Top Ten Life Skills & Energy Management Tips for New Older Moms!

Being a first time mom at the age of 44, I've had to learn how to harness my energy 24 hours a day! Choosing to raise my daughter using Attachment Parenting recommendations has presented me with my share of challenges, day and night.
Being a first time mom at the age of 44, I've had to learn how to harness my energy 24 hours a day! Choosing to raise my daughter using Attachment Parenting recommendations such as nursing on cue, carrying my baby in a sling, sharing the family bed, and being available to my child no matter what, has presented me with my share of challenges, day and night. Through using the following suggestions, I have found a way to pace myself through the day and use my "up" time wisely, even if it is at 3:00 am.

1. Create an ideal day-evening-night through visualization or journaling.

Think in terms of the whole 24 hour period. Picture a comfortable, effortless and natural flow. Create a collage or affirmations from this. Start to align your life with your values and dreams.

2. Exercise 30 minutes each day

One way or another, get up and MOVE!! Try to do it for at least 20 minutes a day or longer.

3. Eat healthy foods often

Pace your food intake, but have an intake! I prefer 6 smaller meals a day and keep a healthy snack bedside in case I wake up in the middle of the night REALLY hungry. I keep my system primed with water, lots of it! Water bottles are in abundance at my home, everywhere I sit or rest.

4. Plan to go to bed early with your little one.

Plan to be in bed by a certain time and set your alarm clock to when you’d like to get up. Then, see what happens! I often go to bed alongside my daughter and get a good night sleep going early on. If I get up in the middle of the night, I get up! Or, if she wakes up to nurse or move around, we get up. I try to stay flexible and cheerful. Not looking at the clock is a good thing. Eventually, I/we go back to bed and back to sleep. I simply trust that this will happen. I believe in taking naps, at least one a day. if needed. Enjoy those present moments with your little ones and dreamland. It is vital and so worth it!

5. Eliminate sugar and alcohol from your diet altogether, just for today.

Sugar wrecks havoc with your blood sugar levels and wakes you up when your blood sugar drops a few hours after eating some. Alcohol is a major source of sugar and can disrupt rather than enhance your sleep. It also acts as a depressant. I haven't succeeded in eliminating sugar from my diet completely, but I have given up alcohol in all forms. This gives me peace of mind especially since I am a nursing mom and want to pass on the best to my child.

6. Create a niche for yourself as someone who is available at odd hours!

This works great if you are a coach like me who likes to work with people around the globe. Someone is up somewhere when I'm up and want to chat or do business in the wee hours of the night! Find out who else is up when you are. Connect with them! If they're in your time zone, know that you're not alone. If they're in another one, then make it your business to let them know you're available for coaching, for friendship, for whatever!

7. Set boundaries and maintain them!

Let people know when you are available and WHEN YOU'RE NOT! Ask for cooperation or ask them to move on. You're worth being well respected. Unplug the phone or turn off the ringer and sleep! The world will still be there when you get back to it. You have more to offer when you are refreshed than when you are exhausted!

8. Explore alternative healing methods.

Try reflexology, massage, energy healing, dream work, Reiki, soul retrieval, past life regressions, to see if you've got emotional or physical blocks that no longer serve you so GET THEM OUT!

9. Travel with comfort in mind.

Bring your own pillows, lavender or essential oils or candles, bubble baths, and music, whenever you travel so you have some significant comforts from home to help you feel at home when you're not. Why leave it up to chance?

10. Start each day with imagining what one thing you would feel great about having accomplished by day's end and commit to do it!

Find a way to get clarity early in your day and give yourself permission to just do that one thing, if nothing else, that day. I find that once I get this one thing out of the way, I have unleashed lots of energy to do a lot of other things I might like doing more!

About the Author

Verena Aibel is a prolific writer of Top Ten Articles and other pieces, and is a Top Ten Coach & Consultant, Renaissance Coach, Global Biz Woman, Public Speaker, Workshop & Teleclass Leader, and a first-time mom at the age of 44. She can be emailed at Verena@optonline.net, visited on the web at www.renaissance-coach.com, or contacted at 201-487-6910 (US-Eastern Standard Time). Verena wants you to know: I have written over 30 Top Tens and I have had over 20 of these published online. One of the things I do as a coach is to help other people write and submit a Top Ten so that they can begin to gain global recognition and to market themselves with confidence and finesse. For those of you who would like to make an appointment to help write your Top Ten or for coaching, email or call me, we'll create! To obtain written permission to use or quote from this article, please email Verena Aibel. A Word document of this article is available upon request.

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