Sleeping After Pregnancy, Every Little Helps

Motherhood certainly is tough. The first year can be one of the hardest, and nowhere is that more keenly felt than in your nighttime routine. Or rather, your lack of a nighttime routine. It’s no surprise that a baby can wreak havoc on your sleep, between their crying and your urge to check in on them at the lightest disruption. But you need that sleep, so how do you ensure you get more of it when you have the opportunity?

It’s all about teamwork

Your partner has to put their weight in, there’s no doubt about that. When you can, ask your partner to take care of nighttime checks and feeding so that you can stay in bed and get a little more sleep. Not only does it help you get some more rest, but it has plenty of benefits such as improving the bond between your partner and the baby and making them more likely to get involved with childcare. If your partner doesn’t pitch in, it can cause real resentment troubles in the relationship as well.

Get yourself in the mood

A schedule can be hard to manage with a baby but if you’re able to create some pre-bedtime rituals to get yourself in the mood for sleep, then you’re more likely to drift off much more easily. A white noise machine in the bed as shown at Prevention.com can be of great help, as can lavender aromatherapy techniques, or taking half-an-hour to meditate before bed. Try to avoid watching TV or staying on the laptop before hitting the hay, as the blue light they produce can disrupt sleep.

Find your place

When you have a new baby, it’s all too easy to disrupt your own sleep. Many mothers become acutely aware of any noise they might hear from their child. You want to ensure your baby is sleeping safely, after all. But this can lead to an awareness of other disruptions that have no similar benefits. The shifting or your partner in bed, for instance. Check out resources like Mattress-Guides.net for mattresses that have motion isolation if that’s the case. The right bed can make you much less likely to feel every toss and turn of your partner, meaning fewer disruptions to your sleep.

Make feeding work to your schedule

There are plenty of tools a mother needs to keep her sane in those first twelve months and a breast pump is going to be one of them. Sometimes, a baby needs a feed in the middle of the night but if you absolutely must get those extra thirty minutes of sleep, having a bottle prepared so your partner can pitch in for the feed is a godsend.

There’s no getting around the fact that you’re likely to have trouble getting as much sleep as you did before your baby, but hopefully the tips above can help. It’s just as important to manage your stress levels and find ways of relaxing when awake so that your sleep deprivation doesn’t have too big an ongoing impact on your emotional health.

Disclosure: This is a contributed post.