The Elusive Sleep...

zzz... Getting More of the All Elusive Sleep as a New Mom!

The other night, I stayed up far later than normal to watch a movie that, if I'd thought about it much, was not really worthy of losing sleep over. Clearly, I wasn't thinking about getting through Sunday morning bootcamp when I was stretching my bedtime! The workout turned out to be far more difficult than it should have been if I'd gone to bed at the proper time.

I come from a family of women who complain about being tired ALL THE TIME, no matter how much sleep we've had. My mother, my grandmother, my aunts, my sisters, me. Over the years, I've found I feel a little less tired when I'm exercising regularly. This was especially true in my blurry sleep deprived years of babies and young children.

When you don't get enough sleep:

1. Your muscle tissue takes longer to repair since you're getting less of the deep sleep required to deliver the appropriate amount of oxygen and nutrients to heal your muscles.
2. Your energy levels are lower since your body isn't functioning optimally.
3. Your midsection holds more fat around it due to higher levels of the stress hormone, cortisol.
4. Your cognitive and emotional facilities can become compromised.
5. Your desire to be intimate with your partner is lessened.

After you've had your baby, there are a few things you can do to help:

1. Sleep when your baby sleeps. Wasn't this the first piece of unsolicited advice you received as soon as you announced you were pregnant? It sounds annoying, but it can be very helpful for new moms.
2. Commit to a regular exercise routine. It helps you fall asleep faster and helps create smoother transitions between your normal sleep/wake cycles in the night, meaning you won't wake up as easily in the night.
3. Restrict caffeine. This may seem counterintuitive when you're so tired, but it truly helps! Remember that there's caffeine in many drinks and foods that we forget about - tea, chocolate, soft drinks and coffee flavoured foods, such as yogurt and ice cream, to name a few. Too much caffeine can wreck havoc on your sleep at night.
4. Go to bed earlier than you normally would - even half an hour earlier can make a difference.

For me, not getting enough sleep on any given night means I'm irritable the next day (which impacts others!). It means that I'm really tired and generally quite unproductive. It means that I feel like I have no energy to exercise and I'll likely talk myself out of it every time. It means I hit the mid-afternoon slump hard. If it goes on for more than a night and it's combined with stress, it means I'll suffer from headaches that I can't get rid of until I actually sleep them off.

In my pre-children days, my greatest worry about having kids was not getting enough sleep. Of course, it happened, but I was surprised at how well I managed during those early years, by implementing some of the suggestions above. Even today, when my kids are great sleepers (lots of sleep training FINALLY paid off!), I still employ many of the same strategies to get enough sleep, as I prefer the feeling of being awake and alert and not sleepy and unproductive (don't we all!). Which means I rarely stay up half the night reading a good book or watching a not so great movie... Well, maybe I do it sometimes!