Clever Tips for Exhausted Moms

As a mom of four littles under six (yes I had four kids in five years!) I know how exhausting raising littles can be! The sleepless nights, the midnight feedings, the middle of the night accidents and wake ups, they all take a toll on us- mentally, emotionally and physically. In this blog post I am breaking down actions you can take to get some rest and feel replenished. 

Tips when you are Exhausted (in general)

When I am exhausted, I use what I can to help me throughout the day! Take these tips and tricks and use them if they feel aligned or pick and choose which ones you like! We are all doing our best raising our littles and these have helped me when the sleepless nights have me feeling like a total mom-zombie. 

• Tell your littles

  • The first thing I will do is tell them I am tired. That way they know from the get go that I am not at 100% mom mode and maybe (not always) give me a small break and get along :)

• Ask for what you need

  • I am a big believer in asking for what I need with my littles. I will say “I need some space for a minute, can you go play?” or I will tell them “I need a break, I am going to sit in X room for a few minutes.” Not only is this giving you what you need but you are also modeling for your littles how to show what you need and ask for it. This is SO powerful for everyone involved. 

• Use what you have!

  • I am not above TV time when I am tired. It is basically how I survived the days of four littles and a pandemic. I know that screen time can be a controversial topic but if I am tired, I have no issue putting them in front of a movie and resting in another room so I can feel replenished for a bit. Whether you prefer TV, tablets or video games--use what you have to work for you. If you have a little who doesn’t have the attention span for a movie, attempt to rest when they rest or nap. I know that can get tricky but the point is to get you some rest while still being on mom-duty. 

• Ask for help

  • I am blessed and my family is close. If there is a day where I need a nap/break, I will ask for help. Whether that be my in laws taking them or my husband stepping in during his lunch so I an lay down for 30 minutes. Also, consider a swap with other mom friends and see if they can watch your kids for an afternoon and then another time you can watch hers. There is nothing like a supportive mom friend to get you through the harder days. 

• Avoid the Blue Light

  • When you are tired, it is easier to numb out on our phones. Consider not using your phone when you are exhausted so that the blue light doesn’t mess with your circadian rhythm. The last thing you want is to lay your head down on your pillow at night and not be able to sleep because you were exposed to too much blue light before bed!

Tips When You Are Mentally Exhausted

When you are mentally exhausted by motherhood, try incorporating meditation! Meditating for me is a time where I quiet my mind, focus on breathing and listen to calming music. Many times I lay down for 5 minutes during our “quiet time” after lunch. Sometimes my daughter joins me and sometimes it doesn’t last more than a minute. Meditating can be a walk looking at nature and being present. Meditating can be driving and looking for the beautiful things around you. Meditating can be sitting on a comfy pillow and focusing on your breathing. Meditating is an opportunity to quiet the chaos and be in the present moment--however that looks and feels for you.

Tips for When You Are Emotionally Exhausted

When you are emotionally exhausted, let the emotion out! When most of us were raised, we were told “you are fine! Stop crying! Big kids don’t cry.” When really, letting the emotion out is SO important. When you feel emotionally exhausted, let the emotion out! Scream into your pillow, hit your bed or cry in the shower. This is called somatic releasing and is a healthy way for you to get that emotional energy out of your body. There is NO shame in crying or screaming- it allows all that emotion to pass through your body rather than get stuck and create dis-ease within your body. 

Tips For When You Are Physically Exhausted

When your body is physically tapped out, you need to listen to it. Ask for help, hire a babysitter for an afternoon or ask a friend to step in. It is ok to rest--it is needed and so often we dismiss our needs for the sake of others. If you read my blog post about 16 habits of Happy, Vibrant Moms, you know how I feel about this! If you can’t get someone to help so you can rest, once your littles are asleep, you go to sleep too! Skip dishes, laundry, and all the other tasks we have for a day so you can catch up and feel refreshed! 

That is why I put together a short mini-course that helps you learn about yourself AND your little! When we understand each other, parenting goes smoother and becomes fun rather than a chore! Take the guess work out of parenting to make your life easier.

Aligned Parent Mini-Course is an easy and quick way to set yourself up for parenting success and change the way you act and communicate with your littles! What if you understood your child’s the fundamental reasons for why your kid is the way he/she is? There is a module on Temperament! Or do you know what your parenting style is and the different types? There is a module explaining and breaking it down for you! This mini-course will give you valuable and insightful knowledge that will change your parenting forever.

For $22 you get six mini-lessons that cover areas in development, parenting styles, discipline, challenging behaviors, temperament, and characteristics of strong families. With included workbooks you will be able to answer questions, take notes, and retain the information provided.

ALIGNED PARENTS MINI-COURSE

I believe parenting should be a fun and happy experience and sometimes that means digging deeper into ourselves and learning more! Helping burnt out moms is my passion because once upon a time, I was just like you! And if you want to take your burnout even farther, check out my FREE video training on Stop Yelling at Your Littles. 

3 Sanity Saving Secrets for the Mom Meltdown

We ALL have those days where our littles are driving us up the wall and we are about to lose our sh!t! The whining, the fighting, the nagging, the mooooooom 1,000x within an hour, the demands for another snack while their lunch is sitting uneaten on the plate...and you feel it all. The frustration, annoyance, anger and exhaustion are all just bubbling up to the surface and you aren’t sure you can keep it together for much longer. Well, I am here to tell you that you don’t have to!

You have entered Mom Meltdown territory and I am going to share my secrets to avoiding it! In this blog post I am going to share my 3 secrets to avoiding the mom meltdown and how to use them in everyday mom life. 

Secret #1

Name your emotion. When you feel like you are about to lose your sh!t as a mom, start to name your emotion. What are you feeling? What emotion is it? What caused that emotion to rise up the surface? Where do you feel this emotion in your body right now? These questions all create awareness. Awareness is crucial because it allows you to be present and acknowledge yourself in that moment. Just like I talked about in this blog post about tantrums-- you want to acknowledge their feelings-- you also need to acknowledge yours!

Secret #2

Embrace and express your emotion. You heard me right, embrace your emotion. You feel angry-- let yourself really feel that anger. Where is it in your body? How does it feel in your body? How does your body want to release that anger? When we feel an emotion, it is our job to process it and allow it to pass through. When we feel a negative emotion such as anger or frustration, we need to process it in a safe and effective way. A way to do this is through somatic expression- expressing your emotions by letting them come to the surface and feeling them. Screaming into a pillow, hitting a couch cushion, jumping up and down and shaking your body, and crying are all ways to get that emotion out. Now before you think I am crazy for suggesting these things, think about this! When our littles are throwing an epic tantrum and they are kicking and screaming on the floor and then all the sudden they get up and go back to playing like nothing happened, they are literally doing this! They don’t know and live by “social norms” and haven’t been condition yet to “bottle up their emotions” They are SO smart that they know they have these feelings inside their body that they need to get out and they do it-- even if we don’t love the tantrum, I can respect the need to get those feelings expressed. It is the same for us, we need to express it. It can feel weird and you can think it is silly but I promise you it works and it is life changing when you allow yourself to feel and express your emotions in a safe way. 

Secret #3

Use your body. We just talked about how powerful expressing our emotions with our body is. Our lungs and their function within our body is SO important. Breathing is the quickest and easiest way to calm ourselves when we feel a rush of emotion. Most of us are all breathing short and shallow-- rarely filling up our lungs and actually taking a deep breath. When you feel that anger, frustration, annoyance come on, name it and use your body. Start taking deep breaths. My favorite breathing technique when I am frustrated is to box breathe. Box breathing is taking a breath in for 10, hold for 10, release for 10 and hold for 10. Essentially creating a box. Not only is this calming your sympathetic nervous system but it is also an amazing model to show your littles. They see that when you feel frustrated, you breathe and they learn to do it too. I promise this one secret can change your life. 

When you feel the Mom Meltdown start, come back to these steps and start caring for yourself right away! If you’re like me and want to go deeper, I have the thing just for you! 

That is why I put together a short mini-course that helps you learn about yourself AND your little! When we understand each other, parenting goes smoother and becomes fun rather than a chore!

Aligned Parent Mini-Course is an easy and quick way to set yourself up for parenting success and change the way you act and communicate with your littles! What if you understood your child’s the fundamental reasons for why your kid is the way he/she is? There is a module on Temperament! Or do you know what your parenting style is and the different types? There is a module explaining and breaking it down for you! This mini-course will give you valuable and insightful knowledge that will change your parenting forever.

For $22 you get six mini-lessons that cover areas in development, parenting styles, discipline, challenging behaviors, temperament, and characteristics of strong families. With included workbooks you will be able to answer questions, take notes, and retain the information provided.

ALIGNED PARENTS MINI-COURSE

I believe parenting should be a fun and happy experience and sometimes that means digging deeper into ourselves and learning more! Helping burnt out moms is my passion because once upon a time, I was just like you! And if you want to take your burnout even farther, check out my FREE video training on Stop Yelling at Your Littles. 

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How to Avoid Mom Burnout (forever)

7 Steps to Avoid Overwhelm in Motherhood

Today I Yelled at My Littles

This afternoon was tough. Hence the name of this post. As I've been navigating my stay at home mom journey, I make it a point to not raise my voice or yell at my littles. Most of the time, I do a good job with this but to put it bluntly, today sucked.

Let me start with Attley. Oh this sweet girl. She is fierce in her emotions and she is constantly telling me how she feels (by screaming). Now that she is mobile and crawling all over our dirty floors, she is my shadow. Once she catches up to me, she then precedes to wind herself around my legs, in her (not so subtle) attempt to get me to pick her up because my left hip is her preferred hangout spot. If I ignore her cat like tendencies, she then starts to scream and boy does this girl have some strong vocal cords.  This is usually the point where I give in and pick her up. Because to be honest I can't stand to listen to her scream and have those big blue eyes full of crocodile tears. And if I am even more honest, this little demanding monster I have created is my fault. She loves to be held and she especially loves to be held by me. But you know what you guys?? I couldn't hold her for the first 5 weeks of her life. She was tethered to cords and monitors. Constant beeping sounds, strangers coming in and out of her room, and everyone telling you what is best. The first few weeks, I had to get permission from nurses to hold my own little girl. So, yea, I am going to pick her up is she wants to be held. The tough part is managing her needs and my desire to get something done without my arm burning from her 18 pound little body.

This afternoon I was attempting to make some soft fries for Attley because we are having some feeding issues with her...I won’t get into it now but I am trying to darnedest to get this girl to eat a variety of foods. But while I was cooking, Attley had other ideas...she wanted to be held. It got to the point where I knew we needed to get out of the house and go for a walk. I set her down and she immediately started to scream. And I yelled back. I am not proud but ugh..I just needed 30 seconds to get the fries out of the oven so I wouldn’t burn the house down while we were gone. I yelled “Attley! Stop crying, you are fine!” and then I felt guilty. She doesn’t know better...I mean I kinda think she knows how to “play me” but she is 11 months so I should be more patient. Once I was got her coat and shoes on, I apologized, saying I was sorry for raising my voice but it gets hard to hold her all the time. Did she know what I was saying? Probably not, but it made me feel better to calmly voice my frustrations and explain why I can’t always do what she wants.

And now enter Emmett. This little has been testing my patience lately. He wants help with EVERYTHING. (Yes, this needed to be in shouty capitals) Things he knows how to do and can do independently, he is constantly asking for help. Since I was frazzled with things with Attley, I asked Emmett to get his jacket and shoes. He got his jacket and asked for help to put it on, which I did (the sleeves were inside out). Next up were the shoes. Emmett has crocs and knows how to put them on the correct feet but for some reason today he couldn’t do it. He started whining and putzing around the mudroom while I am holding a wiggly Attley.  I just wanted to go outside and get some fresh air! My frustration was building and it boiled over.  I told Emmett to find his other shoe, put it on, and come outside. I took Attley out and got the stroller set up and her situated. I went back in to check on Emmett and I caught him red handed playing with the foaming hand sanitizer that I use when we come home from germy places (aka everywhere) and I got mad and yelled. Again. Strike two for this momma.

I took a deep breath and got down to his level and explained that I am feeling frustrated. I continued to explain how we are going on a walk and to do that Emmett needed to put his shoes on. Together we found his other shoe and he put it on and off we went.

It literally took me our entire 30 minute walk to calm down and shake off the previous few hours. I was in such an icky head space. Negative emotion after negative emotion was churning through my brain. And then I remembered something Tony Robbins said in August. He said that you can’t feel gratitude for something and feel a negative emotion at the same time. So I started listing off 10 things about Emmett I was grateful for and 10 things for Attley. Slowly, I started to feel better. I started to lose the ickiness of the afternoon and see some of the beauty. I feel so blessed to be home and I tend to feel such guilt for having a bad day but I think that is there is beauty in the ugliness if we are willing and open to look for it.

Why Start a Blog?

Why start a blog? I have been wresteling with this question for some time. When starting something new there are obvious doubts, 'there are millions of blogs out there' or 'are my thoughts important to share with the world?' But I kept circling back to October 5th, 2016 to find my answer and the courage to start The Abundant Momma.

-- 

On October 5th, 2016, my water broke at 26.6 weeks and my entire life changed.

While working the day before, I started to experience severe leg pain on the insides of both legs. Walking and stairs were painful and I called my clinic and they suggested I get checked out at the Maternal Assessment Center at the hospital. At the hospital, baby looked normal and there was nothing out of the ordinary, so I was sent home.

After a night's sleep, I woke up telling myself I was going to take it “easy” at work. When you work in a special education classroom, this is pretty much impossible, but I was determined to do less bending and chasing kids and try to take it easy.

I stuck to my plan. That morning I told my staff I was going to try and not push myself. My team helped me move things around so that I would not need to bend as much. I felt good about my decision to take it easy. 

The morning start off as usual, but at 9:30 when I started to teach, I felt a tiny gush of fluid. My first reaction was telling myself that this is normal. (If you are a mother reading this and you have had a child, you know that all sorts of stuff comes out of there at any given moment, pregnant or not.) Just to be on the safe side, I went to the bathroom at 10:00 to make sure that it was nothing out of the usual and everything checked out fine.

Around 11:00 I felt another tiny gush that made my undies just a tiny bit damp.  I went to the bathroom again and everything seemed fine but I started thinking that maybe my water had broke. I dismissed the thought immediately.  I was 26.6 weeks pregnant, my water couldn’t be broken.

At 12:20, I went to lunch and texted my husband. I told him, “I think my water might have broken, but I can’t be for sure.” He sent a series of texts asking me to be careful, take it easy, and to keep him updated. 

So, I continued to eat my lunch and chat casually with my co-workers that I had just met in September. As I was sitting there, it happened. A big gush of fluid came out. It was enough to soak my pants and the chair I was sitting in.

I panicked. I didn’t know these people enough to have them help me or to tell them that my water broke WAY too early. So, I didn’t. I calmly took my sweatshirt off, tied it casually around my waist, gathered my lunch things and abruptly stood.  I pushed my chair in and walked briskly out of the staff lounge.

As I was walking down to my classroom, I felt a larger gush of fluid.  A co-worker I didn’t know all that well must have seen the look of panic on my face and asked if I was OK. I told her no, my water just broke and I needed Erin, my co-worker who I was close to. She assisted me to my classroom and I went in to tell my staff.

I stated that my water broke and there was a flurry of activity. They helped me gather my things while I called Matt crying to tell him that my water did in fact break. By that time, more staff had arrived and a wheelchair was brought to me so I could go upstairs to the nurse's office to wait for Matt to get me.

The astringent smell of the nurses office will forever scar me to this day. I laid on the cot waiting for Matt while a million thoughts buzzed through my head. The Associate Principal at my school, came in and asked how I was doing. She was 39 weeks pregnant and I told her with tears streaming down my face that this should be her. It was too early for my water to break. Matt finally arrived and I was assisted into our car.

When in the car, I called my clinic to tell them what happened. When I told them, the woman’s response was “Are you sure your water broke?” It was hard not to scream at her. “YES my water broke, my pants are soaked to my ankles lady!” But I calmly told her, “Yes I am sure.” She told us to go to the Maternal Assessment Center at the hospital and get checked out. They would send my information to the hospital so they were prepared when we arrived.  So, to the hospital we went.

We finally arrived at the hospital and started to walk to the emergency room. As we were walking, more and more water kept coming out, making my anxiety climb higher and higher. Matt located a wheelchair and got me to the assessment center. We got buzzed in and went to the desk.

We were greeted by a lady who asked us what brought us in. I replied that my water had broken and that my clinic should have sent my information over. She looked for the paperwork while replying that all of their assessment rooms were full at the moment. I looked at her, feeling more and more frustrated and said that I would really appreciate a room because my pants were soaked. She looked over the counter and said that she would find something.

We were brought to a labor and delivery room, where a nurse came in and asked us what brought us in. Again, I replied that my water had broken. She said they would assess me and casually asked me how many weeks along I was. When I replied “27 weeks” (apparently you should never round up when counting how far along you are), all hell broke loose. She hit a button and replied “I’ll be right back” while bolting out of the room.

Soon after, we had a gaggle of nurses and hospital staff in the room, hooking up monitors, asking me questions, and starting an IV. The nurse hooking up the IV complained that my veins were very small and not suitable. I had no reply to this (like what do you say to that?) Then we were informed that the hospital we were at does not admit babies under 30 weeks. Ooooook then.

They explained that we would need to be transferred to a hospital in Minneapolis that has an antepartum unit and extensive Neonatal Intensive Care Unit or NICU. After the flurry of activity, we were told that my doctor was paged and she should be coming to explain our next steps.

While we were waiting again, they monitored my contractions and pumped me full of magnesium (apparently this can stall or stop labor from progressing). Finally, after what felt like forever, my doctor arrived. She explained that we would be transferred and I would be cared for by the medical staff at another hospital.

At that point, I was drugged up on magnesium and a little loopy. I looked at my doctor and asked, “Wait, am I not going to have the baby today?” Her reply was that hopefully not. So far, the contractions had slowed and I was only dilated to 1cm. Alright. So we were hopefully not having a baby.   Since I was on an IV and my water had broke, I needed an ambulance to transport me to the hospital I would live at until baby came. (Side Note: The bag of waters is what protects the baby from germs and infections). Since mine had broke so early, I would need to stay at the hospital and be closely monitored for infections, water level (the water would build back up and I would continue to lose it), and little beans activity.  We waited for the ambulance to arrive to transfer me to the hospital I would be at.  

The rest of the day was kind of a blur (anxiety + magnesium can make you not remember). We arrived at the new hospital and it was explained in detail that my goal was to carry my baby to 34 weeks gestational age. So, I had a goal: carry my little bean for essentially seven weeks in the hospital before being induced at 34 weeks. And thus began my bedrest journey which I documented in quite a bit of detail on Facebook.

So, back to the original question: why start a blog? I am starting this blog because on this day, October 5th, and every day after, my life was changed. Writing about my journey and experiences became my therapy. It became such an important outlet that after my bedrest journey and NICU journey ended, I came to miss it.

Since this journey started, I have had the privilege to connect with other women that have experienced similar situations and my hope is that my experience helped them in some small way. And that is my ultimate goal. I want to help and serve others.  I want to live an abundant life and help other mommas do the same.  The Abundant Momma will be where I share my experiences of faith, family and fitness.

So, if you have made it the end of this long tale, thank you for reading and I hope you can find something in my journey to serve you in your life. More content coming soon!