Running on empty

Today I feel like I’m running on empty. Mentally, emotionally and physically…

Last night, I had a really bad night with Kory. He ended up in our bed with us and all night he just kept screaming in his sleep, it would take ages for me to finally calm him down and get him back off to sleep and then when I did he just kept waking back up for a drink. I don’t know what that was all about! I lost count of how many times I woke up with him through the night and despite how many times we were both up last night, Kory still managed to get up out of bed first thing this morning, I thought maybe he would have wanted to sleep in this morning and at the very least I thought he’d just want a day on the couch watching tv and reading but today he seems so full of energy! Meanwhile I’m walking around the house looking like a crackhead?! I honestly don’t know how he does it because I’m absolutely shattered so how does he run off such little sleep?! Recently he seems to have spouts of sleeping really well and then spouts of his sleep at night just being dreadful. I don’t know what the cause of this is but I suppose with kids it could be anything. So that’s the reason why I feel physically tired.

Emotionally, I feel like I’ve had a lot to deal with recently. Some of which I haven’t shared online but especially with Kory’s new stutter that just seems to have suddenly come on out of the blue. I speak more about Kory’s stuttering here. It’s something that has me really worried. It very well could just go away and I’ve been reassured by plenty of other people that it will but my worst fears are that he gets embarrassed by the stutter and goes within himself or the kids at nursery point it out and he gets a complex from it. I don’t want this to effect my confident, out going little boy who has fantastic speech for his age and has come on leaps and bounds since starting nursery. Somewhere he really enjoys going.

Which leads me to my next form of tiredness. I feel mentally tired because I feel like I am to blame somehow for Kory’s stuttering and I’ve been giving myself such a really hard time about it. I think as mums we always blame ourselves when it comes to our kids; is it something we’ve done? Is it something we’ve not done? It must be our fault? I’ve just been going round and round in my head thinking every thought possible as to why Kory’s stutter could have been brought on because of me and what can I do for him to make it better. When he’s speaking and I can see him struggling to get his words out and stuttering, I can’t help but get upset and it’s hard holding it in. And not just the guilt. But I’ve been worrying about it lots too, worrying about my little boy and how I want to protect him in this world and shield him from anyone who might upset him.

So that’s why I feel like I’m running on empty today. I’ve been trying to keep my head up and deal with it all by myself and I think I’ve just reached that point where I have to realise I need to cut myself some slack.

Being a mum and taking care of your child is hard enough but trying to do it whilst you’re running on empty just sucks.