Edibles seem to give more of a body high, easy and fast to make, and does not cause damage to the lungs.

Best of luck!

Melatonin gives me even more vivid nightmares than I already have. Nothing works on me in the natural realm sadly, and I have tried it all. I alternate between a Tylenol PM or antihistamine type pill, Xanax and Ambien. But my insomnia is really bad. IF the natural stuff works for you, more power to ya. Sometimes, Valerian has worked.

I think it's killing me (that's how it feels in the morning), but I usually just stay up until I can hardly keep my eyes open.... I need to find a better way, Melatonin makes me sleep for like 12hrs and then I still need a nap.

Hey everyone

By now we've been able to fall asleep at reasonable times on most nights. I exercise which helps. I try not to switch to our protector alter in the evenings so there should not be any stress at night cause switching to him happens quickly. It might be a weird noise outside, arguing, or wrong tv shows etc, so it's fragile. I do still drink 2 beers for now in the evening so I guess we'll start these sleeping issues over again once we're going to quit drinking. I think the beer is helping me a lot but, well we all know that alcohol is really bad for you so I don't want to keep doing this. I try to be aware of my body to make it calm down and unless we're triggered that kinda works. Mind you we're off to bed at around midnight but we start calming our body in the early evening. We should not start thinking too much in the evening either so we also try to ban activating thoughts, good or bad, and we try to keep conversations between alters to a minimum during the evening/night cause if we don't do this our head will get really busy and then we can't sleep. It's a struggle to balance it every day. The trick is not to let Eric get triggered out and he's so strong that he's triggered out very easily.
I'm just scared for what we're doing to our body with all the years of not enough sleep, all the unhealthy living. I really need to set this right.

Have a good day and night everyone