8 reasons why mornings feel like an eternity with a baby
Here’s another reason why mums of babies deserve a medal – their day suddenly gets a lot longer! Time is supposed to go quickly when babies are young, but no one warned us about how long the days can be when you have a little person to take care of. Mornings in particular seem to go forever when you have a baby. They start early, feature lots of hard yet repetitive work, and you have to do it all on broken sleep. It wasn’t always like this, was it?
Back before you had a baby, you probably jumped out of bed to get your day started, knowing that the clock was ticking. The theme was always about getting to places on time, whether it was the bus-stop, the office or a lunch meeting. Before you knew it, evening had arrived and the day was over once again.
Oh, how things have changed. Now you have a baby in tow, time seems to have slowed down, but at the same time the days are rushing by and holding your tiny newborn is becoming a hazy memory. What’s that saying? ‘The years are short but the days are long’, meaning that this period is going to fly by very quickly but while you’re there on the frontline, those days are often going to feel long, very L-O-O-O-NG.
There’s good reason for all of this. Think about how your mornings go right now:
1. Your day begins before sunrise
If your baby wakes for the day while it’s still dark, you’ll know the pain of trying to keep your eyes open when you’d love to still be asleep. And once you do manage to convince your tired bones that it’s awake time, the sun may have just risen…which means you’re still up and at ’em hours before most people – or so it seems.
2. You have to get out for coffee
Because your day has started so early, you’re likely to be climbing the walls by 8am, so like most mums, your first trip out is an early one. The good thing about this is that a brisk walk will help wake you up some more and COFFEE. The not so good news is that by the time you’re home again, it’s barely hit 10am, and it feels like you’ve already done a whole day.
3. You need lunch at 10am
By the time you’re home from your walk, you’re pretty energised… and ravenous. Of course, you’ve been up for hours, and probably had breakfast at sunrise. So while the rest of the world is tea-breaking, you’re already at sandwich time, only there is still a long way to go until your day finishes, sister.
4. You’re spent by mid-morning
By the time you’ve been out for a walk, have fed and played with your baby and spent all that time settling her to sleep, you’re probably all out of energy. And with good reason: you’ve done the equivalent of a full day’s work in one morning, and you’re probably as tired as you would normally be after a full day in your old job.
5. You’re exhausted
Being dog tired doesn’t help time go faster, especially if you’re wishing for nightfall so you can get your head down. Exhaustion can make time crawl to a stand-still and as though you’re walking through water. And there’s only so much coffee one woman can drink.
6. It can be monotonous
Let’s call a spade a spade: doing roughly the same things every morning with a little person that can’t take part in a stimulating conversation with you can make the mornings kind of dull. Not that you don’t love every minute of it of course. But like anything that is repetitive, early motherhood can become a little groundhog day like – which slows time down.
7. Day-time TV
Personally, I find morning TV a massive snooze fest, and it always makes me feel like my life has ground down to a halt. I just couldn’t have it on when I was home with a baby, so instead I listened to music or watched box sets on TV – advert free! My days were still long but at least I wasn’t dying of boredom.
8. You spend a lot of time staring at your baby
There is a good thing about these mornings going slowly. You get to stare at your baby for hours and hours if you want to – while they’re sleeping, during feeds, or while you’re walking around together. Actually, if there’s ever a time you want to last longer, it’s to do this, right?
