Early Rising Experiment

I mentioned in yesterday's post that one of the things that I'd like to work on that "Shopping for Time" talked about was rising earlier than the family.

I've always had a "night owl" schedule, apparently since I was an infant, and yet, I have worked jobs that have required me to get up at 4 or 5 in the morning too. Since becoming a Mama, I have always gotten up with my child/children. During the pregnancy with Justus and his first few months, King Jo spoiled me and got the kids up and fed them breakfast so I could sleep in until 7:30a.m. But ever since his injury I've been back to getting up with them.

I've heard from lots of books and blogs that it's a great idea to get up early before the family to have a quiet time/prepare for the day but it has never worked out for our situation. I have been pregnant or nursing for 5 consecutive years (until last month when Justus would no longer nurse at all.) In addition to just being tired and wanting to sleep in until the last possible second there has been the dilemma of living in tiny homes where if you just breathe funny, the kids hear it and wake up. So, when I have tried to get up early for yard sales or something, it inevitably wakes the kids too, defeating the purpose.

So, because of how things have been for our family, I understand that at different stages, this may be a great thing for the homemaker and for other stages, an awful idea to try. If you're in an exhausting phase of either being pregnant or staying up late chatting with your teens, perhaps it's better for you to get your sleep and be a happy mama instead of trying to get up really early and be a crabby mama.

I feel that I need to at least EXPERIMENT with rising before my kids. Justus is finally at a stage of sleeping 7-8 hours and thus I'm getting more sleep and feeling healthy. I love experiments, as you can probably tell from our pioneer living experiment we did recently, reducing our toys and clothing. I am going to experiment with rising before the kids for 3 weeks and see how it works out. If it is a huge blessing to our family and I am able to organize the day, pray, read my daily Bible chapters, and make hot breakfasts more often, than I hope to make it a habit. But, if it ends up causing the kids to rise earlier and causes me to lose needed sleep, I will give it up and decide that getting up WITH the kids is what works for our family right now.

If you would like to join me in this experiment, I'd love to hear what you are doing in this area. Please join in by sharing your comments every Tuesday, as I hope to post on this topic on that day of the week for the coming weeks of the experiment.

So far, according to my sidebar poll it looks like most of you mamas get up with your kids but a good amount of you get up before them too. I'd love to hear how it works out for you and what time your kids go to bed.

Our kids go to bed at 7 p.m. This is when they naturally get really tired and they've always had this schedule so I hesitate to keep them up late just so they will sleep in longer for me. It's nice to have that whole evening free to spend with my husband or go to a Women's Bible Study or run to the grocery store.

For my experiment, I won't be using an alarm clock. I'll be praying that God would get me up (if you haven't tried this yet, it works!) and will be trying to break my late-night streak and go to bed earlier than normal. Because Justus sleeps in a Pack n' Play in our room it will tricky to get up without him waking. He may need an early morning bottle and then perhaps I could put him back to bed and then have some quiet time alone.

The Mahaney women have a 5 a.m. club and they even call each other to wake each other up and hold one another accountable. My early rising will definitely not be 5 a.m.!!! Since my kids usually wake at 7:30 a.m. I will be shooting for 6:30 a.m. The term "early" varies based on your life schedule.