Sleep

This probably feels like a redundant post: you already know having a baby is going to affect your sleep dramatically. You can probably already imagine how you’re going to deal—or not—with the impact. Here are a few tips, though, from my experience so far.

In the early days, sleep is something you’ll just snatch when you can, probably with one eye open and one ear aimed at the crib containing your precious newborn, making sure they’re still breathing. I sometimes found myself too tired to sleep, if that doesn’t sound too ridiculous: I felt the pressure to snatch a nap when the opportunity came up, but I’d lie awake stressing about not falling asleep and ultimately not get enough rest. I tried medication like Kalms which sometimes worked – worth a go if you’re the anxious/overthinking type.

After the first month or so you might have some semblance of a routine, or at least a rough schedule. I won’t try to predict what a “typical” baby’s sleep schedule could be as I’m far from an expert and as you’ll know by now, everything is different for each baby and generalisations aren’t that helpful.

If you’re a new dad, you’ll be unable to help with breastfeeding, so the temptation is there to just let the mother do the night feeds while you doze. There’s a delicate balance here: while there’s no point in both of you being exhausted, sometimes the morale boost of having someone else sitting up with you can help in those difficult first weeks/months. Make sure you’re doing your share of the sleep deprivation, and when you can’t help (eg. feeding), let your partner catch up on sleep (in the daytime, say) while you sit up with the baby. You both need to be getting the same amount of sleep, even if not at the same time.

We’ve been extremely lucky with Ted’s sleep: once he was a few months old he started to sleep through the night, often for 10+ hours at a time. This is rare and we don’t have any real theories or explanation for it. He’s been solely formula fed since he was 2-3 months old, but we didn’t try to establish a super-strict bedtime routine or anything like that. We read to him, darken the room(s) as it approaches bedtime, give him a final bottle and make liberal use of sounds (eg. Ewan the Dream Sheep, and this “shusher”) to indicate to him when it’s time to wind down.

That said, his sleep pattern from 3 months to now (eg. 7 months) means he wakes up around 4.45 - 5.15am, every day – and he’s fully awake by this point. We tried to fight this for a bit but realised it was easier for one of us to just get up with him, go downstairs, and let him play and move around for a bit until 6.30am or so when he was ready for his first nap of the day.

This can be tough, especially when combined with work – weekends are easier as the person whose “shift” it is can sometimes go back to bed when the other partner wakes up. Sleeping like this in “relays” can be a bit confusing but in my opinion it’s the only way to manage it and stay sane. At this stage we don’t both need to be awake to look after Ted’s needs, so it makes sense to take it in turns so we’re not both constantly exhausted – it works.

I recognise that we’re extremely lucky with Ted’s sleep patterns and we don’t have much, if anything, to complain about. Other parent friends have babies waking frequently in the night – this can really wear you down over time and you become very conscious of how reliant we are on good sleep to function. On the other hand you’d probably be surprised how little sleep you can still be functioning on – while 5am starts aren’t my ideal way to begin a workday, once I got used to it—and stopped fighting them—it became manageable, particularly once our bedtime correspondingly shifted (eg. to around 9.30pm).

One other thing we’ve learned is to discuss strategies and make decisions before going to bed ourselves. I bought a book on baby sleep training which advocates a mild form of “cry it out” teaching (controversial!). We’ve never attempted it, but we’ve found ourselves arguing at 3am about it, bleary eyed, trying to soothe a frustrated baby. You’re not in a good place to have rational discussions when you’ve just been woken up midway through the night. Make sure you know what your plan is – if the baby wakes up are you going to feed them, hold them, etc? Talk about it when you’re properly awake so you know what to do when you’re not.

As Ted gets older we’re hoping his patterns will shift a bit – we’ve experimented with putting him to bed later (eg. 6.30-7pm) though most times he still wakes up at his usual hour regardless. I’m already resigned to the fact that I’m not getting a lie-in again until he becomes a teenager. But the key thing we’ve learned is to work together at sleep: everything is easier when we’re rested, even if it doesn’t always happen at the same time. And as with everything with parenthood, it gets easier as you go along. Don’t despair!