Parenting on Almost No Sleep
For the stretch when the nights are broken and the days run on fumes. It drops the standard to feeding and safety, finds you an hour off, and takes the short temper off your conscience.
Parenting · Parenting · Burnout · 8 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Lower today to feeding and safety — Everything else on the list genuinely keeps until you have slept.
- Take the nap that is offered — Twenty minutes now beats a tidy kitchen you will not remember.
- Eat something without waiting to sit down — Standing over the sink still counts on a day like this.
- Get outside for ten minutes — Daylight and air do more for a foggy head than another coffee.
- Hand over an hour and actually leave — Hovering in the next room is not a break for anyone.
- Forgive the short temper — Snapping on two hours of sleep is a tired body, not the parent you are.
- Pick one thing to undo the chaos — The dishes or the floor, not both; one visible win is enough today.
- Ask for help before you are desperate — Help arranged on an ordinary day arrives faster than help begged for on a bad one.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.