The Challenge
I’m worried I’m going to be a bad example for my kids. I always told myself “when I have kids we have to have FHE (family home evening) EVERY WEEK,” “I want to have family scripture study and prayer NIGHTLY,” and “We have to make it to church ON TIME.” Great goals to have, but how am I going to do that then if I can’t do that now? I want to say I’m a bad mother and I’m not even a mother yet! Oh dear… That’s good for myself esteem. Future kids I’m sorry… I’m trying to get ready and I’m glad you’ll soon forget the bad example I’m being right now.
One of the most difficult things for me to do it wake up. I LOVE sleeping in. Even if it’s just until 9 o’clock it makes a WORLD of a difference. I only have to wake up at 7am 3 days a week for work (the other two days I don’t have to be at work until 1) and I HATE waking up for work during the week. It’s horrible. Sundays, I try to get up by 8 so we can be at church on time at 9… How many times has that happened lately? ONCE!! It’s pathetic. How am I suppose to be able to not only dress myself, but little people for church every week? I can tell now that sleep is going to be my ultimate sacrifice for parenting. Not getting fat, not stretching and ripping Lord knows what body parts. Not reducing my personal time, but SLEEP!
HELP!!
PS: sorry for the second post today, it wasn’t my intent to hog your feeds. This was just a problem for me today as I struggled to put myself together before church and I thought you’d have words of wisdom for next week 🙂
Today is my 4 month anniversary of starting this blog! Woohoo! It’s also time to draw a winner for my 100th post contest. I got sooo much good mommy advice, and ideas for future posts as well as ideas for cute baby boy stuff to give away in the future. Random.org selected number 38 so the lucky winner is *drum roll please*… Pam from Hands on Learning Fun. Who is actually having a giveaway of her own right now so go check it out!
If you missed this giveaway, don’t give up!! I have another one going on right now that ends in a couple of days! So enter away!
Well, as a new mom, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter that you can’t wake up now…because as soon as you have your little one you will not have a choice any more. You will probably be up early because your baby will be up and ready to play early. It is very funny how things change and they change fast! I was the type of person who never thought that it would change much…but it did!
Anyhow, I hope you swing by
http://www.kinderteacher-brandi.blogspot.com
good luck!! lol
Woo Hoo! Thanks for visiting my blog and giving me the fabulous news – I won! LOL Hope you win my Ladybug Literacy Bag giveaway and thanks for the shout out.
Pam
I love sleep too and getting up to go to church on Sundays is tough but I do it because I need it. I’m constantly changing my sleep pattern. When I had school and work my last semester I was up at 5:30am MWF and on TThS at 7am. Sunday was literally my only day to “sleep in” which means I got to stay in bed until 8:30am. It was no fun but I got used to it pretty fast and I definitely went to bed by 11pm. When I don’t have school and my hubby isn’t around (he’s in the Army so he has to get up early and we go to bed together, so it’s usually 10pm when were in bed), like right now, I tend to go to bed late and sleep in but I don’t feel productive when I do that. I hate transitions of going from a period like now of sleeping in to having to get up super early. I’m a pretty grouchy person those times. So when we do decide to have a baby I’ll have to make sure I have good sleep habits before they come! I think that’s one of the hardest parts of having a baby for the first time is the lack of sleep!
We all want to be the perfect mom’s and a good mom is always trying to do better. Still you can’t beat yourself up over everything. I don’t do FHE every Monday night, even though I want to. We don’t read scriptures every morning, even though I want to. And we don’t get to church on time every week either, and right now we start at 1:00 so I have no idea what that’s all about. It’s seriously sad not to make it by 1:00.
You other commenters are right about getting up. When the kids are jumping on your bed, you have to get up. There is no choice in the matter. But if you don’t have to right now, then don’t. Get some sleep now cause you certainly won’t get any with a new baby, or a teenager who has activities until after midnight.
Each stage of life comes with something new and when you get to the children stage you will adapt to whatever you face. I can tell that you will be a good mom because you are concerned about it and you have the desire to take care of your children, teach them the gospel and set an example of righteousness.
Keep thinking about it and start working on one of those areas now. The more you have in place those habits that are positive the better it will be for you as you add children to the picture. But don’t be worried if you aren’t perfect. None of us are!
Ah, you can get used to anything. Believe me, I was the Queen of Sleepin’ Late!
I’m one of those people who also worries about not creating good habits now. Don’t have kids, but I’ve been married for awhile so I’m pretty set in my ways. I’m also a bad morning person. (I swear those who ARE morning people just don’t understand how bad getting up early is for those of us who are NOT morning people.) However, like other commenters have said, I know I’ll be forced to get up early with kids.
What worries me more are the “elective” habits: prayers, FHE, making sure I’m not watching really bad stuff on TV, etc. I’m sure those will be much easier to forego with children, especially when you’re not doing them to begin with.
So, basically, you’re not alone. Those are my brilliant thoughts on this subject. 🙂
My little one loves to sleep in as much as I do, which is a blessing for the sleeping, but not for the getting to church on time. Plus, feeding/nap time always comes right at the same time as church. While I try to get to church on time, we almost never do. And we have church at 1! That’s prob. the real problem.
We hold FHE (for now) on whatever night works best for us. That’s what my parents did too. It’s the family time that matters.
A baby is going to change your entire sleep pattern and way of living. I remember thinking how I as going to do this and that and like they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”. The baby becomes the boss of the house for a little while, but eventually some things will happen the way you want them to. Notice I said “some” things will happen 🙂
I love to sleep and as of Dec 8th it is no more. I used to go to bed around 9 or 9:30 pm, read for awhile and then be sound asleep until 5 the next morning. Now IF I can get 5 hours (at one time) sleep ITS A MIRACLE! To bad you can’t store up the hours now for later…just prepare yourself for being VERY TIRED!
Jen, as much as you want all those things, it won’t happen all the time. I tell my wife 90 minutes before we’re supposed to be at church, “Honey we have 90 minutes, Honey we have 30 minutes” and somehow, we always end up 5 minutes late. I dunno, maybe it’s my fault. Women just take a LONG time to get ready. Throw a baby in that mix and you’re lucky if you make it on time to your own funeral!
Thanks for stopping by my blog during the UBP and the nice comments about my family…
I’ll tell ya, no one loved sleep more than I did back in the day (I say that like my daughter’s 15 instead of 2!) but as much as I loved to sleep once Kassie got here, I knew that there were more important things to do in the morning than get my beauty rest…I’m not saying I don’t miss it and LOVE when my mom takes her overnight so I can catch up a little just that without even realizing or doing anything yourself, your priorities change and all the sleep deprivation is totally worth it!! Don’t sell yourself short before you even become a mom, there’ll be plenty of time for worrying how bad your gonna mess your kids up (that was just a joke!!)…
Sorry this got so long, but I look forward to following you on your journey and will be more than happy to give you the inside scoop…here’s some baby dust for you {sprinkle sprinkle}…good luck!
If you are anything like me you should just accept it now. You will never be on time for anything once you have kids. Even when I’m on the way out the door on time (or oh, my, gosh, EARLY!) without fail… Ana poops… and everything stops to wait for a diaper change. And… if it’s not Ana pooping… it’s Zoe deciding she has to go potty. Or Zoe falls running to the car.
And church… we’re always late. sigh.
I have two kids. I’m late for church pretty much every SUNDAY but we never miss the message , just most of the singing. And I love the worship part too.
The husband will sleep until the very last 15 or 10 mins out the door. I have to wake up two hrs earlier to get kids fed, clean and dressed plus myself. Soon we’ll be having another discussion about this or I’ll just get ready and sit and look at everyone else….whatever happeens something will have to be done.
I promise you. There is something inside you that just comes out naturally for motherhood. It will be like second skin!
So don’t be too hard on yourself.
That fact that you can think about this process before going into it, is great. Of course you’ll still be blindsided by life, but you’ll realize how interesting it adds to your stories 🙂
So sleep now and forever be a zombie 🙂
I’ve already accepted the fact that I will not be a “perfect mom” and my expectations of having FHE every Monday probably won’t happen. All I know is I will be a kick-ass mom no matter what!
I’m not worried about losing sleep either. I am worried about getting rid of the strippers. Kidding! I’m the only stripper in my house!
Don’t set your “mom standard” by going off of other mom standards. Set your own based on your own.
LOL! While I don’t wanna jinx myself, i can pretty much say that we most likely won’t have the worry of being late to church, mostly because hubby will wake u at the crack of dawn to make sure we get to church on time. He CANNOT STAND to be late to church, EVER.
But yea, the sleep thing still scares me to this day. I LOVE to sleep in. But i cant help to think that it would be really nice to wake up to a few bouncing-on-the-bed-smiley-giggley chirren just bubbling for mama and daddy to wake up and spend time with them. 🙂
Sigh, don’t mind me, my baby fever is on high these days (i’m obviously ovulating lol).
Fortunately, I’ve never needed much sleep, but I know it’s been a big adjustment for my husband! you’ll figure it out when you get there, believe me. It’s like a lot of things in mommyhood- it seems totally impossible until you get there, and then you just find yourself doing it automatically!
Thanks for dropping by my blog and your comment. Nice to meet you!
Thanks for stopping by my blog! Don’t worry about the Family time… once you have a little one is seems like it just ends up working out… and I have very similar sleep needs… God really blessed me with a kiddo who likes to sleep in a little too. I cant sleep past nine anymore but somedays I will get a good 8:30a out of her! Ha! Looking forward to reading more of your blog!
I must say that I love your blog! Hilarious. 🙂 Let’s just say that God prepares you for all of that and then some. You’ll be just fine. 🙂
I still feel like this, but you know I just take it one day at a time and really try to be better at it all. It eventually pays off and you slowly start to do the things you wanted. You will be just fine, don’t worry, just don’t give up.
I have always had trouble waking up too. I have a 16 month old and she likes to sleep in too, perhaps you’ll get lucky like me! She slept in til noon yesterday
You keep bringing this up so I’m going to finally comment. I know, you really care.
When My first was a baby, he would sleep in his own bed. When he’d wake up at 6:30, which was so annoying, I’d pull him into bed, nurse him and he would sleep for another hour or two. It was wonderful. When he got old enough to eat food, about a year, I would sit him in his high chair with a leftover pancake or oatmeal and he would eat. It would give me an extra half hour or so of sleep.
Currently I sleep until 8:30 or 9:00. My dh gets up and gets the kids breakfast. When he leaves, my 5 year old entertains my 17 month old until she is bored and she comes whining to me. I give her her binky and put her in bed with me. She falls back to sleep and I get an extra hour. It’s wonderful! You lose sleep for some time, but you can have ways to get more sleep when they’re older.
Am I bad mom? I don’t know, but I get the sleep I need because I’m up too late spending that time with my dh.
Sunday mornings, my dh baths and dresses the kids. I do my daughters hair and get myself ready. maybe I’m just spoiled, but he seems to like doing this. I do make breakfast, but I don’t think I get up before 9:00 on Sundays because he just lets me sleep (we have church at 1:00). Oh yea, we’re always late. I’m not very good at the scripture reading every day, family prayer every day. A few months ago we decided trying to do everything at once wasn’t doing us any good. We would just quit. We decided to start with one thing, for us it was FHE. It’s once a week and an easier thing to make habit. It’s finally habit and I’m figuring out what to add next.
I just think it’s easier to make things habits if you do them one at a time and not all at once. Kind of like all the things you want to do before having babies.
I must say that I love your blog! Hilarious. 🙂 Let’s just say that God prepares you for all of that and then some. You’ll be just fine. 🙂
My little one loves to sleep in as much as I do, which is a blessing for the sleeping, but not for the getting to church on time. Plus, feeding/nap time always comes right at the same time as church. While I try to get to church on time, we almost never do. And we have church at 1! That’s prob. the real problem.
We hold FHE (for now) on whatever night works best for us. That’s what my parents did too. It’s the family time that matters.
A baby is going to change your entire sleep pattern and way of living. I remember thinking how I as going to do this and that and like they say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans”. The baby becomes the boss of the house for a little while, but eventually some things will happen the way you want them to. Notice I said “some” things will happen 🙂
Woo Hoo! Thanks for visiting my blog and giving me the fabulous news – I won! LOL Hope you win my Ladybug Literacy Bag giveaway and thanks for the shout out.
Pam
We all want to be the perfect mom’s and a good mom is always trying to do better. Still you can’t beat yourself up over everything. I don’t do FHE every Monday night, even though I want to. We don’t read scriptures every morning, even though I want to. And we don’t get to church on time every week either, and right now we start at 1:00 so I have no idea what that’s all about. It’s seriously sad not to make it by 1:00.
You other commenters are right about getting up. When the kids are jumping on your bed, you have to get up. There is no choice in the matter. But if you don’t have to right now, then don’t. Get some sleep now cause you certainly won’t get any with a new baby, or a teenager who has activities until after midnight.
Each stage of life comes with something new and when you get to the children stage you will adapt to whatever you face. I can tell that you will be a good mom because you are concerned about it and you have the desire to take care of your children, teach them the gospel and set an example of righteousness.
Keep thinking about it and start working on one of those areas now. The more you have in place those habits that are positive the better it will be for you as you add children to the picture. But don’t be worried if you aren’t perfect. None of us are!