Accepting the Impact of Fatigue on Wellbeing
There is lots of recognition about the challenges of working shift work. Who hasn’t heard about how hard it would be to drive a truck. Long hours driving day and night, concentration, isolation and no rest breaks. In return you get paid, have days off and over time. Early motherhood was once described to me as a combination of your worst hangover combined with jet lag, without the fun night out or travel to make it all worthwhile. Long days and nights caring for a baby often leads to cumulative fatigue. The body is also recovering from pregnancy and birth, yet you are on call to the needs of your baby. Prior to children you had more control over catching up on sleep or taking timeout for yourself to recharge.
Without opportunity to rest it becomes harder to think clearly, energy levels drop and overall life satisfaction is harder to achieve. Sometimes that leads to feelings of guilt that you should be feeling grateful that you have a healthy baby. That’s hard to do when you simply aren’t getting enough sleep. At the end of the day we are all human and most people require a minimum of 7 hours sleep a night to function.
It is useful to think about ways to cope whether it be taking rests during the day, asking partner or a support person to help you out and scheduling in down time to have a cup of tea or catch up on your latest Netflix series. Everyone hopes for a baby that quickly learns to sleep through the night. It is normal for babies to wake for feeding and settling. Finding some level of acceptance for broken sleep and developing a routine that accommodates for fatigue helps you sustain the challenges of living in a state of sleep deprivation. This may mean reviewing usual domestic standards, complexity of food preparation, number of visitors and asking for help. This may be unfamiliar territory. Everything seems more manageable when you’ve had enough sleep and that’s why we can go longer without eating then sleeping. I have seen many high achievers struggle with accepting the limits of early motherhood fatigue. Old habits die hard, even in the face of all the signs pointing to the need to modify expectations. For more information on coping check out my services listed on my web site.
Photo by Claudia Soraya on Unsplash
