Can a pedicure make you a better mum?

Being a mum is tiring at the best of times. Lack of sleep and stress levels increase even more when your children are ill. Even more so when one child is ill and the other keeps you up all night.


This has been me for the best part of this week. My 5 month old has decided that sleeping through the night isn't for him yet and wakes frequently. Sometimes to feed, sometimes to chat and giggle (it's cute but not quite as entertaining at 3am). The feed is often more of a snack as he is tired and drifts back off to sleep after just a few minutes of sucking.


My 4 years old has a cough. Nothing bad but it does mean that when he comes home from playschool he is more tired than usual. More tired tends to make him demand more attention, have no patience and results in him losing interest in whatever he might be doing quite quickly. No big deal but coupled with several consecutive nights of little to no sleep it can become quite draining.


I don't seem to be able to catch up on my sleep day or night but I've discovered that grabbing a couple of minutes to pamper myself a bit does wonders for getting me through the day.

This morning, whilst eldest was at playschool and youngest was happily sitting in his rocking chair, I decided to give myself a pedicure. Those few minutes of washing my feet, cutting my toe nails and massaging in a foot cream put the worlds to rights again.


So how does this make me a better mum? Simple, it relaxed me. It eased away some of my stress and helped make me feel human again. I felt I had more energy and felt good for having done something for myself for once (it's easy to neglect yourself when you have kids to look after). 


Post-pedicure, although still in need of a good nights sleep, I was less stresses and better able to deal with the demands of my children.


Little things can make a big difference.


Image source: tompies10 via flickr.com