New Parents Need Sleep

New Parents Need Sleep
Everything is better...

Have you ever had a long day of travel combined with getting lost driving to the hotel and a slow receptionist at check-in? Well your patience may be tested.... With new parents, sleep deprivation can have a huge impact on the first weeks home with a newborn.

The first few days after your baby is born is filled with many new parenting tasks. Learning how to breastfeed, change diapers, bath, dress, burp and watch for all the signs of well-being of your new baby fill the hours. After labor and delivery most parents are on a "baby buzz"= excitement and relief that your pregnancy and birth are complete, blend into the joy of seeing the baby you have been waiting for all these months.

But after a few nights of being awake every 2-3 hours around the clock to feed and care for your newborn, it is not surprising that exhaustion can take its toll. The most important advice I give new parents is to sleep when the baby sleeps and taking turns napping. Any amount of sleep you can get during the day will help night time awakenings be less tiring.

Knowing that you are normal to hit a tired point typically at about 4 days postpartum can help. If and when this happens, acknowledge that you are tired. You are not doing anything wrong and it is not anybody's fault. It is normal. The cure is sleep!

Remember that visitors should be helping you sleep! It is tempting to stay awake and visit, chat and play hostess when friends and family are there. That is what we would typically do. Postpartum is not a typical period. It is important to delegate household tasks such as dishes and laundry to friends and family which allows you to rest and recover.

Your job the first few weeks is to take care of yourself and your baby! Extending your babies sleep periods between feedings will also help you get more sleep. A secure swaddle to replicate the confinement of the womb, white noise, movement, side lying position will being held and sucking (breast is best, but if nursing is going well then a finger or pacifier can be used) will help your newborn sleep 2 hours between feedings.

Take turns caring for your newborn. Use a swing or bouncy chair to extend sleep periods and have extra time to yourself if you don't have family or friends available.

Make sure to call your doctor, nurse, lactation support, family and friends if you need extra information to help you through this time of newborn adjustment.

You can never spoil a fetus or a baby

Yesterday your newborn was a fetus…

Human babies need to be born at 9 months because they survive by having big brains. If our babies waited until their brains were fully developed, their heads would be too big to come out of our pelvis.

So if you treat the baby the first 3 months like a fetus- you will have a happier baby and an easier adjustment period postpartum.

Don’t treat her like a newborn yet, treat it like when she was inside your womb. What was it like on the inside? Your baby was very tightly contained inside you. Every time she moved, she would feel secure and snug.

Your fetus also felt constant movement. Think about all the activity you do throughout the day- walking, going up and down stairs, folding laundry, even when resting you are always moving. Your fetus was constantly being moved around.

The noise when she is inside your belly is louder then a vacuum cleaner. Your heart pumping, blood moving through your arteries and veins, amniotic fluid sloshing around and the muted noise from the outside world- talking, laughter and music all contribute to the constant noise.

When they are inside your belly, they are allowed to suck on their hand or tongue—Sucking is very calming for a baby, releasing hormones and providing rhythmic movement.

All that they are experiencing on the inside you try to replicate when they are on the outside.

Position is important for calming- usually anywhere but on their backs when they are being held or are fussy. When they are sound asleep and being placed in bed, they need to sleep on their backs.

So the life of a fetus is snug surroundings, loud shushing noise, constant moving and sucking.

Lets put is all together:

A secure swaddle is the beginning of the dance with your fetus-like newborn. Once she is secure, then hold her in your arms, side lying preferably and start moving. We always see parents, rocking and moving as they hold there babies. If your newborn is really crying loudly, then match that volume with shushing. It needs to be as loud as she is crying or she won’t even hear it! Get her attention, then as she settles, you can decrease the volume of the shushing. Remember she is comforted by the noise because that is what she was used to on the inside of your body. When they are calm you can then change the shushing for a radio set to static on an AM radio station. The white noise can be used anytime the baby is sleeping.

One of the last steps to calming your newborn is sucking. Breastfeeding is a great way to get your newborn to calm down. But when you are ready to sleep and your partner is rocking the baby then she may need to use a pacifier or suck on a finger to help her settle.

Do you have a specific newborn sleep question or comment? Please email at SwaddleKeeper@gmail.com

Sleep Well, Kim Stolte RN