I was sitting on the floor with my baby, books scattered between us, and somewhere around the fifty minute mark I felt it. My eyes got heavy. My attention started drifting to the pile of laundry behind her. Some small part of me wanted to check my phone, stand up, do anything but keep stacking blocks. I remember thinking, what is wrong with me? We’ve barely been playing an hour.
It wasn’t just playing. It happens when I’m reading. It happens mid-chore, folding clothes or wiping counters, that same hour-to-ninety-minute mark, and then my focus just starts to fade. For a long time I read that fade as a failure. An hour should be an hour. If I couldn’t hold my attention for the full block, I must be the problem, not tired enough sleep, not disciplined enough, something.
Then I learned it had a name.
Turns out the body naturally moves in waves, roughly ninety minutes of rising focus, followed by a stretch of real fatigue, over and over, all day long, whether you’re at a desk or on the floor with your baby. It’s called an ultradian rhythm. I didn’t need a name to know it was happening to me. I’d been living it for months. But claiming the name did something I didn’t expect. It turned a thing I thought was my weakness into a thing that was simply my body, doing exactly what it was built to do.
This isn’t about throwing out the clock. I still live by mine, feedings, naps, playtime, dinner. Clock time keeps a household running, and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t matter. But clock time on its own doesn’t know when I’m actually able to focus and when I’m not. My body already knows that. The clock tells me when. My rhythm tells me how long I actually have before I need to shift.
I thought the fade meant I was failing the block. It just meant the block was working exactly as long as it was built to.
I thought the fade meant I was failing the block. It just meant the block was working exactly as long as it was built to.
So now, when I’m reading, folding laundry, or on the floor with my baby, I don’t push through once my focus fades. I let that tired feeling do what it’s meant to do. It tells me to stand up, stretch, or switch tasks. Sometimes that’s a short walk to the next room and back. Sometimes it’s just a breath before I return.
The rhythm starts even earlier than that. Before anyone else is awake, I drink a glass of water and take my vitamins. Small, but it’s the first wave of my day, quiet, mine, before the house stirs around me.
The clock still tells me what needs to happen today. My rhythm tells me when I actually have the focus to do it well. Once I stopped fighting the fade and started expecting it, the hour I used to fail at started working with me instead of against me.
Mom, if you’ve ever felt that same pull mid-task, eyes tired, mind wandering, and quietly blamed yourself for it, I want you to know that’s not a discipline problem. That’s your body doing what bodies do. The rhythm was already there. You just hadn’t claimed the name for it yet.
With love,
Kristen
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