How do I keep up my energy?

[Cookiemg]

Hi

Please can you advise me on how you keep your energy going with your littlies? My 12 month old is a very 'busy' and there are little opportunities for down time for me other than when she sleeps for an hour or so.

How can I encourage her to focus on one activity for longer or is this unrealistic?

thanks x

I basically avoid the bus/train/car - just try and walk to most places if you can. I have a fairly light weight buggy which helps.

I'm spectacularly bad at this, but I think eating well and drinking plenty of water really helps. I notice such a difference between (most) days when I eat rubbish and the (few) days when I eat lots of nice fruit and veg .

Don't know what your diet is like - you may be better than I am at eating healthily..

IME, 12 months is quite a difficult age to amuse. DS wanted interaction all the time, which was tiring, DD is much more independent so it could just be a personality thing. At some stage they get better at amusing themselves, anyway!

Well I would say that at some stage you may consider using the tv as a way of giving you both some down time. Does she watch any now? You don't have to just put on cbeebies you could start with nature/animal documentaries or choose some low action dvds like the old style (that we had as kids) Mr Men or the old style Postman pat.
We went straight in with the night garden and other all singing and all dancing programmes and consequently he won't watch quieter things now.

Forgot to say about the constantly being knackered thing. Eat well, and don't attempt too much in one day. One activity per half of day only . When your feeling less exhausted you'll know cos you'll feel able to take on more.

Thanks so so much for this and for the insight that 12 months can be a difficult stage. I try to eat well and keep aiming to go to bed early but fund it so hard to do as I need a couple of hours winding down time.

That's good advice about the tv shows, she does watch the night garden but really focusses on the baby Einstein DVDs which are simpler. X

IME babies of this age will watch anything - my 11 mo dd happily watched Hello Dolly with me the other day (she loves tunes) - which gave me something to do as well! It doesn't have to be aimed at them!