Having a baby is exhausting. There’s really just nothing else to it. Whether you actually went through pregnancy and childbirth or not, when you have a little baby in the home, it is tiring. I was blessed with good sleepers and good sisters who told me all about how they got their children to sleep through the night so I only dealt with middle-of-the-night feedings for the first few weeks, but it’s exhausting. Only sleeping for a few hours at a time is exhausting. Tending to ever single need of a baby is exhausting. And if you have more than one child, taking care of the older children while taking care of the baby is exhausting.
I tend to stay up late with my husband so that we can have some time just to ourselves. It starts with cleaning the kitchen from dinner. Then we catch up on our favorite television shows on Hulu. And by the time we decide to stop watching shows, it’s usually really, really late. I wake up the next morning to my daughter, shouting as she’s walking down the hallway, “Mommy! I need to go potty!” I don’t know why she can’t just go sit on the toilet by herself without announcing it to everyone. And the rest of the day is slow going from there. I’m trying to quickly make food to feed the hungry children. I’m trying to find time to exercise. I’m trying to find time to take a shower. All day I’m just trying to keep caught up with my kids.
Well, I decided to change that. The goal is to wake up an hour before the kids wake up each morning. It gives me time to exercise, get ready for the day, and maybe even start breakfast all before the children wake up. I’m more productive during the day and don’t feel exhausted because I am able to wake up after 7-8 hours, getting enough sleep each night. With more sleep, I also am a lot more patient and loving towards my children. The things they do don’t bother me as much and I spend a lot more time playing with them each day when I get that early start to the day.
So I urge you to try it. Set your alarm, go to bed early, jump out of bed when that alarm goes off (or drag yourself out of bed like I do), and get a head start to your day. I feel amazing when I go to bed early, get up early – I’m sure you will, too!
Sometimes I miss my college days when I could take a nap in the middle of the day.
