If you’re reading this, then I can assume you’re a motivated new mom who wants to start waking up before your baby.
And I’m here to tell you IT’S POSSIBLE!
Maybe you’ve never been a morning person and on top of that, you’re exhausted from taking care of the baby ‘round the clock.
BUT you know that waking up early will be a GAME CHANGER and you want to commit to a healthy morning routine for yourself.
You want to give your baby a better mom (instead of a zombie mom, which is what my son got before I created a morning routine for myself).
You know what the hardest part is though, right? It’s actually getting up early.
So, as a zombie mom -turned “morning person” myself, here are some tips I’ve found for getting through the hardest part of a new morning routine… just getting out of bed.
Skip Ahead:
1. Get Clear on WHY you’re waking up early
There’s a reason why my morning routine workbook begins with a writing exercise to get super clear on your “why.”
That’s because when I first started waking up early, I didn’t have a real reason for doing so… and it was a total flop.
Honestly… I just saw the moms I followed on YouTube posting their 5:00 AM morning routine videos and thought that’s what I should do too.
How lame, right?
So flash forward to 5:00 AM when I’m debating whether or not to hit snooze on the alarm. Telling myself, “Lisa, you have to get up now because that’s what all the YouTube moms do,” obviously didn’t fly and I hit snooze.
I didn’t get serious about waking up until I had A GOOD REASON. (And by good reason, I mean something that was MORE tempting than another hour of sleep!)
If you’re wanting to create a strong, motivating reason for yourself to finally commit to getting out of bed early every morning, here are some questions to ask yourself:
How will waking up early benefit You and Your Baby?
Ask yourself why you NEED to make early mornings a habit. How will waking up early benefit both of you?
Here are some common reasons why moms start a morning routine:
- Jumpstart your Energy
- Be more productive (without a baby on your hip)
- Get in a good mood before ‘Mom Duty’ calls
- Get organized- Plan out your day
- Set the tone for your day
What are you missing right now?
Are you missing the peace and quiet time that has become so rare in motherhood?
Are you missing that confident feeling when you put on makeup in the morning?
Are you missing your favorite hobby that you just don’t have time for anymore so you need to MAKE time for it now?
For me, I was missing the feeling of waking up fully before diving into my day. When my son became my alarm clock, I was starting my day off with diaper changes and a crabby baby as soon as my feet hit the floor.
I didn’t have time to brush my teeth or drink a glass of water. I had no choice but to go attend to the baby’s needs as soon as he woke me up.
Well, it always put me in a bad mood because I was testing my patience before I had even taken care of my own basic needs. That meant I had very little patience for my son and zero patience for my husband.
I was a total emotional wreck EVERY. MORNING.
Not a great start to my day… or my son’s day, or my husband’s day. And that wasn’t fair to them at all.
Make your reason emotional
I have a video on my phone of my 9-month-old baby standing up in his crib, calling for me in the morning because he had just woken up.
It was one of those rare days that E had slept in. I had woken up with my husband, sent him off to work, and had time to sit down with coffee and breakfast on my own for about a half-hour.
So I turned on my camera when I heard him calling (because how cute are babies when they first wake up, right?!) I walk up the stairs, and into his bedroom. He’s standing there with his little hands over the crib bars and when I say, “Good morning little baby,” in a sweet, soft voice, he beams a smile at me that just makes my mama heart EXPLODE.
This video always makes me smile. I get emotional watching it because it’s just so sweet.
Well, about three weeks ago, it finally hit me that our mornings aren’t usually like that… and that actually broke my heart a little.
Mornings at my house usually went like this:
- My 1-year-old wakes up.
- He calls for me and wakes me up.
- Having just woken up, I swing my legs off the bed and drag my feet to his room, squinting in the dark.
I don’t have a smile for him. I don’t have a cheery “Good morning!” I’m just stumbling around, trying to get his diaper changed and offer him his water cup. (And I’m usually in a hurry because I have to go to the bathroom.)
I got teary-eyed thinking about how much my laziness was affecting my son’s happiness in the morning. Instead of helping him wake up and setting a positive tone for his day, I had been dragging him down with me into the black hole of my own bad mood.
THIS is why I wake up. I have a very strong emotional attachment now to making this new routine WORK for the sake of my family.
Maybe your Why is strongly connected to a happy emotion. Maybe it’s time you can look forward to one-on-one time with your spouse before work. Maybe it’s time that you can set aside to do something you absolutely LOVE doing but haven’t had time for lately.
Any emotion you can attach to your why will help solidify it for you, trust me!
2. Treat Yourself
Think of a kid on Christmas morning. If you’re looking forward to what you have planned for your morning activities (opening presents!), you’re more likely to spring out of bed, right?
Set up your morning routine so that it’s something you look forward to.
What will make you look forward to your morning?
Answer that question and you’ll have a tempting reason to get yourself up and at ‘em before Baby wakes up!
Maybe it’s…
- Coffee
- Yoga
- Devotional
- Cooking/ Eating Breakfast in Peace
- Exercise
- Checking off your to-do list
- Creating a to-do list (I love planning)
- Reading
- Journaling
- Favorite Podcast
Make an “If / Then Promise”
Just like with a kid, try bribing yourself to get out of bed. Fill in the blank: If I [do this], then I can [do this].
“If I get out of bed and do my workout, then I can have a hot cup of coffee on the patio.”
“If I get out of bed on time, then I’ll have a full hour to sit and read my favorite book!”
If I get up now, then I can check off my to-do list and just enjoy snuggle time once the baby is up.”
3. Start Small
You know how everyone (myself included) makes these big New Year’s resolutions in January and then we follow through with them until about… February?
It’s because we set ourselves up to fail. We wrote out this huge, long list of goals and tasks and things that we wanted to work on every. single. day!
We had great intentions, but it wasn’t sustainable. It was too much change all at once.
You don’t just go from 0-100 in a flash and then stay at 100. You need to steadily work your way up to your goal so you’re more likely to sustain it.
That’s what I did with my morning routine.
Wake up a little earlier every day
My 1-year-old usually wakes up around 7:00 AM every day. Ideally, I would love to have about two hours to myself before he wakes up.
But on the first day of trying out my new morning routine, I made that common mistake. I set my alarm for 5:00 AM.
You can guess what happened. Yep, I snoozed for about a half-hour, then dragged myself out of bed and felt exhausted all morning, rather than feeling energized and happy.
It was WAY too much for my body to pull off in one day. I lost two hours of sleep that day- of course I was exhausted!
So a few weeks ago when I decided to recommit to my morning routine, I set my alarm for 6:30 AM. That way, I was only losing a half-hour of sleep.
I did that for a week straight and eventually, my body adjusted and I started going to bed a half-hour earlier.
I’m proud to say that I woke up at 6:30 AM every day for a full week. And this past week, I’ve woken up at 6:00 AM every day!
Here’s what my weekly plan looks like:
- Week 1- 6:30 AM (half-hour earlier)
- Week 2- 6:00 AM (1 hour earlier)
- Week 3- 5:30 AM (1.5 hours earlier)
- Week 4- 5:00 AM (2 hours earlier)
As you can see, I’m on a 4-week track to waking up at my goal time, which is a full 2 hours before my baby wakes up!
4. Don’t Hit Snooze
That snooze button feels like my best friend… but it’s really my worst enemy. If I know it’s an option, I will use it… and then I’ll keep using it over and over and over.
I had to make this promise to myself. NO snoozing. Period.
I’m not going to lie, it’s hard. But here’s something interesting I learned about the snooze button:
It Kills Your Productivity
Mel Robbins, author of The 5 Second Rule, argues that productivity levels in the morning have less to do with when you wake up, and more to do with how you wake up.
When your alarm goes off, your brain starts to slowly wake your body up.
But if you hit snooze and fall back asleep for 10 minutes, your brain thinks, “Oh, it’s not time to wake up yet,” and starts a brand new sleep cycle (which usually lasts between 90- 110 minutes!)
Mel explains sleep inertia much better than I do in her video about it here:
Use The 5 Second Rule
If you haven’t read Mel’s book, The 5 Second Rule, I highly recommend it! I got the audiobook (because #momlife), which she read herself and did an amazing job.
She’s a very successful motivational speaker and the book is basically one huge motivational speech to get you to stop procrastinating and JUST DO IT.
Long story short, she invented the 5 Second Rule because she needed to get serious about waking up on time to take her kids to school in the morning.
As silly as it sounds, she pictured herself as a rocket blasting off out of bed. She decided that the time her alarm went off, she would turn it off, count 5-4-3-2-1… then get out of bed.
The book goes through all the scientific and psychological reasons this counting backward actually encourages your brain to take action, but what you need to know now is it works!
So next time your alarm goes off, instead of hitting snooze, count 5-4-3-2-1… and just get up!
5. Keep A Sleep Log
Tracking how much sleep you’re getting every night can help you see how much sleep your body really needs.
Everyone is different here, so if you’re the type of person who needs a full 8 hours to feel rested and your goal is to wake up at 5:00 AM, then you know you’ll need to go to sleep around 9:00 PM every night.
Getting the right amount of rest every night is so important for getting up in the morning. You can’t expect your body to consistently get out of bed early if you’re not giving it enough sleep.
That’s a good way to burn out and you know as a mom we CANNOT afford to burn out!
Here’s a look at my personal sleep tracker for week #2 of waking up early:
Now, I’m a total night owl. I love staying up late and I love sleeping in, but eventually, I started to feel tired earlier, which has helped me a lot.
6. Make It A 30 Day Challenge
I had a clear, emotional reason why I wanted to make this work, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard. I knew I needed to hold myself accountable.
That’s why I started a 30-day challenge on Instagram.
I chose to wake up early for 30 days straight because I really wanted to make this a HABIT.
Getting up at the same time over and over again (even on weekends) would prove to my subconscious mind that I AM the type of mom who gets up before her son and greets him with a warm smile when he wakes up.
Post a Timestamp on Social Media
This is another little trick I used to stop hitting snooze.
I actually set my alarm for the exact time I was aiming to wake up. I knew that if I hit snooze before I made my Insta Story with #30daychallenge and a timestamp, I would be called out by my friends for not following through.
I set it up so that I HAD to turn the alarm off and get moving right away. I couldn’t just lay there. I had to make that Insta Story.
That’s how I’ve been holding myself publicly accountable, which has been working really well for me!
Grab a Supportive Girlfriend
Another option is to have someone who can do a 30-day challenge with you. Maybe your husband or a best friend.
You can make a pact to wake each other up or maybe text each other good morning as proof that you’re up.
And don’t forget I’m your friend! Send me a DM or tag me on Instagram so I can cheer you on!
What time should I wake up?
That depends. How much time do you need to feel awake and accomplished in the morning before your baby wakes up?
Again, this answer is going to be different for everyone.
I decided that I wanted to wake up 2 hours before my baby. The reason is that I wanted an hour to relax, get myself showered, and ready for the day, then another hour to check things off my to-do list and exercise.
I knew that would put me in a fantastic mood by the time E woke up.
Wake Up Before Baby
Maybe your goal is just to get your teeth brushed and get dressed for the day before your baby needs your attention.
Waking up before your baby guarantees that you can get your needs met before you’re taking care of the needs of everyone else.
Of course, it helps to have your baby on a schedule so you can more-or-less predict when he/she will be up.
That’s why I worked on getting E on a sleep schedule before I made goals for my own morning routine. I knew that if he was still waking up at a different hour every day, trying to stay a step ahead of him would get frustrating quickly and I’d probably give up.
I don’t want that to happen for you!
If you need help getting Baby on a sleep schedule, I love following Sleep And The City on Instagram for tips!
OR Just Stay Awake
The hardest part is getting out of bed, right? (And possibly getting your baby to wake up around the same time every day.)
It’s easier to stay awake than to wake up. That’s why when my son was under 6 months old, I would use his last night feed as my alarm clock.
At that age, he was waking almost every day between 5:00-5:30 AM to breastfeed. I had to get out of bed to feed him so that was my push to get up and moving around.
I would feed him in the rocking chair, put him back to sleep, then ride that momentum and just stay awake after he went back down.
I started using that hour or two before he woke back up for the day to get myself ready for the day, make coffee, shower, eat breakfast, feed the dogs, all the things that would make me feel awake and ready to attend to his needs once he woke up.
If your baby has a hard time sticking to a schedule, this could be an option for you!
You’ve Got This Mama!
Remember that you’re a MOM, which means you have superhuman abilities. You’ve overcome huge struggles, both physical and emotional, since this tiny human entered your life.
You can definitely do this and you deserve this time for you.
Keep in mind that you can’t pour from an empty cup. It’s not selfish to carve a little me time out of your day wherever you can. It’s best for your entire family if you can do something for yourself so you have more to give.
Let me know in the comments if you have any tips that work for you!
I’m rooting for you!
↓ Pin this to your Self Care board on Pinterest! ↓
