Peace & Quiet

Dear Mommies,

The one thing you need this Christmas, you won’t get.

Sleep.

Oh, I know you’ll try, but I have a feeling that like me, you’ll have a ton of last minute things to do and gifts to wrap and cookies to box, and so on…And sleep will be put on the back burner. You’ll promise yourself that you’ll catch up on sleep after the holidays. You promise yourself lots of naps on the snowy days to come. And you promise you’ll finally feel refreshed when you wake up.

Right.

The problem with that plan is that the holidays merge into the new year. Like a race car. And the craziness doesn’t end. You’ll still have the day to day busy-ness of kids and house and heaven help us, the pets.

My advice (and I promise to take it myself), is to go to bed early. As much as you can. Wake up early if you still have lots to do. But it’s better to go to bed early, than to wake up late. You can’t catch up on sleep by sleeping later in the morning. And it’s impossible to do with toddlers. Because of our bodies’ sleep-wake cycles and hormones we can’t get any of those hours back. The late night feedings, colic and/or fevers that keep our babies restless, take away any sort of rest we may try to bank in our sleep savings account. Add in stress, and it’s an instant recipe for sleep deprivation.

The reason I’m pushing for sleep is that it the lack of it ruins your day, makes you irritable, foggy and forgetful. It should be a vitamin that we can just swallow with water. Like time—we really can’t get any of it back.

So this Christmas, give yourself the gift of sleep. Early to bed—that means before 10:00pm!

Relax mommies, you’ve (yawn) got this!