Are Your Kids Your Alarm Clock? My Step by Step Process to Get Up Before the Family Each Day & Why Waking up Early Will Help You Feel More Put Together
Listen on:
Apple | Spotify
You snoozed your alarm an hour ago, the sun is peeping through your windows, and out of nowhere you hear "MOMMY!!" and jolt out of bed, reacting to the needs of someone else immediately... and the rest of the day.
You're exhausted, feel like you can't ever catch up, and just want to start the day feeling put together instead of behind. My kids were my alarm for a LONG time and I knew getting up earlier would help me feel more joyful, more productive, and just more put together, but it felt so far off.
In this episode, I'm going to teach you 3 simple steps to finally start getting up before your kids so they no longer need to be your alarm clock and you'll learn all it will do for your mindset too!
After each of my boys was born, there came a point where I was frustrated and felt like the time ran out each day and I knew that if I could just get up early enough to workout and spend a few minutes enjoying the silence I could feel gathered before a full day of “momming.”
It was as simple as going to bed earlier to get up earlier, but that felt insurmountable when I was going to sleep at 11pm, waking up 1-2 times a night to breastfeed, and needing at least 6-7 hrs of sleep to not implode.
So how did I go from the morning struggle bus to a 5am early bird?
Step 1: Ask yourself “Is my baby sleeping through the night?”
If you’re not in this phase yet, that's okay! Come back to this when you do have the opportunity for an uninterrupted night of sleep. Because what's the point of telling you to do something that is NOT sustainable?
I know that every family's sleeping situation is different, so a better way to word Step 1 is “do you have the opportunity for a full night's sleep?”
Step 2 : Set up a healthy sleep environment
Your room is dark and cool.
Learn from my mistake and turn monitor sound and video down.
Put your phone on do not disturb.
Cut off caffeine mid-ish day.
Step 3: Go to sleep earlier!
Sure… you can function on 4-5 hours for a few days, but eventually your body will force you into to a full night's sleep.
The average adult needs 7-9 hours and only a very small percentage needs 6 or less.
That being said, if you consistently go to bed at 11pm and your kids are early risers, they're going to always be your alarm clock.
So work backwards. You want to get up at 5am? And need 8 hours of sleep? That means a 9pm bedtime. You want to get up at 6am? And need 7 hrs of sleep? Well golly, 11pm is your latest bedtime!
Figure out what your body functions best with by testing out when you naturally wake up for a handful of days.
When it’s time to finally MAKE THE CHANGE, baby step your bed time and wake time backwards because with all things it's best to make small incremental change!
Personally, I did 10-15 minute changes at a time for a week or two at a time.
Bonus Tips!
Communicate with your husband WHY you’re doing this!
We are so quick to just do without communicating with the people closest to us about why we're doing something… so tell him!
Use the Sleep Cycle app (free version)
It uses motion and sound to wake you when you’re in the lightest stage of sleep instead of REM or deep sleep, that way you don’t wake up groggy!
I actually have used this for over 10 years now! It’s a game changer
What this will do for you…
1. You’ll be more productive because you've got more time!
You can't make the argument to me that you have the same amount of time if you just stay up late. At the end of the day, your decision energy is drained, your physical energy is also drained, so really… how impactful is that hour after 9pm vs that hour before 7am?
You also have no interruptions, the things that came up during the day aren't hanging over you, and the things that didn't go well that day also aren't hanging over you.
2. You’ll be more peaceful and present all day!
When you’re working from a place of peace versus starting your day immediately responding to someone else’s needs, you’ll feel more at peace.
You can respond to some of YOUR needs first thing.
As moms, we set the emotional tone for our household, which makes that discipline with sleep so worth it.
3. You’ll feel more put together!
Part of feeling more put together is routine and part of it is consistency.
Having some predictability allows us to make time and space for the unpredictability of life and motherhood.
Now I'm not telling you you need to wake up early, and by no means was any of this easy for me because I'm some "morning person.” But all this is — is a choice.
To be our best for those around us, we need to do things that aren't easy… like forgoing an extra episode of your show or an extra 20 minutes scrolling so you can GO TO BED.
Is that really more important to you than setting a peaceful tone for your home and having that truly productive peaceful time in the morning to yourself?
The ball is in your court and I’m giving you full permission: you don't have to do any of this.
But until the day comes when there's not a single mom left frustrated about her kids being her alarm clock and exasperated all day because she "has no time for herself" yet she stays up late to try to get that time in... I'll be out here challenging moms to change.
Because when we can be honest with ourselves and actually make change, we allow those around us to do the same.
So what to do now?
Figure out where you're at — do you have the opportunity to sleep through the night? Do you have a healthy sleep environment? Or are you ready to baby step your bed time and your wake up time back?
Then FOLLOW THROUGH. You can't do this for a few days and expect fast change. You cannot just change your bed and wake time by 3 hrs one night and expect it to stick. It doesn’t work with our toddlers…and it won’t work for you.
Just stay consistent with this process.
Yes… it is slow. Yes… it may take a couple of months.
But when you're a few months down the road, you'll look back and think "Wow, that slow steady process was worth it because now I have a whole hour before the kids get up, I get a workout in, I can change, and I get to spend a few minutes to myself before the craziness ensues."
It's worth it.
Are you ready to go from overwhelmed and stuck to disciplined and consistent in your journey?
Book your Starting Point Session and let's get you on track to your healthiest life!
FULL TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] You're in a sweet sleep. And out of nowhere, you hear mommy and then crying or in my house, it's one toddler kicking his legs on the back of his crib thought that, that, that, that, and the other yelling, mommy, quite the alarm clock and not so pleasant, but I was there for months and I knew, I knew in my head that getting up earlier would help me.
I mean, I'm the one in the family who sets the tone for the home, who sets the emotional, mental tone for the home. And when I get up earlier before my kids, and they're not my alarm clock, I know I feel more joyful and more productive and more put together. But in that moment, especially when I was waking up to my kids as my alarm clock in that moment.
That felt so far off and nearly impossible. So in this episode, I'm going to teach you how to finally start getting up before your kids. So they no longer need to be your alarm clock and you'll learn all that it will do for your mindset, too. Fun fact, what we talk [00:01:00] about today is actually something. I walked one of my mom clients through on her starting point session.
She was waking up with her kids and it was throwing off her whole day. She wasn't being consistent with her workouts because of that. She just couldn't get to it. And she wasn't staying to on top of meal planning, it was just like this. The snowball that kept affecting her life and she couldn't get on top of any other habits.
She had no quiet time to herself and all of that led to her staying up too late, leading to her kids, being her alarm clock the next day. And it was just frustrating. Like she was done, she was exhausted from it and she was wanting to change. So after two weeks of the habit and the starting point that we came up with, the, her starting point was needing to wake up before her kids.
So we came up with a plan to tackle that. And after two weeks, she had completely overhauled her sleep schedule. Now she's getting up for her kids every single day and all of the rest of that she's working out consistently. She feels put together during the day, she's able to plan meals for her [00:02:00] family and feel like when they get to dinner time, she has time to cook.
All of that has fallen into place because her kids are no longer her alone. This is what she told me. I'm doing well, getting to sleep earlier. At first, it felt like I had to force myself to do this, but now that I'm going to sleep at a decent hour consistently, I've noticed it's easier to get out of bed in the morning.
And I have not been as short tempered during the day and stressful situation. Who's been there. She said, I'm really liking this change and I plan to stick with it. And guess what? I talked, this was a few months ago that we, we came up with this plan. She followed through, it's been a habit for her for a few months now.
And we just talked a few days ago. She's still doing it. She's still in that point where this habit that she got started on her starting points. Okay. It's still part of her life. She made true change. So if that's what you're struggling with, if it's your routine, if you're feeling inconsistent or you're just straight up frustrated, you're at your wits end every day.
And you know that waking up before your [00:03:00] kids would help you don't need another meal plan or another workout program. You do not need some sort of special alarm clock or sleep. Supplement at night, you need a simple habit and a simple plan for your starting point and some accountability to fall through on it.
And that's exactly what you're going to get. When you book your starting point session with me, if you go to the tough love mom.com backslash coaching, you can find my booking link. You can find all the information, all the questions that might be running around in your head. All the answers are there for you, and you can book your session today.
Okay. Time to stop having your kids be here alone. Let's get ready to learn mamma.
Hey mama. Welcome to the tough love mom podcast. I know you're here because you're ready to get consistent and finally lose that weight. And you're not afraid of a little tough love, you know, what to do to lose weight. Following [00:04:00] through on those things feels impossible. You wish you could just feel like your strong, confident self again, and want to be good example for your little ones, but you get thrown off by mom guilt and the unpredictability of motherhood.
It's frustrating taking on your journey. Postpartum is hard, but it's not impossible. Okay. I'm Liz. And I've been where you are. I gained a lot of weight in my pregnancies, 90 pounds, and then 60 pounds. I needed to lose that weight to take control of my health. And honestly just wanted to feel like myself again, with the sustainable approach to weight loss.
Symbol consistency and working on my mindset. I lost it all in just over a year, both times. And I'm here to help you do the same. I believe that we have an ingrained ability to figure out what we need to do, make it happen and do it in a way that awes the world. If you're ready to stop falling off the wagon, create solid routine and healthy.
And finally feel your best inside and out all enjoying diamond nuggets on your salad. You are in the right place. We're about to transform your [00:05:00] journey. My friend get pumped up. It is tough love times
after each of my boys was born. There came a point where I was frustrated and felt like the time just ran out because. Like I'd get to dinner and be like, wow, I got four things done. Great. I had 20. And if I could just get up early enough to work out and spend a few minutes in silence with myself, I knew I would feel more gathered before a full day of momming started.
And I knew it was simple. I knew it would be as simple as getting to bed earlier so I could get up earlier, but that felt insurmountable because. I was going to sleep at like 11:00 PM, midnight waking up one to two times a night to breastfeed. Personally, my body needs a good seven hours of sleep to feel rested and not implode.
I mean, yeah. I can sleep like five hours a night for a few nights, but then I either get sick or I don't feel great for a few days. And I'm a little more [00:06:00] short-tempered. Or my body tries to overcompensate and I'll sleep for like eight, nine hours and I'm groggy the next day. So I need a good consistent seven hours of sleep.
And I knew if I just went to bed earlier, I'd be able to start getting up earlier. So how did I go from the am? Struggle bus to a 5:00 AM early. First, my baby was sleeping through the night. If you're not in this phase yet, that's okay. Save this episode, come back to it. When your little one is sleeping through the night, this is one of those things of motherhood where we learned to surrender.
We learned to put up our hands and say, this is not the season. I want this one thing, but I need to press pause on it because it's not realistic. We have to get realistic and we have. To be doing things that are going to be sustainable for our life. I will only ever give you realistic and doable advice on here.
What is the point of telling you to do something that's not sustainable? I don't know, but I'm not here for it. I'm not here for the quick fixes. I'm not here for the, in [00:07:00] sustainability. So step one of this process is your baby is sleeping well and you have the opportunity to sleep straight through the night.
That looks different for every single mom. Now. So I'm not going to put a timestamp on this. I'm not going to tell you when to start this habit because it's different for everyone. The starting point of getting up earlier by going to sleep early. This is something that you are not in full control of until your baby is sleeping through the night.
And you have that opportunity to sleep for seven to eight hours. Now, is this going to happen every single night once your baby is sleeping through the night? No, it's not. We are moms. Life is not perfect. I mean, we're humans. Life is not perfect. I have a three and a half year old and an almost two year old and there are still nights.
I have to wake up for one or both. Okay. That's parenthood on is honestly, it's usually only one of them. And it's really not that often, but we are in a girlfriend. We are in parenthood more nights than not. They do sleep through the night. I [00:08:00] mean, it's maybe like once a month, I have to wake up for one of them, but seriously, it will not be perfect, but there will come a day when you can sleep through a night.
And that's when you can focus on this habit. Okay. Being realistic here, that's all I'm going to give you is real listic advice. Now, note that. Okay. The sleeping through the night thing happened at different times for my boys. Again, why I'm not telling you when to start this for Royce. He was six months old when he started sleeping through the night for Cal.
He was one. So it looked different for me after both kids. And I know that every family sleeping situation is different. Some co-sleep some do separate rooms from early on, so maybe a better way to word the step one is once you have the opportunity for a full night's sleep, you can focus on. Okay. So not necessarily when your baby's sleeping.
But when you have the opportunity for a full night's sleep consistently, that's when you can take on this habit. So again, if you're not there, save this episode for later, you can come back to it. It will be up [00:09:00] forever. I promise. So step two, if you are, if you do have the opportunity in front of you to sleep through the night, step two is to set up a healthy sleep environment for yourself.
This is so important. If we're not, we can be in our bed for eight. But we might never hit deep sleep because we're not setting up a healthy sleep environment and sleep habits. So environmentally, it needs to be dark. It needs to be cool. Learn from my mistake. Your monitor does not create a dark environment.
It is bright and it is like blue light right in your face. Cause I know you hate that right next to your nightstand. Don't you? I do. And. Once my kids started sleeping through the night. I was like, Casey, I'm still exhausted when I wake up in the morning. And you want to know why that was it's because I had the video and the sound on, and it was like a foot and a half for my face while I was trying to sleep.
Not good, not good. Talk about. Not getting any deep sleep. If I had any type of sleep tracker in that season, it would have been like [00:10:00] warning, warning, red, light alert. This was not good. I literally had the light right in my face. So a dark cool environment is really important. My phone is always on do not disturb, honestly, almost 24 hours a day, but definitely at night.
So it doesn't buzz a cutoff caffeine, midday, ish, you know, based on how your body responds, but it will help if you can cut off caffeine around the middle of the day. Because you will be able to better sleep, get better sleep cycles at night, these are sleep basics. You guys, we know them follow through on them.
Okay. So dark cool environment. Make sure that it's actually dark. Your monitor is not on and brighten your face. Honestly, and this was hard for me too, because I was like, well, what if something happens? You know, I need to hear it. I need to be able to see it. We're moms. I never believed my mom. Yeah, I just don't sleep as hard as I used to because I'm a mom now.
And I was like, okay, yeah, that won't be me. I sleep like a log. It's me. It's me. I do not sleep super heavy anymore [00:11:00] because I'm just more aware of what's going on. And when that monitor was in my face, I literally was only in light sleep for like seven or eight hours. And I was exhausted. So again, turn the video off if you want to keep the sound on you can, but just learn from my mistake and do not keep that video in your face.
Forever. Okay. Now, step three, we have the opportunity to sleep through the night. That was step one, step two, your S your healthy sleep environment is set up and ready to go. You've got those healthy habits. You're cutting off caffeine around in the middle of the day. You're not having it at 5:00 PM. Okay.
You ready for the secret for step-up? Are you ready? Go to sleep early? Yes. Go to sleep earlier. Sure. You can function on four to five hours for a few days, but eventually your body's going to revert to a full night's sleep. Your body will give yourself what it needs to. The average adult needs seven to nine hours of sleep and a very, very, very, very, very, very, very [00:12:00] small percentage of the population needs less than six hours.
You likely are not one of them. I'm sorry to bring it to you. I'm not one of them either, even though I wish I could be, but I function best on about seven to seven and a half hours of sleep. You are likely the same. So if you consistently go to bed, let's do some math here. Your girl loves some numbers. If you go to bed at 11.
And your kids are early risers. Let's see your standard adult and you need eight hours of sleep. If you're consistently going to bed at 11:00 PM and your kids are, let's say 6:00 AM early risers, they're always going to be your alarm clock. Aren't they? Because they're getting up at like 6:00 AM and you need eight hours, but now you're getting seven because you're going to bed at 11:00 PM and you're like, chronically exhausted.
This is where you work backwards. Let's say you need eight hours of sleep. That's like what your body functions best at? You need eight hours and you want to start getting up at 5:00 AM. That means you need to work towards a 9:00 PM bedtime. And I'm doing civil Matthew. [00:13:00] You're like Liz, come on. I mean, but have you actually done this math and followed through on what you find?
If you want to get up at six 30. And you need seven hours of sleep. Well, golly, 11:00 PM is your latest bedtime. Look at that. So figure out what your body functions best with when it comes to hours of sleep and then work backwards to figure out when you should ideally be going to bed and based on when you want to be waking up and how you can figure out what your body needs on a sleep like by the night basis, how to test that out is naturally, let yourself wake up for a handful of days in a row.
If you're on. Randomly, you're not going to get solid data. So go to sleep ideally at a decent time. So your kids, aren't your alarm clock, but go to sleep and then let your body naturally wake up at whatever time. And you'll start to see a pattern of, okay. It's about eight and a half hours every single day, or okay.
It's about seven hours every single day. You'll start to get a good picture of what your body likes now [00:14:00] to make the change. To make this change. So you can get up earlier before your kids, baby, step it backwards. This is where it's like a painstaking tooth polling process because it does not happen overnight.
No pun intended, but it won't with all things. Gosh, you know this, but I'm just going to hammer it home yet again, with all things, it is best to make small incremental change. I promise 180 8 things often leads to burnout and then falling off. So we aren't about that. We're not going to. We are about small incremental change.
Say it with me, small incremental change. That is what we are here for personally, when I shifted myself from going to sleep super late and having my kids be my alarm clock, I did about 10 to 15 minute changes with my bedtime and my wake up time for about a week or so. Like I would change it by 10 minutes for only a week or only 10 minutes for about a week.
If I'd been going to bed at 11 nights. [00:15:00] Okay. 10 to 15 minutes. I'm gonna start going to bed at 10 45. And I'm going to start trying to wake up at like 6 45 instead of seven when my kids are getting up. So I'd have maybe five minutes to myself, but I would, I would stick to that 15 minute change for like a week or two.
That way it became habit. And I would get you, my body would physiologically get used to that new bedtime and new wake time. And I would keep making that adjustment. So my hours of sleep stayed consistent and allowed my body to naturally adjust to a new bedtime and a new wake-up time. I would slowly, I mean, it took a couple months for me to get ideally to like 5, 5 30 in the morning, but that's because I was getting to a much earlier bedtime.
So some bonus tips as you're making this change, so it can become sustainable. Communicate with your husband, why you're doing this? One of the biggest things that I hear from moms is they're like, well, my husband stays up late and it's like our time together. And I feel that and this and that well, okay.
Often for [00:16:00] almost all couples that nighttime is time together. So in. Let's be honest. A lot of the times it's on our phones or in front of the TV. So really how productive is it? So to make sure that you're not holding yourself back by assuming that he feels some type of way about you ditching him earlier now, talk to him, communicate with him.
How are you feeling? Why are you frustrated? How does waking up with your kids is your alarm clock. Throw off your whole day, like tell him how you're actually feeling, because he is way more likely to get behind you and support you if he understands the pain that you're feeling in this, not just the, I'm going to start going to bed earlier by.
Okay. Don't do that. We're so quick to just do things without communicating with the people, closest to us about why we're doing something. So. Another little bonus tip for you is use the sleep cycle app. Um, it's a free app. I've used it for literally a decade now, and it's my alarm clock. This is why I keep my phone on, do not disturb because it's next to my bed.
And that's how I use this app. But, and I'm not affiliated, [00:17:00] it's literally a free app. I've I've used it for 10 years though. So I am a diehard fan, um, and I use the free version. So go download it. Now it's a game changer. The way it works is you pick your ideal, wake up. So like for me, that's about five 30 in the morning.
That's the latest I want to get up. So you set your alarm, your sleep cycle alarm for the latest time you want to wake up and it will wake you up anytime. Within a 30 minute window prior to that, the latest that will wake you up is that, that late latest time you set for your alarm. And so what it does is it uses your sleep cycles, your REM, your deep sleep, your light sleep, and it tracks those throughout the night based on your movement.
And when you are in your. Sleep stages when it wakes you up. So you wake up not groggy. And that is like I said, a game changer because often what happens with standard alarm clocks or standard alarms on our phone is it just goes off when it's set to go off and we might be in deep sleep. And if you're waking up in the middle of a deep sleep cycle, you are going.
[00:18:00] So exhausted and so groggy. And so what this does is it will wake you up within a 30 minute window prior to that latest time that you want to get up when you are in your lightest stage of sleep. So you're basically almost awake already, and that's when your alarm will go off. So download the sleep cycle app.
It is a game changer. Now what this does for you. What does getting up before your kids do for you? If you're sitting here and you're still listening, but you're going Liz. I am not a morning person. I am a night owl and I do not want to get up before my kids. They're going to be my alarm clock forever.
I'm shocked that you're still listening, but if you do want to make this change, but you need a little more convincing, what does this do for you? What does getting up earlier do for you? And I'm not going to tell you. You have to be one way or you have to be another, but there are so many benefits to getting up before your kids, even if it's like 10 minutes before they wake up.
I mean, seriously, the second I started getting up a few minutes before my kids, I felt my whole mood and outlook shift. So the first thing is you're going to feel more productive. You literally have more. [00:19:00] Literally you have more time instead of waking up and immediately responding to someone else's needs, you get to wake up and take care of a few things yourself.
There's literally more time on your plate. You cannot make an argument to me that you're going to have the same amount of time. If you just stay up late. Okay, let me, let me go here for a second, because you might say, well, if I wake up at seven with my kids and I just stay up an hour later after they go to bed, it's the same hour as I would have from six to seven instead.
No, I disagree because at the end of the day, your decision energy is drained. Your mental energy is drained. It is at E yes. There are ways you can refill that, but not the way sleep refills it. Okay. Your physical energy also drained. So it's really how impactful is that hour? How impactful is that? 60 minutes after 9:00 PM versus that 60 minutes prior to 7:00 AM or prior to 6:00 AM.
Whenever your kids are your alarm clock, how actually impacted. Is that same amount of time [00:20:00] as when your energy is drained versus when your energy cups are. Just a thought. You also have no interruptions, literally no interruptions. The things that come up during the day, aren't hanging over you. The things that didn't go well that day also aren't hanging over you.
So you literally are like waking up with this fresh slate. No distractions, no interruptions, energy cups full, and you have 60 minutes in front of you or 10 minutes or however long you have in fact. Okay. That time before the family up the families up, it's basically distraction-free your mental tank is full and that allows you to be way more productive than you would be if you had the same amount of time later in the day, no matter what you do with that time.
Is it the same amount of time on paper? Yes, it is. Is it the same amount of time when you're actually showing up in it? In my opinion, no. Uh, how else is this going to affect you? If you can get up before your kids, no matter how much earlier you get up, you're going to feel more joyful and more present all day long.[00:21:00]
And this does take some time to like make this shift, but it's huge. You're working from a place of peace versus starting your day. Not dictated by you when you're in the moment you wait. If you're waking up before your kids, that moment is on your cord. You can take a minute to breathe. Think about what you're grateful for.
Go to the bathroom in peace, like, you know, brush your teeth and peace versus immediately needing to respond to someone else's needs. Yes, we are moms and often, often motherhood is equitable with martyrdom and it doesn't have to be, you know, the difference you feel working from those places. Martyrdom versus working from those places of rest and peace when you're not waking up and immediately having to respond to the need of someone else.
So you can respond to some of your needs first, and that makes you feel calm. Like how calm does that make you feel? And honestly, like I said, that martyrdom and [00:22:00] motherhood, it can get really tough. Your needs are important when you have 10 minutes, 15 minutes, 60 minutes to take care of those needs before you have to respond to anyone else's you are going to be able to show it from a place that is so much more peaceful and joyful.
And not have to be coming from this place as a mom, that's stressed out all the time. Okay. You can't be more joyful. You can't feel more present. And we as moms do set the tone for our household. For real, like for real, for real, we set the tone emotionally, mentally for our household. So if anything, I think this makes getting up before our kids a worthwhile discipline and makes that bedtime sleep priority.
Just instrumental. And the last thing that you're going to get out of this is you're going to feel more put together. I know, like as moms, that's something that is sometimes rare. It's sometimes far off farfetched, but isn't it funny how we use that phrase feeling more put together. But if we [00:23:00] were asked how to describe it, it'd be really hard.
Like it's a feeling and I know you know it, but what does it actually look like? It's hard to put to words, but part of feeling more put together is having routines. And having consistency. Those are two foundational pieces of feeling more put together. It's like that predictability allows us to make time and space for that unpredictability of life and motherhood.
So having that predictable set of time before your family gets up, is going to allow you to better handle. What's unpredictable the rest of the day. Now with all of this, again, I'm not telling you, you need. To wake up early and by no means was any of this easy for me because I am some morning person. I'm not, um, most mornings when I wake up, I need like a solid 20 minutes for my eyes to truly open and to like be put together.
If you see any of my like good morning Instagram stories, there's usually a typo. And I usually don't catch it for a few hours [00:24:00] because it does take me a while to wake up in the morning. I am not a morning person. I just years ago realized the value of it. And wanted to get back to it after having kids.
And it's all a choice for me, it's a daily choice. It's a daily discipline for you. It's going to be the same way and our life isn't all about us. It never is to be the best for those around us. We do need to make sacrifices. There is. Sacrificial piece of motherhood, where we surrender part of ourself and part of our own will and our own desires.
We do need to do things that aren't easy, like for going an extra episode of your favorite Netflix show or an extra 20 minutes of scrolling. So you can just go to bed. Like we do have to make those kinds of sacrifices, but I think often we go too far on the sacrifice and surrender and martyrdom scale.
And we start sacrificing things that are important for our health mentally and physically and sleep is foundational [00:25:00] sleep and our mental peace and our physical energy and the, the place that we show up from every day being grounded and rooted and calm this. If we don't have that, then why are you making the sacrifices?
You're make. Why aren't you sacrificing the easier things to give up like Netflix and scrolling, but sacrificing the rest of it. That's martyred on them. We don't need to show up from that place. Like I want to ask you honestly, is it really more important to you to have that extra time scrolling or decompressing from the day to have that.
You know that mental numbing, is that more important to you than setting a peaceful tone for your home and having that true, productive, peaceful time in the morning to yourself, even if it's only 10 minutes, it does not need to be an hour. Literally if it's only 10 minutes, what's more important to you.
You don't have to be a morning [00:26:00] person. And honestly, the ball is in your court. You do not have to do any of that. But until that day comes, when there's not a single mom left, frustrated about her kids being her alarm clock. And she's exasperated all day because she quote has no time for herself. And then she's staying up too late to try to get all that time in and decompress from the day I'm gonna be out here, challenging moms to change.
Okay. We do not need to live from a complacent place. We do not need to live from martyrdom because when we can be honest with ourselves and actually make change, we allow those around us to do this. And I don't want the next generation living as victims, living as martyrs to their circumstances and what they've chosen to do with their lives.
And I definitely do not want them complacent about how they show up. We mamas are capable, so capable, so lean into that fact, like right now, lean into that fact and make the change you need to make. Maybe it's not sleep right now, but if it is lean [00:27:00] into that, it's hard. Like I said, it is. It is a sacrifice and a choice that is not easy to give up the moments of decompression that we, we think we need and just go to bed.
Like that's a hard choice to make every single day until it becomes not hard. Okay. So figure out where you're at. Do you have the opportunity to sleep through the night? Yes or no? If you say yes. Awesome. How's your sleep environment? Is it healthy? Is it conducive to getting good deep. If you say yes.
Awesome. Now it's time to baby. Step your bedtime backwards. So you can wake up earlier than follow through. That's the key. You can't do this for like two or three or four days and expect fast change. And I know, you know, you cannot just change your bedtime and wake up by 3m. One night and expect it to stick.
Right? That's how we implode. That is how we fall off. And we're not here for that. We are here for the sustainable change, and that means figuring out your starting point and staying consistent with the simple [00:28:00] things. Okay. Like when was the last time that worked for your toddler? Let's do let's use that example.
I'll wait, when was the last time you were like, all right, I need you to sleep in later. So I'm going to put you to bed at 10:00 PM. They suck on wake up at 6:00 AM. Right. I don't work and it's not going to work for you. So stay consistent with this process. I promise it works. Yes, it is slow. Yes. It might take a couple months.
Like this is probably one of the, one of the habits that took the longest for me to see progress and change in honestly months worth. So for you. Yeah. It's probably gonna take a few months, but when you're a few months down the road from here, you'll look back and go, wow. That slow, steady progress. What was worth it because now I have a whole hour to myself before the kids get up.
I get a workout in, I can change. I can get a few minutes to myself, make a cup of coffee before the craziness ensues. I mean, that's worth it. And it does take. And it can be hard. It can be hard to fall through. It [00:29:00] can be hard to stay consistent with it, which is why I created starting point sessions. Not only to help you figure out, like for some moms, this is genuinely the starting point.
You need to let all the other habits fall into place. Don't just like Justin. Finally getting up before her kids, by going to bed earlier, helped her get more consistent with our workouts. It helped her stay more on top of mealtime and getting dinners on the table. And it just helped her overall mental peace and feeling less short temper and, and frustrated about things.
So if you need that, this might be your starting point and it might not. But on our starting point sessions, what I help you do is figure out where is the right point to start with you? Is it sleeping through the night and getting to up a little bit early? Are you at that point? Is this your starting point or is it something else?
It might be a different one, but what you walk away with from your starting point session is not just a starting point plan and clarity on where you need to start on your journey. So you can start losing weight and feeling better and feeling more at peace about everything you're doing. But you're [00:30:00] also going to get accountability from me for a few weeks, for about two months.
If you book that three call package and what we can do a strategy. Anything else that might be keeping you stuck with your routine. And honestly, it's time for you to stop feeling like the day is running you and it's time for you to start running your day so you can get more consistent and all the areas of your life, and ultimately start feeling more productive, more joyful, more present, and more put together each day.
So head to the tough love mom.com backslash coaching to book your call or your package of three calls. Literally three sessions with me for the price of two. It is a. And I only do eight spots a month. I've already got a few clients booked in for June, so they go fast. You can have the tough love mom.com backslash coaching, and you will get all the information you need.
The booking link is right there. It's time for you to stop trying to figure this out by yourself. Okay. No more having your kids be your alarm. Time to make some change. I'm here to help go get after it. Mama, before you go. Thank you for [00:31:00] spending this time with me on the tough love mom podcast. If this episode encouraged you in any way, the number one way you can thank me is to leave her a review, letting me know how the show has impacted you.
That. Send this episode to another mom friend, or take a screenshot posted on social media and tag me so I can personally thank you for helping me on this journey to impact thousands of moms. I'm so grateful to be on this journey with your sister until next time. Get after it.
