Kids, Work, and Sleep Deprivation: The Life Of A Working Mom

Work travel can be a good thing or a bad thing. While many fellow road warriors tell me they have a hard time sleeping in hotel beds, I sleep like a baby.

In fact, I get my best sleep when I’m on work travel. With three kids, one a two-year-old (Harper), getting more than 5 hours of sleep is a rare luxury. To minimize the impact of travel on my family and to make sure my work trip doesn’t become a guilt trip, I have relied on my in-laws to take my two-year-old for a night (or two or three) while I am gone.

It helps make those long days away from home just a bit more bearable knowing my husband has a bit of pressure relief. It also cuts back on stressful text messages that I truly can’t do anything about, other than feel bad.

So far so good right?

Kids, Work, and Sleep Deprivation: The Life Of A Working Mom

The problem is when I return home, it’s payback time. Three nights at Grama’s house, I have learned, can establish some very bad habits.

Once when I got back from a recent trip to Philadelphia, I learned that Grama slept in the bed with my little one every night. When mommy got home, she was expecting the same level of service.

Honestly, even after two other kids, I still had no clue as to what I was in for!

Ever so innocently, I went down the path of Harper’s “normal” routine (bath, reading, rocking and lay down in bed to go to sleep). When it came to the getting to sleep part, she rejected it like a foreign body.

It took about an hour to get her down. Mommy had to be in the room with her. Then she woke up at 3 a.m. From there is was an hour or two of fighting, screaming and hysteria.

My husband even tried to pin her down in her bed, just to constrain her a bit. Of course that woke up the entire house including my 13 and 11-year old.

In the end, admitting defeat, I went back into Harper’s room and lay on the hard floor with a pillow pet until she fell back asleep. Just a few minutes before the sun rose.

Within what seemed like seconds, the morning alarm went on for a house full of exhausted people.

The Walking Dead

Now it’s decision time. As a working professional, I have to decide, do I buck up, get dressed for work, wake up my exhausted toddler, take my very tired middle-schoolers to school and go through the day like The Walking Dead. Or do I cancel three meetings so I can get some desperately needed rest, let the toddler sleep a bit and ask my most excellent partner to take the two older kids to school?

Sometimes it’s hard to decide which way to go. Throughout my career, I have spent more days than I can count feeling like a zombie. I’m leaning on caffeine and pure to get through the day. You see I don’t want to be any different than my peers, some of whom don’t have children or don’t have young children or have partners at home to take care of the household.

And I don’t want my boss thinking that I can’t take on challenging assignments because of my commitments at home.

My Confession

So many times I have hidden my exhaustion. I will confess, there have been days where I pinch myself – hard – at meetings to stay awake. Or I’ll shut my door (grateful that I have one) and lay my head down for a few minutes.

But on this particular morning, I decided to push my morning meetings and get some desperately needed sleep. I donned my ear plugs (a fabulous invention), woke up without an alarm at 8:30 a.m. and got ready. I woke Harper up at 9 a.m. got her to school by 9:30 and me to work by 9:45. It was enough to have a productive day and I really felt it was the right decision – that particular time.

The truth is (at least for me) is that there is no right or wrong answer. You have to decide each time you wake up in zombie mode what you are going to do.

It might depend on what you have going on that day or if you are in a position where being present and visible is very important. Or it might be that you have had a few days prior of being out of the office so it wouldn’t be a good idea to roll in at 10 a.m.

Early in my career, I would never have slept in as I did in this case. But as I grow and gain more confidence I realize that I can make a decision that is right for me based on my needs and my family’s needs. I don’t always have to be that martyr.

Wrapping It Up

So next time you feel like an episode of The Walking Dead, take stock before you jump in the car and race off to the office. Take a moment to recharge and possibly be more present and have a better, more productive day.

As a working mom, do you find it better to recharge or is it really better to push through? Share your thoughts in the comments below.