A new baby brings immeasurable joy to a couple, but there's no
question an infant takes some things away, too: namely, time and sleep.
While there are some newborns who begin to sleep through the night in a
matter of weeks, others will take months... or even longer. Until your
baby is sleeping through the night, you'll need to devise strategies
for making sure you get the sleep you need.
"The standard
advice is that the mother should sleep when the baby sleeps, even when
that means daytime naps," says Jodi A. Mindell, Ph.D., associate
professor of psychology at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia and
author of Sleeping Through the Night: How Infants, Toddlers, and Their Parents Can Get a Good Night's Sleep (Collins).
But Dr. Mindell acknowledges that in reality mothers can't just shut
their brains off and sleep any time, nor can they always resist the
urge to get things done when the baby is sleeping. But there are other
ways for parents to be sure they're getting enough shut-eye:
Make sleep a priority "That means making other things less
of a priority," says Dr. Mindell. "As a society we never perceive sleep
as being at the top of the list, but as a parent you have to." Either
let housework slide, for example, or hire someone else to do it. Ditto
with gourmet dinners. "It's better to order a pizza and go to bed early
than kill yourself cooking."
Share the nighttime duties with your partner, even if you're a nursing mother Couples
often assume that because a woman is nursing she has to be the one to
get up with the baby each time he cries, but that's not the case. A
mother can express milk and let her partner give the baby a bottle
during the night, for example. "That worked for me," says Dr. Mindell.
"We used to split the night. I would pump at 9 p.m. and then go to bed,
and my husband would take the next feeding. That would give me five
hours of straight sleep, and then another three hours or so of
interrupted sleep until 7 a.m., when we all got up."
Work with your family's schedule Sometimes it doesn't
make sense for partners to alternate getting up with the baby. For
example, if one parent is at home with the infant all day while the
other must get to work early each morning, it may make sense for the
at-home parent to wake up with the baby on weekday nights, and get a
break on weekends. Or if one parent has the primary responsibility for
nighttime care, the other can take over every third or fourth night.
Figure out what works for you.
Don't be afraid to wake up your baby before you go to bed
"There's nothing worse for parents than going to sleep every night at
ten-thirty.. and having the baby wake up at eleven fifteen," says Dr.
Mindell. "I recommend that before parents go to bed for the night they
wake their baby up for a feeding. The babies will be groggy, but
they'll feed and go right back to sleep."
Get help if you can Babysitters aren't only for
workdays or nights out. Ask a friend or neighbor -- or hire a
babysitter -- to come over to your house for a few hours in the
afternoon so you can take a nap. One mother teamed up with a neighbor
who had a baby the same age. The two women would take turns helping
each other in the afternoon, giving the other a chance to catch up on
sleep.
Be creative Sleep deprivation can make people pretty
desperate, and mothers of newborns have devised some clever ways of
dealing with their new situation. You may find that you have to go to
bed much earlier in the evening than you were accustomed to, so you can
wake up much earlier in the morning. Or you may find that it works to
try and keep your baby up later at night, so that he sleeps a bit later
the next day.
Be patient While lack of sleep can be daunting, new
parents can take comfort in the fact that it's a temporary problem.
Most children will begin sleeping through the night on their own by the
time they're six months old or so. And pediatric sleep experts say that
if a baby isn't sleeping through the night by age six to nine months,
parents can begin "sleep training" -- steps to encourage better sleep
habits -- at that time.
Beth Weinhouse is a frequent contributor to Your Baby Today. She specializes in women's and children's health issues and lives in Oxford, Mississippi with her husband and 6-year-old son.
