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Rather than stress, embrace.
This very early wake-up due to baby is taking its toll. I’ve been feeling more than just tired—less patient, more high-strung, more overwhelmed about everything. So yesterday, after researching “baby wakes too early” online and finding that a) it’s incredibly common and b) there’s really not much to be done about it, Mike and I decided rather than stress over this thing we can do little about, we should attempt to embrace it.
We took out a notepad and actually wrote down a rough sketch of what our mornings might look like if we roll with it rather than try to get back to sleep after the crying has started. We acknowledged that this will be a relaxed plan, since some days baby will wake too early, some nights we will go to bed too late. Today was Day 1 of this experiment—and it was AWESOME.
First of all, Davin didn’t make a peep until 6:27. Which would have meant a fantastic night of sleep for me had I not had insomnia. I was extremely wound up, not so much anxious as excited to get started on this new plan of making use of the early morning hours. Anyway, when I got back to our room after nursing Davin and getting him back to bed, Mike got up and went to our gym. I laid in bed READING MY BOOK (!!!) until I decided I’d better get washed up while my legs were free of hangers-on.
At 7:15, I went outside and told Mike to turn on the monitor—his workout nearly done, he could listen up for waking children, while I could dash over to the Y for a quick workout of my own. About an hour later, I walked into a kitchen full of happy people—and I felt amazing! It doesn’t end there—Mike managed to leave for work earlier than normal (while still making Bella’s lunch and all the usual awesome daddy duties he does), and I managed to sneak in a shower, so that after morning drop-off, Davin and I got to RUN AN ERRAND before heading home. And look at me now! I’m WORKING! In other words, I might not feel the need to work after dinner. Or better still, I might be able to focus on my kids and ONLY my kids this afternoon, instead of playing while thinking about work, which is what I find myself doing too often.
Okay. So I know. That’s just Day 1. And the next 3 days will be different because I work at 7:30am. So I just felt the need to share my enthusiasm about the good first trial day since that is where we are today. What a difference a morning can make.
