Raise your hand if you too were up in the middle of the night:
… phishing Facebook for something to read to keep yourself awake while feeding your baby for the umpteenth time.
…thinking about all the things you DIDN’T get done (again).
…making an even longer to do list for today.
…trying to remember if you had everything ready for your kids the next day.
…staring at your partner with laser beams wondering how s/he can sleep through everything – especially when you know tomorrow they will ask, “So, did the baby sleep through the night? Or even worse will say, “I’m exhausted; I couldn’t sleep last night.”
The list can go on forever with what keeps us up at night, right mamas? (I hope I’m not alone.) This job called Motherhood is unbelievably draining, no matter if you work from home, out of home or are a stay at home mom (these ladies work just as hard). As a newish mom of 2 boys, (6months and 4.5 years) I feel like the days are long, but the nights are somehow incredibly short on sleep but long on worries. I remember with my first son, people kept asking me if he was sleeping through the night. Guess what, that took him until he was 3.5 years old to do more nights than not. My second son is 6 months old, and I’m lucky to get 4 hours straight during his longest stretch these days(stupid sleep regressions!). People don’t know what it’s like to be tired until they’ve gone months (years even) without consecutive sleep.
Sleep is one of those things, like time in general, that we can never get back. So whatever you need to do to make it through the day (and night) know you are not alone. In fact, you and I may be reading the same online quiz about “Your New Mom Style” or article “How to Make Your Child Sleep More” and pinning the same new recipe we will never remember to buy all the ingredients for because, lets face it, who besides you will even eat it anyway. Sometimes that’s enough to make it through the day. Other times drink that glass of wine or eat that bar of chocolate because sleep is wasted on the youth, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting any younger.
XOXO,
One Tired Mama
If you’re a Mama from the other side of this sleep deprivation please send any tips to get these kids to sleep!
