Motherhood has done a lot of things to me. But turning me into an early riser has not been one of them.
If I were to believe everything the internet has to say, I would think that motherhood = automatic early mornings.
Motherhood has made me a morning person! one blog exclaims. Become a morning person in 5 simple steps! says another.
Whether or not we have children that force us to become early rises, one thing is clear in our inundation with motherhood mornings — moms are supposed to get up early, and if they want to be even better, more productive mothers, they will get up even earlier to get stuff done.
But I’m calling this motherhood bluff. Because you know what? Popping out a few kids (or four, but who’s counting?) has not magically reset my internal clock. I still need sleep, like sleep and resist not getting sleep. That doesn’t mean that I get that sleep, of course, and in fact, I haven’t slept more than a few hours at a time in over four months, which may explain my current obsession with talking about sleep; but the fact of the matter is, I’m sick and tired of hearing that moms need to get up early to “get ahead.”
When you’re already getting up with a baby and toddler four times a night, who the hell wants to get up early to meditate, work out or write in their freaking journal? Not me. I sleep in to the last possible minute and tell myself that in a few years, I can be the most productive sun greeter of them all.
But for now? I’m just going to have to be OK with being a mediocre, morning-hating mom.
In fact, I honestly almost feel like motherhood has made me less of a morning person than I was before, because hands-down, without fail, on those days that I do manage to take the proffered advice to get up and at ’em before the kids?
They will all wake up and proceed to 1) not go to back to sleep 2) puke in the hallway or 3) demand waffles made from scratch.
In a way, it’s almost worse to get up early, gleefully anticipating some solo morning time with my sexy date Mr. Coffee, only to have my hopes and dreams dashed by the evil fruit of my loins. Darn kids.
I’m not saying that I don’t believe I can be more productive by getting up in the morning, because I’ve definitely experienced that on those rare mornings when I’ve been able to fit in a workout or whip out some work while the sun rises. I’m just staying that productivity is not the ultimate goal of every mother.
Sometimes, you have to choose health + sanity over getting more done. Or, in other words, if you need me, I’ll be hiding under my covers. And I may or may not have a few kids in bed with me too, because even if I don’t like getting up early, you know they still will.
So, in that case, I say let’s raise our morning cups of coffee to the god of Netflix and pretend we’re morning people after all.
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