Sleep

Before I got pregnant, I took sleep for granted.  During pregnancy your body starts to train you for the sleepless nights to come.  You wake up multiple times a night and can never seem to get truly comfortable.  Then the baby comes and you are up multiple times a night feeding, soothing, doing laps around the house.  I still remember that first night where I slept for five hours straight – my excitement for five continuous hours of sleep, quickly turned to panic over why hasn’t anything happened in five hours (everything of course was fine).  Those were the days that you realized that with five hours of sleep you felt amazing and the fog had lifted from your brain.

It took those drastic experiences for me to realize how different you feel and act after a good night sleep.  As a result, I am very aware of how much sleep we get as a family.  I’ve noticed that even a difference of 30 minutes can make homework the next day more of a struggle.  Or sometimes the opposite happens, when that feeling of over tiredness starts to set in, my son does the opposite, to resist the crash he ramps up, sometimes becoming more hyper as it gets closer to bedtime.  It’s been extremely helpful to us as parents to recognize that the lack of sleep is going to lead to behavioral challenges later in the day.  When we make ourselves aware ahead of time, it’s easier for us to react when the melt down/outburst/attitude comes knowing that it is caused by a lack of sleep.

Many of us are diligent with our children because we know how important sleep is for a growing child.  But like many things, we change the rules when it comes to ourselves.  There is always so much to do!  We “burn the candle at both ends” to try to fit in all our obligations: things that have to be done, things that we’ve committed to someone else that we will do and the things that we want to do.  To make things worse, our society have made getting less sleep a badge of honor.  You read interviews about highly successful people who get 4-5 hours of sleep a night.  Think about how much more they get done having an extra 3-4 hours to work instead of sleep.  Personally, I just don’t believe that you can function at your highest potential on that little sleep.  Arianna Huffington also talks about this in her book Thrive.  She talks about how she used to be one of those people getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night when launching the Huffington Post, but now has realized what a toll it took on her and how unhealthy it is.   Her book goes on to discuss how as a society we need to change our definition of success and getting more quality sleep is a key component that she discusses in detail.  It’s a great book with some interesting ideas, I definitely recommend it. 

Making sleep a priority, for you or your children, may require changes in your current routine.  It may be tough at first, but when you start to notice the changes in your mood and your kid’s moods you realize how powerful the shift is.  Now granted, you’re not always going to get the perfect night sleep every single night.  But on those days that follow, try to keep it front of mind.  Remind yourself that your reactions, or your children’s reactions, may be the result of being over tired - simply acknowledging that fact may help side step an epic melt down.

Heart-FULLy Yours, 

Kacey