As a sleep coach, I knew it was going to be a challenge when we welcomed a baby to the family, but I was determined to make sure I made sleep a priority. How you may ask? Well lets dig in!
Sleep is the ONLY thing professionals agree on for improving your health. People will argue about what you should eat & drink or how you should exercise, or to use sauna vs cold plunge. But getting a solid sleep consistently has always been agreed upon, improves your immune system, clears your brain, balances your hormones, improves your mood and so much more. So know how impactful sleep can be, will help you make it a priority to your health and wellness, especially postpartum.
Basic Sleep Guidelines: Ideally you want your room to be your safe haven. It should be a calming space that is dark (think pitch black and you can't see your hand in front of your face) or use a sleep mask, and cool (15-20 degrees). It should not have a tv or other electronics in there as they can negatively impact your sleep. Although some people need white noise to help there sleep, either a fan or calming sounds.
Try to set a schedule: Our bodies function well on set schedules and repetition when it comes to sleep. So aiming to go to bed around the same time each night and wake up around the same time each morning is the goal. And yes, I understand that can be hard with a baby, I just went through that, but I made it work to the best of my ability. For example, After I got our son to sleep for the night, I wouldn't be up much later before I too went to bed, so ya I would be asleep by 9pm and sometimes even earlier if I was tired for various reasons. Staying up to watch tv or do other tasks was so much less important to me than getting a good nights sleep. If you are working on a sleep routine for your baby (which most moms do) remember to do something very similar for you!
Have Morning and Evening Routines to support sleep: Healthy Routines could include meditation, exercise, drinking water, taking a shower/bath, skin care routine, reading, journaling, chatting with your partner, anything you feel can help you lower stress and get into your rest and digest nervous system for the night. Find routines that work well for you that do not include technology as we want to avoid high stimulation with blue light close to bedtime or right away when we first wake up. You want to allow for natural sunlight to hit your eyes in the morning, and once the sun is down for the night, you should be working on that evening routine and getting ready for bed. Here's my simple routine each night: 7pm: no more food, water only. Have time with Ben, once Waylon is asleep. 8pm: Shower, get ready for bed. 8:30pm: Read or journal, deep breathing and drift off to sleep.
Make it work for your situation: Everyone will have a different scenario, but try to do what works well for you, your baby and your family. You may want to co-sleep, room share, use a bassinet, jump straight to a crib etc. There are a lot of options and testing out a few may be best as every baby is so different. We ended up doing something a little different than what we have heard or seen before and it worked out really well! Our sons room had a queen size bed, a bassinet when he was under 6 months old and a crib when he was over 6 months. One parent would do a combination of room sharing and co-sleeping, depending on the nights needs, while the other parent got a good nights sleep (or at least a block of 4hrs) in our main bedroom. Having that separation of sleeping alone in the room, allowed that parent to fully disconnect and get into a deep sleep and wake up feeling way more refreshed (even from a short block of time) vs when we tried room sharing with both of us in our bed and our son in the bassinet beside us. We both didn't need to be on alert for him every night, we would take turns every other night or shifts in the night. If I did have a poor sleep because our baby was up more than normal in the night, I would skip any morning caffeine or stimulation and go for a nap when he had his first nap of the day. This little trick saved me a few times as I just needed a little bit more sleep to be functional for the rest of the day. This also allowed me to have a total of 6+ hrs of sleep in a 24hr period, anything less than 6 is so hard on the body. Ideally we would be getting 8hrs in a row each night, but that's not doable when you need to wake up to feed and change a baby, so doing what you can to get the highest total sleep time in 24hrs is the next best thing.
A common mistake parents do is trying to stay up late to either watch shows, get house tasks done or other things they feel they miss out on during the day, but end up skipping on sleep. So then they go to bed late, don't sleep deeply and not long enough, which creates a vicious cycle for poor sleep and over days, weeks and months, you will feel like a zombie!
Have Grace and Gratitude: Remember to take it easy on yourself, you are doing well and trying to get use to a whole new world with a baby. You may need to remind yourself that this is a phase of life and it won't always be this hard. Try focusing more on the positive things you did in a day and be grateful you could do any of it! We sometimes forget how lucky our situations are, even when we think its tough.
If you need help with your sleep habits you can book a free call with me to see how I could help! Just click the button below to find a time!
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