Mummy Milli

How do we all feel about this? A great way to set up your day and maybe get a bit of time to yourself or another unrealistic expectation put on parents as the only way to get some ‘me’ time?

I recently heard about this trend, although waking up at 5:30am is nothing new to me as Monkey is an early riser. The idea seems to be that you get up extremely early, before your family and you need to start getting ready for work to have some you time and to set yourself up well for the day.

Logistically, 6am is my normal waking time on work days, so I would need to be up by at least 4:30am to have a block of time big enough to reasonably get anything done. Considering that 7 hours of sleep is needed then bed time would have to be 9:30pm. Monkey goes to sleep at 8pm but bed time can take an hour! This leaves half an hour of tired, quality time with Hubby at night, which is not enough for us.

I personally love the idea of having that time to myself, it is my best writing time. I always have grand plans of stretching in the morning, reading, journaling, reaching out to friends overseas where this is the best time to do so but this time just gets eaten up. Either through writing needing to get done, the alarm getting snoozed too many times or Monkey deciding on an early morning.

Too quickly 6am rolls around and it is time to start getting myself and Monkey ready for work and childcare. For me to get to work on time (8:30am) I have to leave at 7am each morning, a combination of driving to a very good childcare centre and working in the city results in a 3 hour commute every day. Unfortunately Hubby works in the opposite direction and even further away, so there is no option for sharing this drop off. Having Monkey in a good childcare centre is a priority for us so the 3 hour commute is a choice I have made for this season of my life.

In Australia we have a great regulation body for childcare ratings called ACEQUA. If you are in Australia and looking at childcare centres it will probably be listed in the ACEQUA website with a rating, this is a great starting point in making a decision.

So where are these women getting their time from? Are they just becoming sleep deprived? I have heard that some people seem to function fine on about four hours sleep but it is not possible for all these people who think that this is them, to actually be them.

This could be a situation where there are mums screaming at the screen, “this only works when they are older or good sleepers!,” and that sure could be the case. However, part of me feels like this is just another unrealistic expectation put on parents to find their alone time in a way that will not impact the family at all. If we wake up earlier then it doesn’t impact the children’s time with us, they don’t see us on screens as often and we have already filled our cup for the day so we can be the best us for the family.

Maybe our children need to see us working hard, even when that means sitting at the kitchen table on our computers, when they are playing and just letting the house get dirty and your child/ren get bored. Originally I was worried about Monkey getting bored, when I couldn’t play with him, as we don’t have the tv on at home. However his focus, attention span and creativity are amazing so although it could have been an easy way to deal with needing some time alone when he was younger, and even now sometimes, those harder times are well worth it too me.

Maybe they also need to see us really relaxing, even though the first few times we do it will be hard. Letting everything go so that you can sit and have a coffee while reading a book, you have been wanting to read for the last year, but just haven’t found time. Hearing our child calling for us to play with them because to them, we may look like we are doing nothing. How well could this set them up to not feel ‘lazy’ if they sit and do nothing for a half hour, or really instil a passion of reading throughout their lives.

Or is it mainly about accessing help – through family or more child care days? Is this even an option for many people? Maybe this is where ‘The Village’ would really come in handy, if and when we have access to one.

I am torn with this one as I do my best writing in the morning and I really don’t feel creative in the evenings, but to get a decent chunk of time in before the family starts to rise or before I have to get ready for work means waking up at 4:30am, and I don’t really want to do that.

How do you handle finding ‘me’ time? can you find any at all?