Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 2: Get More Sleep

Whether you are a stay at home or working mother, chances are good that you aren't getting enough sleep. Did you know that the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) recommends between seven and nine hours of sleep per day for healthy adults? Unfortunately, someone forgot to give our children the memo.

My husband and I are routinely awakened two to three times per night these days. Each of our three children manages to get up at some point during the night for the following reasons: hunger (the baby), thirst (the two year old), needing to use the bathroom (the four year old). Sometimes they have bad dreams, and other times the older ones simply get up in the middle of the night and start playing in their darkened room.

This means that we are lucky as parents if we get four whole hours in a row of quality, uninterrupted sleep. My most exotic fantasies these days are of finding myself in a quiet room with a pillow and blanket, totally alone, able to sleep peacefully for hours on end.

Anyone who has ever experienced fragmented sleep can tell you that as you accrue sleep debt over time you will find it increasingly difficult to stay alert, pay attention, speak with coherence and think clearly. Decision-making abilities become impaired, and normal or routine life stresses may begin to feel overwhelming.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, new parents typically lose up to 350 hours of sleep during a baby's first year of life! Sleep deprivation typically impacts breastfeeding mothers the most, but in many families will impact both parents equally ~ especially when their babies are formula fed or the mother expresses milk for nighttime bottle feeding.

For parents with elder children and a baby, the 350 number would be added to multiple additional hours of sleep forfeited yearly to care for their other children (or their spouse) during nighttime illnesses. Not to mention insomnia!

So if you find yourself wandering around the grocery store in a daze at 5pm, unable to remember what you came in to buy even though it is written on a list that you have forgotten you placed in your purse, take heart. You have not lost your mind, you're just exhausted! Look through this list of ways to get extra sleep and see if you can't attempt to get just a little more shut eye at some point during the course of your busy day. It will make a world of difference to your overall productivity, patience, physical health, sense of well-being and even to your ability to drive your children safely home from school.


Be Kind To Yourself ~ Tip 2: Get More Sleep
How It Works...

Where there's a will, there's a way. Here are some ideas to get you started:

- Nap. Whomever said that sleeping should be done at night clearly did not understand the demands of parenting. If you can catch some Zs here and there throughout the course of the day, do it! Close the blinds to your office at work and throw down a nap mat during lunch hour! (Bring an alarm clock.) Pull up a cot or armchair next to your baby's crib. Turn off the telephone while your kids visit with grandma for an hour, or even recline the driver's seat in your car and shut your eyes for thirty minutes during soccer or football practice. It's not a sin to sleep! Just the opposite in fact - by getting enough sleep you are helping yourself to become a better parent.

- Share the chance to nurture. You don't have to do it all. If your husband, partner, mother or best friend is willing to get up with your baby or older children in the middle of the night so that you can sleep - just say yes! Nursing moms can pump breastmilk into bottles that are ready for others to use to feed their babies in the wee hours of the morning. Not only is it "okay" to share the responsibilities of parenting, it is also really healthy for your children to share valuable bonding moments with caregivers beyond their mother alone. Give dad or grandma the opportunity to share the late-night love.

- Get your kids on a sleep schedule. Studies show that children without a regular bedtime who stay awake until they fall asleep on their own tend to be overtired, get poor quality sleep and demonstrate irritability throughout the day. It is healthy for your children to go to bed at a reasonable hour every night, and even healthier for you when they do. Aim to get your older children to bed in time for you to get a good seven hours of sleep per night (even if they will be seven hours interrupted by feedings, etc.) Putting your infants on a clearly defined sleep schedule will help ALL of you to get enough rest. Remember, children between 2 and 18 months of age need up to 15 hours of sleep per day... your toddlers (until age 3) need up to 14 hours per day, and heck - even your adolescent boys and girls are advised to get 9.5 hours of sleep per night. If your kids are getting the recommended amount of sleep each day, there is a much better chance that you will be sleeping too!

- Ask for help. There is no shame in asking for help, especially not to fill such a basic human need. If you are overly tired and there is a responsible adult in your life that can help care for your children so that you can get a little more sleep, you owe it to yourself and your kids to ask for what you need. Here are some people you may consider asking for babysitting help: your spouse or partner, your parents, your partner's parents, your best friend(s), your child's preschool teachers, and of course trustworthy professional (CPR certified) babysitters over the age of 18 with great references.

(by Andrea Morton, Copyright 2009)