Is a newborn keeping you from getting any sleep? Here are a few suggestions to help you out…
So I have been off the air for some time now… Getting married and having babies… After getting only 1 hour of sleep last night I thought it would be appropriate to start back with some strategies for sleepless nights!
My baby is heading towards 10 months now, and out of a group of 12 mothers from our mother’s group, my darling son is 1 of 2 who isn’t sleeping through the night yet. The good news is that he doesn’t need much when he wakes, but if he doesn’t get the dummy he gets louder and louder until he eventually wakes himself, us and most of the neighbourhood up with his crying! For this reason he is still in our room and no more than a step from my side of the bed…
The bright side is that there are no more night feeds and no more waking up completely 4 times per night. This comes off the back of the toddlers and pre-schoolers finally sleeping in until a decent hour. So, how do you cope with broken sleep, or no sleep with a new baby in the house. Here are 5 tips that worked for me:
- Get some sleep when the baby sleeps. The newborn has sleep periods of 2 hours or more at a time when born, so forget the laundry, dinner, cleaning, emails and get some rest when baby does. Soon baby will be sleeping less often and for shorter times during the day and you will wish you had gotten more sleep when baby was sleeping in the early stages.
- Get your husband/mother/sister/friend to take baby for a walk for a couple of hours in the pram. They will love the bonding time and you will feel more able to relax without baby being in the house.
- Sleep sitting up/slouched, with baby sleeping on your chest. Make sure you are a light sleeper (as most of us are when holding baby) and you have no dangerous surroundings where either of you can fall. There are many photos of me sleeping on the couch with baby sleeping on my chest. He slept well there because of the heartbeat and I loved the feeling. I was saddened when he stopped sleeping in this position.
- Go to bed earlier than you normally would in the first few months. If baby goes to sleep at 7pm and wakes up at 10pm, don’t wait to finish the 10om feed before you go to sleep for the first time, get some sleep at 7pm too! An extra 2-3 hours makes the world of difference!
- I know that most people advocate pure breast milk feeds, but I did the research and whileit is good, there is nothing to prove that it makes a difference after the first 3-5 days, so get you husband/partner to do a formula bottle during the night, either before they go to bed, or the middle of the night feed and you will feel 1000 times better. We did a formula feed once every 3 nights, from around 2 weeks old and there is no difference between our baby and one who has been breastfed for all feeds. The other option, which we did a few times in the beginning, is to express and get your husband/partner to do a night feed with that milk. Getting that consecutive 5-6 hours will make you feel like a whole new woman!
So, the moral of the story is… Do what is right for you to get through the time. Baby is very reliant on you and it is a tough time to get through. Sleep deprivation will weaken even the strongest woman, so get some sleep anytime you can, don’t feel guilty or like you need to be a superwoman and use the help of those around you… They would love to have the bonding time with baby too.
