I can’t think of many great days that started with my children being up and ready for the day before I was. I’m talking about small-ish children. The kind that can’t pour milk and cereal themselves without a disaster.
In our house, when days like this happen, I end up sending my kids to sit in front of screens and we have a hard time turning them off.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it might be time to treat my job as a stay at home mom more like the job my husband sets his alarm for each morning. He can’t arrive to work unshowered and in pj’s. He would never think that getting up at 7:59 for a job that starts at 8:00 is a recipe for success. I’ve tried it with parenting and it hasn’t worked too well.
You might not be a morning person, but studies show that getting up early makes for happier and healthier people. Wouldn’t it follow that I would also be a better mom if I got up a little earlier? For the last several days, I’ve been setting my alarm. I really didn’t want to get up early this morning, but I’m glad I did.
Do you need some motivation to set your alarm and actually get up when it goes off? I’ve come up with a list of things that help me:
-
I get a chance to do some things that are hard to do when my kids need my attention.
-
All those things that distract me from paying attention to the kids, I can do without feeling guilt at 6:00am.
-
I’m less likely to plop my kids in front of a screen when I’m ready for them when their day begins.
-
I might even have a chance to put on something that makes me feel good about myself.
What’s your morning routine like? Are you able to accomplish things before your children get up in the morning? Do you consider yourself a morning person? How about moms that have tiny kids who get up in the night and/or really early? I don’t think it would be as productive for them to give up anymore sleep…. thoughts?
I found it was a lot easier to wake up before Everett to eat breakfast and get dressed. I feel ahead the rest of the day when I do this. Since he wakes up pretty early, I can’t get much more done besides that, but I’ll take it for now. 🙂
It’s not rocket science and it doesn’t always work for moms whose kids aren’t sleeping well, but for me, it has helped tremendously! I get a chance to make plans for my day before they are decided for me by someone else!
When my kids were little, I was running daily, so I had to get up really early to get my run in before the kids got up and before Don left for work. Even though I wasn’t getting anything done (except getting exercise), I was wide awake and ready to go when they got up. On weekends, when I ran later in the day, we did plop them in front of cartoons until we got our act together.
And Nathan has very happy memories of this 🙂