Self-care is not selfish

                                            Fresh air and sunshine makes a mommy happy

                                           

Dear Mommies,

A tweet inspired this post.

“Self-care is not selfish.”

It’s true, but the difficulty all mommies face, is actually doing true self-care. We take care of everyone, our own needs usually come last. We are the most run down, most stressed-out member of the family. Sure, you may have taken your little guy in for his third ear infection of the year, but I’m willing to bet you’re not feeling so good yourself.

Self-care doesn’t mean that you grab the girls and head for the spa for a relaxing weekend of pampers—although that sounds wonderful! It’s not buying a new pair of shoes, an expensive bottle of wine or going platinum blond. Those are treats—which you deserve—but not the regular care that you need and must have!

Self-care is going to bed early once a week to grab an extra hour of sleep. Self-care is a daily multi-vitamin for women. Self-care is a water bottle in the car at all times, a 10-minute power walk, decent lip balm or moisturizer and mindful breathing. Self-care is saying no to that volunteer request, because you’re already doing three things on the same day. And saying no to the donuts that are offered as breakfast—where are the strawberries?

In essence, self-care is the mind-body-soul balance that mommies need to take care of themselves to take care of others. Sounds simple, but it’s tough to do. Although I promise you, one little change (like an extra hour of sleep) will make a big difference.

Relax Mommies, you’ve got this.

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!