3 Ways Rubbish Sleep is Affecting Your Life
As mums, we expect to be exhausted and tired in the first few weeks after giving birth. It's all everyone talks about when you're still pregnant - 'Enjoy your sleep now, it's the last you'll get for a while!'
But often we can be taken by surprise that this broken sleep often continues into the first two years - and beyond!
Part of the problem for this is unrealistic expectations about how a baby will sleep that pervades our culture. Often we receive advice from all sides, especially the older generation whose solution tends to be to sleep train (because that's all they know!). If you express doubt you might be told...
You're making a rod for your own back
Your baby will never learn to fall asleep
Your baby needs to learn to self-soothe
This isn't about whether you should sleep train and how a baby should sleep, but this sort of advice makes you doubt your own instinct, making you feel like you're doing it wrong. You might have even considered or even tried sleep training, and found it goes against your instinct. And so you battle through, assuming it's just your lot to have a baby who doesn't sleep.
This can have a profound effect on your experience of motherhood in three different ways - on yourself, on your work or creativity, and on your children and wider family members.
How it affects you. You might find yourself having trouble falling asleep at night from the low-level worry of how often you'll be woken up tonight, and how little sleep you'll get as a result. You wake up unrefreshed, drinking coffee and needing sugar to prop you up and keep you going. You feel tired All The Time during the day. You might even start finding the remote control in the fridge, or your car keys in the oven. And over time you notice that you don't have the time or energy to exercise or eat well, let alone give yourself some me-time or start a new hobby or even think about yourself for once. Perhaps you assume that's OK - because that's what having children does to you. Except you feel like life is passing you by, and you look back at your 20s with nostalgia, when you had more time and wish you had used it better to exercise, cook and eat healthily! Ultimately you feel like you are losing your sense of you and who you really are.
How it affects your work. Perhaps you're about to return to work and you just can't fathom how you're going to get through a WHOLE work day without falling asleep. Perhaps you've returned to work and noticed that you're not as productive or creative as you used to be. You find it hard to think straight, to form normal conversation. Perhaps you find yourself re-reading sentences over and over again, and you worry that your boss is going to notice that you're just not very good at your job anymore!
How it affects your family. How you feel can have a profound knock-on effect on your children. Perhaps you notice that you're easily distracted when spending time with them. You get bored and find yourself going on your phone, living vicariously through other mums who seem to be coping so much better than you. Technically you're spending time with your children - but you're not truly being present. Or perhaps you start noticing that you are just too exhausted to play with your children, or plan fun, active weekends together. Maybe you feel like you're always watching from the sidelines rather than getting involved. Ultimately you feel like you're missing out on your children's lives because you simply don't have the energy to spend it with them.
And underlying all of that is that voice in the back of your head telling you you should be looking after yourself better. You should be eating better and exercising more, but can't possibly find the motivation to start a new diet or exercise regime. And there's the nagging worry that you know not getting enough sleep is slowly destroying your health, day by day.
You also make poorer parenting decisions when you're sleep deprived. You might be sure that you'll never be that shouty mum, or you'd never let them watch TV, or that you'll always be able to respond to tantrums with patience and compassion.
But these things are hard to do when your patience is low. In then end you just stop enjoying being a parent.
And before something truly serious happens - like falling asleep at the wheel while driving your kids to school, something needs to change. Placing as much importance on your sleep as you do on your children's needs to happen. Whether that's going to bed earlier, finding time to nap or do yoga nidra daily, rearrange your work schedule with your partner, or even perhaps gentle night weaning or introducing your child to their own bed, something needs to change. You are important too - and you can place yourself on the priority list, without resorting to sleep training.