Sleep Guide for Moms: Taking Care of Yourself

Truth bomb: You can’t pour from an empty cup, mama.

In order to take care of your family, you need to also take care of yourself! Enter the importance of sleep. Getting a solid night’s rest is essential to your well-being, productivity, happiness, and will leave you looking and feeling more refreshed. Are you in your third trimester and finding sleeping while pregnant difficult? Thinking that it’s a serious struggle to sleep like a baby when you HAVE a baby? You aren't alone!

While you can’t add more hours to the day, and overhauling your schedule might seem like an impossible task whether you have a newborn or toddler, making small and simple changes can result in a big impact to your quality of rest, even if you're only able to sleep a few hours at a time. Try these five tips to help you get better sleep.

1. Do 1-5 Minutes of Yoga Before Bed

Even with if you’re completely exhausted, getting into bed with your mind in overdrive can make falling asleep more difficult. Adding some easy stretches to your nightly routine could be a game changer in regards to lowering your stress levels, calming your mind, and reducing tension. Start with as little as one minute each night, and build up to five minutes.

Here are two great poses to try for better sleep:

• Legs Up the Wall – As the name indicates, lie flat on your back, bringing your seat as close to the wall as possible and prop your legs straight up on a wall with your arms by your side.
• Standing Forward Bend – Walk your feet to your hands. With feet hip-width apart and a slight bend in your knees, hold your elbows. Exhale and bend forward, while lengthening down through the crown of your head. 

2. Unwind with Tea

Try a nighttime tea blend infused with herbs such as chamomile, peppermint, spearmint, and lavender curated to help you get better rest. 

3. Create a Calming Space

Dim the lights while you get ready for bed and diffuse a soothing essential oil such as lavender, which has a sedative effect that helps to reduce anxiety and fatigue.

4. Exercise Regularly

According to the National Sleep Foundation, research shows that people sleep significantly better and feel more alert during the day when they get at least 2.5 hours of exercise each week. All the more reason to join your local Baby Boot Camp for mommy and me workouts! Bonus: you'll get to connect with other local moms who can sympathize with everything you're going through!

5. Put Down Your Phone

This might seem like the hardest task of all, but it's probably the most important! Turn off your phone, tablet, computer, TV, etc. and put them outside the room 5-10 minutes before you plan on going to sleep. Your phone (and emails) will be there when you wake up, we promise. If you need to keep your phone in your room, put it across the room to avoid temptation and minimize radiation.

~ MOMLETA HQ