This past week has been a tough one. Baby O. has decided to refuse to sleep at night. This is in addition to he fact that he is a terrible napper. Some have said that he might be teething which is entirely possible but who knows. He’s a social baby who just wants to be where the action is. This has caused his poor mama (that would be me) to lose some incredibly valuable sleep time. By Friday, I was done. Like, stick a fork in me d-o-n-e. I was so overtired that my entire body was throbbing, I felt sick to my stomach and I could barely function. In other words, I didn’t finish my scheduled runs for the week, didn’t keep up with #RWRunStreak and didn’t do much of anything aside from ensure that my kids were fed, breathing, and clean(ish).
And I didn’t much care.
That’s right. No regrets. No “I wish I had done that run, kept that streak, lifted those weights”. All I cared about was getting some sleep. Any sleep would have done me just peachy.
Here’s why I didn’t regret not keeping with my schedule. Working out and pushing when you’re at your limits for exhaustion is not smart. In fact, it’s pretty dumb. And yes, I am allowed to say that because this is experience talking. Any time I have pushed when my body had no push at all in it, I’ve ended up ridiculously sick or ridiculously injured and sidelined for weeks, if not months. I can’t afford to be benched for any length of time. Not only do I have fitness goals to achieve, but I also have kids to care for. Wearing myself to the breaking point and beyond not only means I could get sick/injured, it also means I can’t do things with my kids either.
I will be back to my training plan as soon as I can catch up on sleep (is there a way to bribe a nearly 4 month old to sleep?), which will hopefully be this week.
In the meantime…someone pass me some dang coffee!
Amen. It’s so sad to me how we Americans wear lack of sleep as a badge of honor….
We Canucks are no better. My badge comes out whenever I can proclaim that 8 hours of solid slumber were achieved. (that badge is a bit dusty these days)
I know completely how you feel girl!! Hang in there. Their sleep patterns do tend to change every few weeks. *passes you some coffee*
Thank you! I needed that coffee!!
I completely sympathize – my 9 year old “baby” has been having nightmares every night last week and into this week
Hope your baby starts sleeping again soon!!!!
And I hope yours finds a more restful night very soon! Nightmares are no fun at all
I know what you mean about not getting much sleep! I’m right there with you, our 1-year-old has not been wanting to sleep as much as usual these last few days and even at night. Waking up several times during the night isn’t fun! Hopefully we’ll all be back on schedule this week!
Sleep is one of the most important things we should look at when we are looking at our health.
I have a son who was a terrible sleeper, grew out of naps at 1 and thought waking up every 2 hours at night was normal. We tried everything, it was so hard living with that lack of sleep.
Hope you get a nap today.
Thanks! Neither of my boys are good sleepers it seems. But then, I’ve never been a good sleeper so I shouldn’t be surprised by all this
Good for you for not feeling guilty! Too many moms try to be superwoman and we end up burning ourselves out. I hope baby O gives you some peace this coming week.
I agree – not a thing to feel guilty about. But it is hard to function at peak without enough sleep/rest.
I hope you both have great week!
Steph, so great that you’re listening to your body. There will be time to get your workouts in when baby O is sleeping well. And he will get there, right? (Listen up Baby O, mommy needs her rest!)
Eventually he will sleep. And you’re absolutely right, there will come a time when I won’t have to worry about naps and will be wishing I could have those long sleepless nights of cuddles with my kids back
[...] to the RSS feed for updates on this topic.Powered by WP Greet Box WordPress PluginSo after yesterday’s post about how exhausting the past week has been, I very nearly forgot to get this post and my [...]
I hope that he starts sleeping better for you. So happy to hear that you are listening to your body and know your limits.
I truly believe that if there is one thing that thwarts a mom’s weight loss, it’s sleep (or lack thereof). I am so busy always taking care of the kids that by the time they go to bed, I just want some time to myself to do what I want to do, so I don’t end up going to bed until several hours later. Then I wonder why I’m so tired!
Good for you for recognizing your exhaustion and not pushing your body past its limits. I hope you can get caught up on some rest!
Thank your for being an example of playing it smart in your post-partum/caring for an infant recovery. You will be back to kicking more ass soon.
thanks for sharing your week with us and i hope things get better with the baby