If you have kids, do you ever look back your single years or the time before having kids and regret that you didn’t take better care of yourself? Do you see the difference between the same age-old people than you are who doesn’t have kids and the ones who have kids? I do, all the time. The ones who don’t have kids look younger and healthier and the ones having kids look tired. That’s my observation. You don’t know the changes before everything changes. The most radical thing that changes when you have kids is sleep. That’s something you can’t affect much. The baby in the house is the boss who decides when you sleep and how much you sleep. Everything else comes after that. And you can’t prepare for that.
When I was an athlete I remember being very strict with my bedtime. I got mad if someone didn’t let me sleep enough or if someone interrupted my sleep. I had to get at least eight and a half hours of sleep every night. If I was training harder than usual I needed even more sleep. I was very upset if someone distracted my sleep. This was my routine for many years and it was hard to change my habits after I quit competing.
My sleeping habits changed quite radically when I started my job as a flight attendant. It was hard to keep the bedtime same because sometimes I got to sleep only for three hours a night and continued working. Or sometimes I had night shifts that I couldn’t sleep during the night at all. But I was okay with it because I enjoyed my job and I could recover from the night shifts on my own time before I needed to work again.
When I still didn’t have kids the biggest thing I heard parents complaining was the sleep. The parents around me were exhausted because they didn’t get enough sleep. I remember thinking that someday I want to be a mom too but I want my kids to sleep well. How little I knew back then. Even the idea of not getting enough sleep made me angry and frustrated. I didn’t know that you can get used to being tired and soon you don’t even know how did it feel when you are recovered.
When I was pregnant people advised me to sleep now when I can. That’s the dumbest advice I’ve heard. Like you could put your sleep in the storage and take extra energy whenever you need it (I wish!). Well, turned out that even if that would have been possible to store your sleep during pregnancy, I couldn’t do it. I guess the body prepares itself for what’s coming because my sleep started to be bad already two months before the baby was born. I couldn’t sleep very well and kept waking up during the night, especially in my third trimester when my belly was so big.
Before my baby was born I had no idea how tired a human can be. And it was the most crucial thing when I was tired my baby didn’t let me sleep. Somehow I survived the lack of sleep for her first year. It took me six months to learn to sleep through the night again while my baby learned to do that when she was six months old.
The second baby gave me an even harder time. She didn’t let me sleep for nine months and after that, I couldn’t sleep for the next nine months. Then she started to wake up again during nights.
Learning to sleep again has been the most difficult thing for me. I went to get help from many professionals but I didn’t get any help. I just was too stressed and my body needed to reset. I tried everything but nothing worked. The worst thing was when I could see and hear from everywhere how sleep is so important and how it affects your health in the future. It felt like a punishment for me because I had lost my ability to sleep again. My sleep was so shallow that I could wake up for all the smallest sounds and couldn’t fall asleep for a long time after that. My body was constantly alert.
I don’t know how other parents feel about sleep, but for me, the importance of sleep has changed. My biggest dream is to sleep well and get enough sleep every night. When the basic things in life are not in balance you start dreaming about them. I value sleep high. If I don’t sleep enough I feel angry and I get annoyed very easily. I become the person I don’t want to be. Even if I eat healthily and take all the supplements, they don’t work if my body can’t recover.
Finally after two years of stress, my body gave up and I got a really high fever. I couldn’t do anything else than just rest. I was laying on the couch for three days and my husband took care of everything. Boy, that felt good not to do anything! But it took me a week to recover from that illness and I started to sleep well again after many years. I feel like I used to feel before having kids (almost..). But my biggest dream has come true now when I can sleep through the nights again!
So the body eventually gives up when you don’t know how to do it. I never understand how kids can wake up during nights and they still have so much energy during the days. When we adults do the same, we are not doing good, we’re out of the game.
I’ve learned to appreciate my sleep more and more. I try not to drink coffee after noon anymore and making sure not to do any exercises after 7 pm to interrupt my sleep and I go to bed at 10 pm latest if it’s possible.
If you’re struggling with your sleep, give your body a break and listen to what it needs. Do some light exercises like walking, hiking, yoga or what ever feels good. Stop reading things that stresses you out. Go to the nature and start noticing things around you.
Many doctors don’t know how to help with sleep problems and that’s so frustrating. I try avoid any medications because I have only bad experiences of them. I think they are just quick fixes and don’t actually heal the problem. So my advice for that is to stop stressing about your sleeplessness and try to focus on good things in your life. Your body will put itself to recover if you’re not able to. But don’t force it, like I did because it doesn’t work. When everything else in your life is in balance, your body will remember how to recover again. That is what happened to me. Sleep well and be good to yourself ❤️.
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