Fatigue: 3 Tips for Coping When You’re Exhausted

Fatigue can be a really big issue for women.There is always something more to do, and there is no guarantee that the kids will stay asleep all night.  How do we manage when fatigue is a constant companion to our day? Today I’m going to share 3 tips with you that will help you cope when you are exhausted.   

I Love Sleep!

I am a big proponent of getting enough sleep at night.  In fact, I’ve written another post about how to set yourself up for success in sleep by establishing routines and relaxing before bed.  But, sometimes, there are nights that just don’t go as planned.

If you’re a new mom, this is the story of your life!  Get any new moms together and the first topic of conversation is usually something like this :

• Is your baby sleeping through the night?
• How old was he when he slept through the night?  
• How did you get your baby to sleep through the night? 

 There are shelves on the bookstore devoted to  techniques to get your baby to sleep through the night.  There’s the Cry it Out method, the co-sleeping method, and the“no cry method.   I know because I read them all. 

They didn’t work.

My Fatigue as a New Mom

My first son still didn’t sleep through the night for fourteen months.  I kid you not….  I was one exhausted first-time mom.  I tried it all.  Crying it out was a dismal failure.  Turns out, I can’t stand the sound of my kids crying.  Especially my babies.  So that didn’t work.  I tried the gentle methods too.  They failed as well.  

I was up a couple times a night for the first few years of my motherhood career.  Fatigue and exhaustion was not on the brochure that I read when I signed up to be a mom. 

Then we had a second baby.  The fun part about that was that my eldest, who had finally learned to sleep through the night in his new toddler bed, decided that it would be fun to come and visit me in the middle of the night while I was nursing my little one.  It was a circus at night.  

Eventually, that ended, and they figured out how to sleep through the night.  But not before I experienced new levels of fatigue.

Now, my kids are older, so they are more likely to keep me up with the sounds of the movies playing downstairs while I’m trying to sleep.  

Last night, and for the last several nights, it has been my dog who has kept me up.  He has been scratching nonstop after we gave him a bath.  Now he doesn’t smell, but he can’t stop scratching.  It has been a nightmare.  I think I was up last night with him for at least two hours before we both took a Benadryl.  

So, when the dog woke me up at 5:45 this morning, I was not the most energetic woman to get out of bed.  In fact my first thought was, can I please go back to bed?  That wasn’t an option.  The day had begun already.  

So how do we cope when we do all the right things and still have a lousy night sleep.  I’m going to share with you 3 tips to help you get though the day, and still have a smile on your face.

3 Tips for Dealing with Fatigue

1.  Acknowledge your Fatigue

One of the first steps to get though the day is just to say to yourself, ok, that night wasn’t the best that I’ve ever had.  Be real with yourself, and also consider communicating to your family that it was a tough night of sleep.  Things are going to be more challenging for you today,  so let’s set yourself up for success by beginning with the acknowledgement of the fatigue.

Notice I said acknowledge, not complain.  There is a big difference between those two.  You should not spend the day complaining about how little sleep you got.  Complaining puts us in a negative mood, and it is going be really hard to be pleasant when you are constantly complaining about the bad sleep you got.  Yes, you’re tired, and yes, its hard, but complaining will not change anything at all!  

If you did everything in your power to try to set yourself up for success in the sleeping, and it just didn’t work out, then try again tonight.  But don’t spend the day complaining about the lost sleep.  Acknowledge the miss, and then set yourself up for success tonight.

2.  Adjust your Expectations 

If you are exhausted, then you need to take a realistic look at your expectations of yourself for today.  This means you are going to open up your calendar, and  try to remove one thing from your day.  What can you postpone?  

Trust me.  You can erase something.

You need to give yourself a buffer in your day to accommodate for your fatigue.  Maybe you have a playdate scheduled and you decide that you need to skip going this week.  Maybe you can postpone your errands for another day.  Can you make you dinner plan easier?

The goal here is to take the burden off of today as much as possible.  Make your day easier if you can.  And, lower your own personal expectations of yourself. 

I am exhausted today, and I think that I’m going to need to find room in my day for a nap.  It is definitely a priority for me, so there may be a few things that I adjust.  I already shortened my gardening time, and I will likely remove a few of the chores from my schedule today so that I can rest in the mid afternoon.  I know that a twenty minute nap will really help.

Sometimes, all we need to adjust is our attitude towards ourselves.  We can be kinder to ourselves as we go through the day.  It is ok if things take a little longer today.  We are adjusting our attitude to be more accommodating to our fatigue level.

3.  Address the Future

The last tip I have for you is to address the future.  Is  there anything you can tweak to help you be more rested tomorrow?  Can you go to bed a little earlier tonight?  Can you plan a short nap today?  Can you ask your spouse to help you out with the baby so that you can get a few hours of shut eye?

One of the things that my husband would do with our newborn was to take him for the first night shift.  I would go to bed around 9 after nursing him, and Dave would take the baby and do some more email in his office until the baby got hungry again.  I would be able to grab 3 hours of sleep before I needed to feed him again.  It was very helpful in those first few months, especially because I was exclusively nursing. Dave couldn’t feed him, but he could hold him so that I got a little bit of shut-eye.

We were not successful at getting our son to sleep though the night at an early age, but we addressed my fatigue by dividing up some of the work so that I could get some additional sleep.

If there are noise concerns that are keeping you up, can you wear earplugs at night?  If you’re worried about missing an important noise, can you have your spouse be the one who will listen for that bump in the night? 

If you are stressed out, can you journal before you go to bed and get those thoughts out of your head?  

Please address any issues you might have, even if you just make small adjustments, so that you can have a better rest tonight.  

I hope that these tips will help you as you deal with the ramifications of a poor night sleep. Fatigue is real in our journey as moms.  Whether it is worry or a baby keeping us up at night, I can relate.  I hope that these tips can help you acknowledge, adjust, and address your fatigue so that you can be a little more functional today.