Who doesn’t want a glorious, uninterrupted 7-8, maybe 10 hours of sleep per night? Not only because feeling rested is a good feeling, but all of the health and psychological benefits that come with it. If only babies got the memo about that! When you have young children or even when you have older children, sleep is a commodity you will find exceptionally precious.
Being able to catch up on sleep is something that you have to consider, but as a parent who is possibly also working, it’s not easy to come by. It’s not just about the sleep anxiety that you’ll have when your baby or your toddler is interrupting your sleep, but if you can’t get that solid block you’re going to end up feeling haggard, worn out and unable to function, so here are the ways that you can catch up on your sleep so that you feel like you’re a human being again.
- Schedule yourself a reverse sleep in. A luxurious lay-in may be a completely distant memory for you, but you can advocate yourself for a reverse sleep in order to reclaim your hours. Once your kids go to preschool, take yourself home and get back into bed as soon as you are able to do so. If you’re not working on a particular day, there is nothing wrong with spending your time sleeping and catching up so that you feel rested. It may feel like a luxury to hop back into bed as soon as the kids are away for the day, and it is, but you get to claim those lost hours that you may have missed the night before. Even if all you do is rest rather than sleep, that’s usually enough to make your body feel good again.
- Be strategic with your naps. Sometimes all you need is a quick 20 minute nap to reap the benefits of that sleep. Kicking back as soon as your kids go down for a nap is a smart idea. If you work from home on your lunch break, recline your chair, put your feet up and put an alarm on for 20 minutes. That lost 20 minutes can be everything you need to catch up on the night before. Just be very careful that you don’t sink into a deep sleep. Otherwise you might find your boss phoning you, or the kids awake, or the alarm going off at 5:00 in the afternoon because everybody’s hungry.
- Find a relaxing exercise to invest in. Sometimes you can’t sleep during the day. Not everybody is able just to nap or reclaim that lost sleep, but you can reclaim your rest. Exercise isn’t often a restful activity, but yoga, Pilates, and other shorter meditative exercises are. They can make you feel good in your body so that at least when you do try to sleep, the sleep that you do get matters.
Sleep is not something to mess around with, so if you have the opportunity to catch up then you should absolutely do so.
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