Children, wakeful

So, last night my new visual schedules and blackout curtains proved the kiss of death.  Myself and MrFour have been awake since 4.30am.  He had a snooze in the car but I thought I’d better not since I was driving.

Disturbed sleep and early mornings have been a big feature of the last 14 years of pregnancies and parenting.  In the early days I dealt with it all very badly, I was quite obsessive about sleep or lack of it, and I’m sure that contributed quite a bit to the time I got bad PND.  (NB not so much the lack of sleep as the distress I felt about it, it ground me down.)

I learned to deal with it all better when pregnant with the twins; 4am was my usual wake up time for ages and ages.  I taught myself a little mantra which I would repeat endlessly throughout the day, especially when self-pity (my old, so destructive pal) started to skulk around.

The mini-mantra goes:

“I’m going to have a lovely early night tonight, I’m going to have a lovely early night tonight.”

Repeat 8 million times.

And repeating and repeating that has really helped me over these past few years.  It’s a bit of simple looking forward to the self-care to come.   And I have become ruthless at cancelling evening activities on those days that just start too early.

So that mantra has been with me all day today… and it’s been a really hectic, unusual day as well.  I’ve added a wee bit as Thursdays are my one appointment-to-view night at the moment; the mantra is going.

“I’m going to have a lovely early night tonight, but first I’m going to curl up on the sofa and watch “Rake” on the ABC with one huge glass of wine.”

Repeat 8 million times… the mantra not the wine drinking.

So only dinner, bath, twins’ bedtime and big boys homework to get through first.  Beauty!   Oh yes and tending husband who is on the sofa feeling poorly, so sorry for himself and with just the Ashes to console him.

How do you deal with life little early morning wake up calls???

Revisiting this post for Dimishing Lucy’s Drab to Fab… my wee mantra can keep me fab on dreary days when drab might beckon!

Who loves the smell of Vicks?! Read about how Vicks saved the day for us recently right here.