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Newborn Sleep Savers: 7 Simple Tips for the First Few Weeks
Back to Baby Sleep
You’ve done so much already. From preparing for your baby’s arrival to mastering routines and surviving countless sleepless nights, so often, caring for yourself falls to the bottom of the list. Regardless if you’re caring for a newborn, tackling sleep regressions, or parenting multiples with different sleep needs, this stage can be as exhausting, emotional and messy as it is uplifting and rewarding. Sometimes all at once. And when the sink is full of dirty dishes or you’re struggling to find time to look after you, it’s a lot. And it's completely normal.
Top 5 Tips for Navigating Sleep Deprivation
If you’re newly postpartum or trying to grapple with sleep regression, your sleep and well-being matters. You can’t pour from an empty cup and nothing drains a cup faster than an adorable baby who’s poked holes in your sleep schedule.
Here are 5 simple (but effective!) ways to look after yourself:
1. Plan for Your Rest and Recovery
- Sleep when you can. Yes we’ve seen the memes but your laundry will still be there in 40 minutes. You might even be a little more rested to tackle it!
- Survival of the snacks. Nutritious meals are great, but if today it’s cookies and a walk to the shower, so be it.
- Micro “me moments.” Ten minutes of silence, your favorite body wash, a TV show watched on our phone during 2am feeds, it’s all droplets in the parent cup
- Ask for help - then accept it. Whether it’s a friend dropping off food or a grandparent folding laundry, let them. You’re doing double (or triple) the work already and support is essential, not indulgent.
2. Prepare for the unpredictable
- Newborn and child sleep can be chaotic. By the time you’ve got to grips with one thing, they grow and something else changes so how can you prepare?
- Understanding what’s within the realm of typical behaviour (frequent feeds, short sleep cycles, catnaps) helps reduce the “Are we doing this wrong?” stress and midnight google spirals.
- Finding your Family Rhythm.Teamwork is critical. If you have a partner, setting expectations and agreeing what is fair and practical is an important part of your sleep strategy. Factors such as work, siblings, helping hands and individual needs are all important factors to consider. But one thing is certain - discussing ahead of time and acknowledging that the primary carer will need time to rest, can help reduce conflict and resentment
- Confidence comes from context. When you know what to expect, you can filter advice with more clarity and consider what best suits you, your values and what’s right for your family. This guide included!
- It softens the landing. No one makes it through parenting without some broken sleep but having a game plan to fall back on can reduce the shock of the impact if it caught you off guard
Support is essential, not indulgent
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“Everybody is so focused on a healthy safe delivery, which is awesome, but there needs to be a bit more focus on what happens once you get home, because that’s actually the hard bit.” — Hana-Lia Krawchuk, Founder of Love to Dream