Its been two months with my baby girl Charlotte and we are still trying to figure out the sleep thing. Though were far from a full nights sleep, the sleep I have been getting has at least been good. I’ve figured out a few things that have been helping and I hope they can help you too!
1. Have a night time routine
Everything with a newborn is very all over the place and it’s hard to have a routine of any kind until they get bigger. I try to have a ‘routine’ for my family that starts around 7-8pm that helps us get ready for night (I will do a more detailed blog post on this) It basically consists of bath time, feeding and putting Charlotte down. Then I get myself ready for bed, doing my skincare routine basically taking about 30 minutes to myself to unwind from the day. I find this really important to give myself some ‘me’ time.
2. Go to bed early
The parent life became very real once the ‘staying up past midnight and sleeping in’ wasn’t so conducive to taking care of a baby. Luckily because of my job I was routinely in bed by 10pm so I was used to sleeping early but then I went on mat leave and my sleep totally changed. Being in my third trimester meant it was hard to get a good nights sleep so I started going to bed around midnight or later. After Charlotte was born I had to totally adjust because I couldn’t just sleep in the following morning. My goal now is to be in bed by 9-10pm and get a head start on my sleep. To help with this my husband takes the first night feed which is usually around 11 so that way I at least get a couple hrs before those early morning feeds.
3. Avoid using a night light
I try my best to work in the dark to keep my ‘sleep mode’ on. If I use a night light its very dim just enough to see during a diaper change and then I’ll turn it off once I start feeding Charlotte. I also like to keep my eyes closed while feeding her to keep the sleep alive so when she’s done I can just hop back into bed like I never left.
4. Keep your phone away
Its very tempting during the feed to just be on your phone scrolling or put on a youtube video and I was so guilty of doing this especially if Charlotte was taking her time to finish a bottle. I would be on my phone for 20 minutes while she ate and then get in bed and keep scrolling because now my brain was fully awake. Then I’d keep doing that 2-3 times a night every feeding which lost me a few hrs of precious sleep. So now I keep my phone away so it doesn’t distract me from sleeping.
5. Download a sleep app
It was hard adjusting to waking up every hour to few hours (depending on the night) and even harder trying to fall back asleep between those feedings. I had a bad habit of watching youtube videos or Netflix so I could fall asleep but really it just kept me up more than it was helping me sleep. At least for me I struggle with lying down and falling asleep on my own because unless I’m super exhausted my brain wont shut off. I now find sleep stories to be really calming and effective at lulling me to sleep faster than just lying in the quiet and wasting precious sleep time. There are lots of great youtube videos you can find and I also really like the Headspace app.
6. Accepting the good, the bad and the ugly nights
Adjusting to the new born schedule of not having a schedule was incredibly difficult. I would find myself getting so frustrated and it wasn’t great for me, my husband or the baby because I would be so grumpy in the mornings. At the end of the day I had to accept that not every night will be great but they also won’t all be bad. I had to learn to appreciate the nights where I got 2 hour chunks of sleep and accept the bad nights where I barely slept at all. Having this understanding of your sleep (and in turn your babies sleep) helps you get through the tough newborn stage
I really hope this blog post was helpful, these are just the things that have been working really well for me and as more time passes the sleep will get better and longer!
Happy Sleeping!
