Lack of sleep & feeble boundaries contribute to our mom stress’
- Are you getting enough sleep? Typically, we think of mom exhaustion as something that moms of newborns experience, especially because of sleep deprivation. But mom burnout can happen at any time if you aren’t getting enough rest.
- Regardless of your children’s ages, you know that they need a good night’s sleep. You, too, need a good night’s sleep to keep yourself energized.
- No one functions well without enough sleep. Chronic sleep deprivation makes us short-tempered, easy to anger & yelling. Taking care of kids can be hard work, & exhausting, so you need to get some good rest to be a happy mom. Without energy & rest you cannot be ready to face another day of in-home learning, sibling fights, toilet training, & driving kids all over town. Get some sleep, mom.
- Learning to say no is one of THE hardest things. None of us can do everything, so why do we even try? Saying no to the requests of others may make you feel guilty, but it shouldn’t. We all must learn when & how to say no. Since you are only one person, there is no way you can do it all.
- In a normal year (no pandemic) practice by learning to say no to the school bake sale, resisting your desire to sew costumes for the school play, & not volunteering as a coach for your child’s soccer team. Limit the projects you accept to one or two, whether they are projects for school or work. Taking on more than you can handle, more than your fair share, will set you up for mom burnout bigtime.
- Self-doubt can be a large contribution to mom stress. Many of us mothers fear that we are not doing a good enough job. Because each child has unique temperaments & needs, & because children grow & change all the time, it is impossible to apply only one approach to mothering.
- So often, we allow our negative self-talk to invade our thoughts about being a mother. These thoughts are from patterns in our past, or from unmet expectations about mothering. Most of these negative thoughts are NOT helpful. They represent our insecurity, our fears, & our expectations. We must try to recognize these negative thoughts & tell ourselves that we are doing a good job as a mom.
- Tell yourself that you ARE doing a good enough job with breastfeeding, with maternity leave, with virtual school for your kids, with pandemic childcare, with working from home, or essential working in public. These things are HARD right now.
- None of this is easy. Reiterate that you ARE doing a good enough job during a situation of nearly complete social isolation. Clearly this is not a normal situation.
- You know that you are always trying to be your best self as a mother. Self-doubt only drags you down. Right about now every mother thinks they are not doing a good enough job, but that’s wrong.
