Parenting Fatigue: Recharge Your Energy, Sleep Better and Restore Your Confidence on Self-Care Sunday

Hey, welcome back. No problem, parents. Are you tuckered out? Well, I want to welcome you to another episode of Self-Care Sunday. And today we're tackling the challenges of parenthood.

And I'm going to share some strategies and resources to recharge and rejuvenate you. From sleepless nights to endless to-do lists, being a parent can leave us feeling drained and exhausted. But today I'm going to share some tips about overcoming parenting fatigue. And we're going to focus on prioritizing self-care on the daily. Thanks for listening to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Are you ready to become the confident leader your kids crave you to be?

Are you losing your crap on your kids, yelling, giving in, and exhausted at the end of every day? You can start building confidence in your parenting immediately, whether your child is a toddler or all grown up and still living in your house. Don't make this parenting gig harder than it needs to be. Register to become a No Problem Parent. It comes with an app so you can listen to the tips and tools just like you're listening to this podcast. Click the link in the show notes or go to NoProblemParents.com. Become a No Problem Parent today. All right, parents, self-care is not just a buzzword. It's actually a lifeline when it comes to parenthood and it's about recognizing that your well-being matters too. So it's okay to prioritize yourself. Let go of the guilt and that belief that taking care of yourself is selfish. It's actually essential and your kids want you to be happy. By nurturing yourself, you become better equipped to nurture those around you,

right? So let's dig into understanding parenting fatigue. What is it really? Well, it's basically when you feel like you've hit the parenting wall. It's that bone deep exhaustion that comes from juggling a million things at once. You're dealing with tantrums or constantly on the go, caring for a child who requires your full attention or worrying about things that you have little or no control over and you're just trying to keep it all together. The number one cause of parenting fatigue that I hear about is lack of sleep. So today I'm going to share a new to market resource that can help you get the sleep that you need no matter how much time you have and it can actually help your kiddos who aren't sleeping at night too. So have you heard our sleep episode series with Melissa Dealy? If not, go back and check out episodes 238, 245, and 252. Melissa shared many great tips for how to get ourselves and our kiddos improved sleep. Sleep is a foundational key first step in improving the relationships in our home behaviorally, emotionally, and physically. So when you're up at night with a crying baby or a sick child, or you're not able to shut down your thoughts at night about all the things that need to get done, maybe you're waking up throughout the night worrying about your kiddo. Well, it's no wonder you're fatigued. Kids are demanding. There are constant demands that require your attention, whether it's getting food on the table, helping

with homework, kids tugging on you, needing somebody to listen to their stories, or maybe you're breaking up sibling rivalry. It can all be overwhelming. Parenting comes with its fair share of highs and lows, and sometimes the emotional toll can just leave you feeling drained. At work or caring for an aging parent on top of all the household chores and managing the kid's schedules, It's super easy to feel like you're drowning in your responsibilities.

And when you're busy taking care of everyone else, it's easy to forget about your own needs, even though you know you should be taking care of yourself. Are you skipping meals? Are you neglecting your own exercise, not making time for hobbies? And instead, are you scrolling social or staying up too late, binging shows in an attempt to check out for a little while, convincing yourself it's your me time and you deserve it?

But are you being intentional about that or are you just sort of zoning out? Slowly, parental burnout creeps in when we give in to the energy drains and we're not intentional about filling our own cup. Even though we know what we need to do, it's not rocket science. We know that self-care is an important part of parenting and we know that we need to do it, but sometimes the parental fatigue, it just sort of becomes habit.

We get stuck. And so today I want to share a resource and five basic things that we can do to get unstuck, to get ourselves to do what we know we need to do and to stop the negative habits that we've found relief in during stressful or scary times, but that are sabotaging our own well-being. Before I get into the five basic things that we can do to relieve our parenting fatigue, I want to share what I discovered and am having results with in my parenting fatigue, which Hey, for those of you that know me, my kiddo's grown, so I'm not parenting an actual human being as much right now as I am parenting my company, my business.

So this works for parenting fatigue and work fatigue as well. So if you are up at night with racing thoughts, not being able to calm down or to sleep, maybe you're tired at one or two o'clock in the afternoon and you just don't know how you're going to make it through the day. Or you're going to bed at eight or nine o'clock with the kids because you just can't take it anymore. But then in the morning, you're waking up to dishes and you didn't get things prepared for the day that you needed to the night before because you were exhausted and fell asleep.

Well, I've got something that can help. Consider this the remote control for your brain. It's an app called New Calm, and it's the world's first and only patented technology that is clinically proven to lower your stress and improve your sleep quality with no drugs. It's backed by 34 years of patented, clinically proven neuroscience.

It's been used by the United States Special Forces, Navy SEALs, Air Force, and Border Patrol since 2012. It's been used by the FBI, SWAT, by professional airline pilots for fatigue, safety, and restorative sleep, and by more than 56 professional sports teams since 2011. So if you're overwhelmed and you're stuck in digging out of the fatigue and you have these racing thoughts at night or negative thoughts that are keeping you up at night, try the seven day free trial of New Calm. I've got a link in the show notes and you're going to enter the code, no problem, all one word to receive 15% off the monthly subscription. I've been using New Calm for a little while now, and I'm telling you, it has been a game changer for me, not only at night, but also the restore option and the power nap option and the flow state option for during the day when you need a little bit of a boost.

I'm going to be sharing more about the benefits of New Calm over the next several weeks. I've met with the president of New Calm, Jim Poole. He and I had an hour-long discussion talking about the benefits. I was inquiring about how New Calm is helping veterans with PTSD and children who have endured trauma.

And so learn right along with me as I interview Jim next week. We're going to talk more about the benefits of New Calm. So be sure to click the plus sign or follow sign on the podcast app that you're listening to right now so that you get alerted when my interview with Jim Poole of New Calm is published. Again, there's a link in the show notes for you to learn more about New Calm.

And if you have any questions, feel free to email those to me, Jackie at NoProblemParents.com and I will add those questions to my interview with Jim. All right, so let's get into those steps to overcoming parental fatigue. Well, of course, that foundational one is to get more sleep, more restful sleep, more rejuvenating sleep.

New Calm can definitely help. And if you've listened to the sleep series that I had with Melissa Dealy of Your Guided Health Journey in episodes 238, 245, and 252, Melissa shares that sleep is foundational because it plays a crucial role in restoring our physical and mental well-being. During sleep, our bodies repair and regenerate tissues. Our body detoxes.

We consolidate memories and regulate hormones. Without adequate sleep, we can experience fatigue, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and weakened immune function. It makes it harder to cope with the demands of parenting and daily life. So make sleep a non-negotiable part of your routine by setting a consistent bedtime and creating a calming bedtime ritual.

And again, for those of you parents who are dealing with kiddos waking up at night, I'd encourage you to try the seven-day free trial of New Calm to see how that helps you and your kiddos get a full restful night's sleep. Number two, scheduling self-care. We need to do this, parents. Block out time in your calendar for activities that are going to recharge you, whether it's reading 10 pages of a book in between your day, taking a long shower, or maybe a bubble bath, going for a walk, even if it's just five to 10 minutes at a time, scheduling some little self-care breaks so important. And then number three, delegate tasks. Don't be afraid to ask for help from your partner, from family members, or from friends. And share household responsibilities and child care duties so you can lighten your load. Be intentional about this whenever you can.

Whenever you can grab a few minutes, look through all the things that you do, all the things that your partner does, all the things that you need a partner to do but you don't have a partner to do. Write those down, jot those down, and then we're going to work on finding you the supports and the people that can help you do that. There is always a way, parents. There's always a way.

And then number four, practice mindfulness. We've been talking a lot about this. It's kind of like a buzzword, but people have been doing this for generations. Incorporate mindfulness techniques into your daily routine.

Deep breathing exercises, meditation, yoga, or even just simple stretching. All of these things help reduce stress and increase relaxation, and we don't need to make it harder than it needs to be. I don't like to go to the gym, for instance, for two reasons. I think it takes way too much time.

Where I live, by the time I get into the gym and back, that's almost an hour right there, much less an hour-long workout. Nope, not doing it. But there are things that I do in between my appointments during the day where I'm going out for a brisk walk, no matter what the weather, I'll do this during rain, snow, whatever, just to get myself outdoors and back in. It doesn't have to be rocket science and it doesn't have to be a big production.

Do something to incorporate mindfulness. I get up early. I love getting up early. But even for those of us who get up maybe 30 minutes before the rest of our family or two hours, in my case, before the rest of the family, doesn't mean I'm using that time wisely or intentionally.

Being really intentional that that time period that you have incorporated into your schedule, you intentionally spend on whatever it is that relaxes you. And then the final one, the fifth one, setting boundaries. We have to learn to say no to commitments or activities that do not feed us or recharge us. The things that drain your energy or that don't align with your current priorities.

We really need to be intentional about setting boundaries, which is going to allow you to conserve your energy for what truly matters. And remember parents, you can say no with confidence and empowerment rather than feeling bad that you're letting somebody else down. If what you're saying no to means that you're saying yes to yourself and your family, then that is a good thing. And you can allow yourself to feel proud about saying no and putting your family first.

And this often means that you need to be self-compassionate. Acknowledge your efforts, recognize and appreciate the effort that you put into parenting each and every day, but especially on those challenging days, just recognizing, appreciating yourself, that's going to boost your self-compassion right there in an instant. So instead of dwelling on the failures or the mishaps or the mistakes, celebrate the dedication and commitment to your child's well-being, your family's well-being, and making it through the tough times. Offer yourself understanding whenever you are facing a parenting challenge. Remind yourself that it's okay to struggle. Look in the mirror and tell yourself, dang, this is hard and I can do hard things. Give yourself the same understanding and empathy just as you would to a friend facing similar difficulties. Parenting fatigue can lead to self-criticism and negative self-talk. So I want you to counteract that by treating yourself with gentleness and compassion. When you have a feeling, a negative feeling or a negative thought, I want you to stop yourself. Remember that you're doing the best you can in those circumstances and say,

hey, I'm struggling right now, but I got this. Prioritize your own well-being and stop the stinking thinking. Stop those negative thoughts. The moment you start going down the negative rabbit hole, stop yourself and remind yourself, no, I got this. I am doing hard things because I can do hard things and I got this. And when you need a break, take a break. Remember, we can prepare for the worst by setting up game plans for how we can handle crisis situations. But we also need to prepare for those times before things become a crisis. Taking breaks is essential for recharging and maintaining your mental and emotional health.

So allow yourself to step away from parenting when you can without feeling guilty or selfish. Self-compassion involves recognizing your own needs and honoring them. So be intentional about taking a mental health day or an afternoon away from your work or your kids. Schedule this time in as often as is feasible.

It could be every month. It could be every few months, but preparing for and planning time away, time for yourself, whatever energizes you is so key so that when you're going through difficult times, you know you have something to look forward to. It helps you get through. And then the last thing I'll share for today that contributes to parental fatigue is beating yourself up and dwelling on parenting mistakes.

So instead, I encourage you to just learn from them. Mistakes are learning opportunities. We wanna teach that to our kids. We need to practice that within ourself.

Instead of focusing on the negatives, we don't know what we don't know. So when we mess up, just like we would forgive and guide our kids through those mistakes, we need to practice that self-acceptance and acknowledge that making mistakes is a natural part of parenting. We are not perfect, nor should we be. Our kids don't want perfection.

They want us to be confident and happy. Use your errors and judgment or those fly off the handle reactions and those experiences where you just were like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. I never thought I'd be that mom or I never thought I'd be that dad. Use those experiences to gain insight and then use the three-step no problem parenting model.

It will help you become a more resilient and confident parent. It is a mindset shift. Seeking first to understand why my child is behaving the way they are, but why am I responding or reacting the way that I am. Preparing for the worst.

We can't always be prepared. Life throws us curveballs. Our kids most certainly do, but there are those day in, day out challenges that we know are going to happen. When we pick up our kids from school or when we're trying to get them to bed, we know that there's those day in, day out challenges that are going to happen and we can prepare for those so that we respond instead of react.

And then change the conversation. Step three, I believe we're giving our kids too much unconditional praise, so much so that they don't even believe it themselves. So we practice conditional praise. We give our kids conditional factual praise first and then we pour on the unconditional and we lead with empathy, not sympathy.

We don't need to be too nice with our kids. That only ever leads to frustration, blowouts, and reactionary responses. So the three-step no problem parenting model is going to help you avoid parenting fatigue. Become a no problem parent today.

You can start for just $50 and it comes with a 30-minute problem solving coaching call. You're going to get the training automatically sent to you. You can binge it in an hour and 40 minutes or you can take it video by video. As I wrap up today, remember the oxygen mask is there for you.

Use it. Carve out time for yourself. Set boundaries and do things that nourish your mind, body, and soul on the daily while planning for longer periods of time when you can get those in. Invest in yourself so that you can become or sustain your confidence. I promise you, your kids crave you to be happy, confident, and fulfilled. You can conquer parenting fatigue.

You can bring joy and fulfillment back into your home for yourself and your family. And I want you to remember that on particularly rough days, when you feel like you cannot possibly endure, your track record for getting through those days so far is 100%. And I'd say that's pretty darn good. All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast.

Hey, thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Go to NoProblemParents.com.

Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this. you