How to Stop Staying up Late as a Stay-at-Home Mom
Do you find yourself repeating the same old pattern of staying up later than you’d like and then waking up feeling mad at yourself again?
We all know the reasons why stay-at-home moms aren’t getting the sleep they need - even after their kids are sleeping through the night (or most of it!). In those precious couple of hours once the kids are asleep, no one asks you for anything, no one touches you, and you finally get a break from the sound of your own voice.
You feel you deserve the reward of staying up for getting through a long day of taking care of everyone else’s needs and are loath to put any kind of limit on that gloriously free time. Plus, you have the niggling thought that once you actually go to sleep, morning will hit you before you know it, and the demands on your time begin all over again.
But what happens when staying up late becomes something you know you no longer want for yourself, yet you can’t seem to break the habit, no matter how hard you try?
Stop beating yourself up over your bedtime
The first step to getting yourself to bed at an earlier time is to stop berating yourself for not getting to bed at an earlier time!
Your brain is designed to be efficient; to use the least amount of energy possible to do its work. So when you’ve done the same thing on repeat for a while and it’s become a habit, your brain starts operating on autopilot, happy that you’re doing something nice and familiar, and safe in the knowledge that it’s keeping you away from the potential danger that comes with trying something new.
So it’s no surprise that it then resists you trying to get yourself to bed any earlier because it doesn’t want to have to work harder than is necessary. And making this change to your bedtime would certainly involve entirely different patterns of behavior than what you’re used to.
Once we know this about our brains, we can much more easily understand why we’re resisting changing up our evenings/nights and why we continue to do exactly what we’re doing, even when it’s making us unhappy.
Get clear on the fact that this is what you want
The thing to remember is: You want this for yourself. Why would the struggles with your late bedtime keep coming up for you otherwise? Why would you keep telling yourself you’re staying up late for no good reason? And why would you unfailingly end up mad at yourself the next day?
Your reluctance to make the earlier bedtime happen is also not a sign that you’re just a person who’s meant to go to bed later or that you’re a “night owl” who doesn’t need that much sleep, though it’s very easy for us to make that assumption or convince ourselves that this is true.
You know in your heart that you’ve had enough of staying up late and that you now want a different experience for yourself - one where you wake up feeling rested and energized as opposed to struggling through the day until you get your second wind once the kids are asleep. When you realize that this is something you truly want for yourself, there’s no need for a feeling of deprivation, or the sense that you’re missing out.
But be prepared for the fact that the first time you set an earlier bedtime for yourself, you may feel very uncomfortable following through with it! It will be unfamiliar to you, and you may still have thoughts about what you’re “missing out” on.
The secret to not letting this derail bedtime entirely is to tell yourself beforehand that you’re going to allow the discomfort when it shows up; to allow all of your feelings to be there rather than resisting or avoiding whatever comes up for you. And what often happens when we do that is that those feelings soon dissipate.
You may also feel some discomfort because you fear that you won’t know who you are without the exhaustion and the long-held belief that life at home is a hard slog. You may even fear that removing the additional layer of hardship that sleep deprivation brings may open up all sorts of possibilities to you that you just don’t feel ready for yet. This thought can feel scary, making you more than willing to keep going exactly as you are.
So how do you start?
The first step is to stop telling ourselves that we “should” be going to bed earlier because that only ever makes us feel “less-than” when we don’t make it happen, and puts us under a type of pressure that we then naturally want to resist. Shame will never motivate us into taking action - in fact it only ever has the entirely opposite effect. Remember that where you are right now is right where you’re meant to be.
Open yourself up to the possibility that you could have an earlier bedtime, and then be curious about your reaction to that. Because the process of getting yourself to bed at an earlier time is going to require you to believe new things about yourself and to practice those new thoughts over and over.
If, for example, you choose the thought, “I’m a person who goes to bed at 10.30pm”, pay close attention to how you feel when you say that sentence in your mind. Because that feeling is going to be the fuel that will spur you on to show up as the person who absolutely believes this unfamiliar thought to be true. If the thought doesn’t feel good to you, play around a little until you find one that does.
Decide ahead of time
The practical part of getting yourself to bed earlier comes down to deciding ahead of time when exactly you want to go to bed - and committing to following through with that plan! It’s sometimes helpful to recognize (without judgement!) that, by staying up late, you’ve been choosing to deny yourself the chance to get the rest you need. Reiterate that you’re making a different choice for yourself now.
Your brain is naturally going to be fatigued by the end of the day so it’s important to remember that it will want to do what it’s always done for the sake of ease. That’s why it’s important for you to commit to a daily schedule that reflects your most important priorities - which now include going to bed on time.
Next, create a detailed plan for your evening (all the while imagining how it will feel to climb into your warm, comfortable bed in a state of calm, rather than stumbling under the weight of a panicked, self-imposed pressure to get what little sleep the remaining hours allow) using the following steps:
Make sure that the new bedtime you picked is around when you usually start to feel tired in the evening (before you get your second wind). It’s best not to pick a random hour because we want our bodies to be tired enough for sleep.
Write down what time you usually close the door after putting your kids to bed.
List every single task you do each evening after closing that door. This could include loading the dishwasher, putting on a load of laundry, watching TV, flossing and brushing your teeth, changing into pajamas...
Over the next day or two, time yourself to see how long it takes for you to actually complete these activities - you may be surprised!
Add up the total time taken for all of the essential tasks listed and note how much time remains before your new bedtime. You may see that you only have time to watch one episode of a show, or read just ten pages of your book. These new, realistic times go down on the page in place of the old ones.
Put all of your evening activities in order, and make sure it’s one that makes sense for you. Try putting whatever task you dislike the most at the very start of your plan - for me that’s brushing my teeth. Getting this task out of the way first ensures that it cannot become the reason you continue to stay up later than you’d like.
The key concept here is that the act of shutting your kid’s bedroom door each night sets your evening plan in motion. One activity flows directly on to the next...from walking to the bathroom, to brushing your teeth, to changing into your pajamas, to loading the dishwasher, and so on, until you get into bed. There are no decisions to be made at all once you close that bedroom door, so your bedtime is not up for negotiation at any point during the evening.
Naturally it’s possible that you might get distracted some nights and end up missing bedtime, but it’s very important to catch yourself when you then inevitably start thinking you might as well stay up really late now. Most importantly, be kind to yourself and proud of what you’re doing for your own wellbeing - and for the wellbeing of your family, too. Because it’s not only you who’s best served by you no longer running on empty all the time - it’s your partner and kids, too. Of course it takes effort and commitment to make this sort of change in your life, but you’ll find it soon becomes effortless as a new habit starts to form.
If you feel you need support in getting yourself to bed at an earlier time, please join me in my 1:1 coaching program, “Shed the Shoulds for the Holidays” where we will work together to look at how your “shoulds” are keeping you stuck, and explore how you can begin to think about your life at home in a way that opens up all the possibilities available to you.