Mum-to-be and absolutely terrified of sleep deprivation

[Olegia]

Hi all,

I'm expecting my little one (first baby) in a few weeks time, and to be honest I have no stress or worries about anything (including birth), BUT sleep deprivation.

I know this will be inevitable but I just want someone to tell me that it's all going to be ok. I am afraid that I will fall into a deep depression and not be able to enjoy motherhood, or even worse, resent having had a child.

I've always been awful with sleep. I sleep really well most of the time, but I need a very specific environment (I need to sleep with ear plugs on, and an eye mask, also me and my husband sleep in separate beds - but in the same bedroom - because even his movement is enough to cause me to not have a deep sleep). If I have even one or 2 less hours of sleep than I should, my next day is ruined and I feel like a complete slobbery zombie mess.
My mental health is quite severely affected by lack of sleep (my husband tolerates it a bit better)

Do you have any words of encouragement, or any tips, or anything at all I could use?

We've purchased a Snoo, as that seems to be very helpful for most parents, we bought full black-out curtains for our bedroom, a white noise machine etc.

I was wondering the following too:
-In theory, could I introduce the bottle after 2 weeks-ish, so me and my husband can alternate nights in a different bedroom, so I get a guaranteed full night of sleep every 2 nights? (his paternity leave will be a good 8 weeks)?

Mum of a 9 month old here

-you might be lucky and get a great sleeper, mine slept through from 12 weeks (seems ages but I promise that time works differently with a baby)

-you will be tired and that will override your ‘conditions for sleep’ you’ll be tired and you WILL sleep, eye mask or not

-you will love your baby so you’ll find the energy as you know they need to be cared for. You are biologically motivated to power through the day, it’s different to that hungover zombie feeling that you have pre-kids

-shifts is a good idea, but it works far better to split each night 6pm-6am into 3 hour shifts. 6 hours might be unsettled but the other 6 hours are protected

-you could get your partner to do bottles, however if you’re a light sleeper then consider BFing, the prolactin is magic and helps to drop back to sleep easily despite disturbance

The truth is that sleep deprivation is inevitable; at least at first. Some babies, especially bottle fed ones catch on quicker and start to sleep for longish periods after just a couple of months. Others (mine 😬) can take years. It is horrific at first but you do get used to it quickly. You also get into a routine of picking them up, feeding them and then getting back off to sleep.

I breastfed but started expressing milk after 2wks. After about a month, I’d go to bed at 8pm after putting baby down. When baby woke around midnight my husband would give them the expressed milk and I’d get up to feed them around 3am but by then I’d had a good sleep. I’d then get another couple of hours until @6.30/7am when they wanted to start the day.

It does literally feel like torture at first but you actually feel not too back in the morning and your body quickly adjusts. I’d say definitely try and nap when baby does-and they nap a lot at first. Try to express or give a small bottle of formula at that first wake so you can get some unbroken sleep and sleep as much as possible during the day.

Good luck. You will adapt.

I can’t lie: for me the sleep deprivation is the worst bit of having a baby. You are constantly anxious worrying about cot death and my babies had reflux so night times were awful. you may not sleep soundly for at least a year or several in my experience.

in answer to your question: yes of course. Beware not all babies take to switching between BF and bottle, so you might end up to switching to 100% bottle fed but don’t feel guilt-tripped about BF or expressing if it doesn’t work for you.

However the first 8 weeks is only part of the story. I’d say my sleep deprivation lasted until both my dc were about 2 years old not just 2 months. So you need a game plan for when your dh returns to work. Maybe he does Fri and Sat nights if he works Mon-Fri?

In the daytimes can someone from your come and help so you can sleep in the day?

Also could you afford a night nanny? someone you pay to come in and help at night if you are not coping. Or maybe family might come and stay and help a bit?

I would also pick a method and sleep train as soon as you can. My dd was in her own room at 4 months as she wriggled and snored in her crib SO much. I had a comfy rocker in her room for night feeds. I stuck to a plan for daytime naps and nighttime routine, and it was so hard with her reflux but we did succeed eventually . The key to it is your baby learning to resettle so they don’t wake you for a snack every 45 mins!

it won’t be easy for you but hope for the best and plan for the worst and you’ll be alright

I think lower your expectations for the first few weeks. I love my sleep and daytime naps so I was also anxious about how I would cope being a mum. And to be honest it is hard and took some adjustments.
The first few weeks is just about survival. Me and my husband did shifts through the night taking it in turns of 3 hours ish. E.g. I slept 9pm-12am in the bedroom so I could get a chunk of unbroken sleep. Then we would swap over. Repeat all night. Expecting a full night's sleep is unreasonable with a newborn because the other person will have to be on duty all night. You and your partner need to be on the same page and help each other out as you will both be exhausted and want to sleep.
Also, there's no guarantee the baby will take a bottle, and it might want 2 or 3 bottles through the night!

Mum of four here. Last one didnt sleep very well until ages 3!! It's bloody horrible. But, I honestly have to say your need for sleep is more ch different after kids than before. You're needs change and you ability to cope changes. It's nature and it'll be ok. Even my husband who has no birth children and is step dad to mine says the same. It changes with need and you'll be fine.

Can you afford any help? Night nannies are the best thing ever.

Cosleeping and breastfeeding lying down in my sleep meant no sleep deprivation with dc2 - sleep deprivation with dc1 was awful.

I think it’s one of those things that is so widely publicised as being absolutely horrific and everyone almost plays up to this stereotype automatically just because it’s assumed you are so exhausted and the baby must be awake all night. Of course that is the experience of some people, but it’s not the experience of everyone! I was like you and knew that I just wouldn’t be able to cope with a lack of sleep. I read Gina Ford’s contented little baby book before my son was born. I didn’t do anything harsh (for some reason it gets a bad name as if it’s harsh), he slept in the same room as us until 7/8 months old. We have the blackout curtains/blinds. We picked a routine from the start and stuck to it. I followed the rough timings in the book of how long baby should be awake for before they’d be overtired and I found that if I followed that it became easier and easier. I would stay up as late as I could (until 11 or 12) so that once baby was down for ‘the night’ I was then only getting up once at around 3am then up between 6 and 7. My husband and I didn’t ever have to sleep in separate rooms, it really was fine! From 6 weeks he slept from midnight until the morning and from just before 12 weeks he slept from bedtime (7.30) until the morning! He’s now 2 and I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever seen him during the night since he was 12 weeks old. I avoid telling people how well he sleeps because it’s often like people want it to be going badly or you feel guilty if you say it around people who aren’t getting a full night’s sleep so it’s easier just to stay quiet or agree.

I’m about to enter into it all again and going to read the book again to refresh my memory 😊 The key things I did that I think made all the difference were the bath at ‘bedtime’ at 7ish, even though at a few weeks old he was never going to be going to bed at that point but I just persisted with it knowing eventually that would be his bed time. Once he was 8 weeks or so I would put him into bed in our room after his bath so that it almost was like bedtime (even though he’d get up for one more feed after this). We didn’t hold him or rock him all day. If he was asleep he was put down in his Moses basket and visitors didn’t get to pass him about if he was sleeping. It’s meant he really likes sleeping in his bed and can settle himself to sleep without ever crying or having to wake us if he wakes up during the night. He was always such a well rested and happy baby because of how well he slept so I do think it’s worth putting a bit of work into early on! Don’t panic, it will be fine 😊 It’s not always that bad!

I was a 'I need 9 hours sleep or else' type before kids. But you do adjust. I remember in those early days with DD1 that when I got three hours in one block I felt like a million dollars. Now if I got 9 hours in one go I think I'd be sleep drunk the rest of the day!

I've never been massively sleep deprived with either tbh, even when DD2 was waking every hour to two hours overnight. My husband has always taken them to let me catch up on sleep so while I've been tired from time to time, I've never experienced crushing sleep deprivation. You just have to kind of get on with things. There's a kind of timelessness to those early days and weeks. I'm a good napper so when both DDs were asleep as newborns I would go to sleep too. Both of mine slept in 3-hour chunks as newborns, so there was a lot of opportunity for catching up on sleep.

I’ve not slept through the night since DD was born.

She’s 23.

🤷‍♀️

So there is short term sleep and long term sleep. I didn’t sleep train and I breastfed. So I focussed on the long game.
This is important because I have friends who had babies who were bottle fed and sleep trained and who by 9 months were getting 12 hours of sleep a night. Then at 4/5 or even 7 or 8 bedtime was a huge battle, and the kids were up and down. And at that age you can’t really sleep train or whatever.

So along side any short term solution think of the long term. You want them to look forward to bed, to make it a part of the day they don’t resent. A good bedtime routine helps, also being responsive to their needs has helped. If they are sick, they sleep with me. If they have a week of bad dreams then so be it. A small baby doesn’t know that when they are tired what will make them feel better is sleep. Surprisingly even older kids ‘know’ this but actually doing it is another matter.

My only other piece of advice is that changes implemented slowly and methodically hold in the long term. So instead of sleep training we worked towards better sleep habits- falling asleep independently, falling asleep without the boob, then staying asleep, then we moved them to their own room, etc etc. Each of these might require more than 3 days to fix. And there are kids who fall asleep easily but can’t connect sleep cycles. There are kids who struggle to fall asleep (looking at you DS1) but then sleep and sleep. I have one child who naturally sleeps early and wakes up early (like me) and one like DH who sleeps later and then likes his lie in.

I won’t bullshit you- exclusive breastfeeding will be very challenging at first given the situation you’ve outlined with your own sleep.

Sleep was a large part of the reason I mix fed dc2 and it was the best of both worlds.

BUT it might not even be a problem- baby isn’t even born yet, you don’t know what you’re going to get!

Best thing to do is to keep an open mind and deal with any issues as they arise. Need to do-sleep? OK, find out how to do it safely. Want to move to formula? Grand, get a perfect prep. No point borrowing worries off tomorrow.

I second this advice. Breastfeeding triggers a sleep hormone in the mum - it's weird like a drug that totally knocks you out as soon as your baby stops feeding.

My dd has always been a truly terrible sleeper and woke us up a bazillion times a night. But once I started cosleeping it got so much more manageable, I just fed her lying down for a bit and then we'd both be knocked out. Although I was being woken up often, I could fall asleep again instantly, so didn't feel as sleep deprived as I could have been. Dh slept in another room for some of the night, and then brought me breakfast in bed.

Insomnia in pregnancy was so much worse. Everything got easier once I wasn't pregnant any more!

Its amazing what you can do when you have to.

I breastfed and DH gave one bottle a night, but that only buys you a couple of hours, not a
whole night.

You can’t just not breast feed for a whole night, you would need to wake up to pump or you’d get engorged/mastitis/ and supply will drop. (which defeats the point).

Be aware you'll probably need to pump if you're not feeding at night that early on, night feeds are really important for your supply. If exclusively BF for long isn't your goal then don't worry about it, just be aware.

You just survive, I just to read that and think "how!?" But you do.

I was way more tired with a newborn who only woke once or twice a night to feed, than a 6 month old who woke every 45 mins for months on end - by then we coslept and boob went in then we all fell asleep again. So look at different options like that

It won't kill you, it is doable. You've done hard things before and you can do this. You have to absolutely prioritize rest and go away for a nap anytime you can instead of doing housework etc. while baby sleeps or after they have fed and someone else can hold them. get ahead of freezer meal prep and organizing house clean and laundry etc before baby arrives so that you have less housework to do after baby comes. Consider doing day and night shifts with partner or helping person if you are not exclusive breastfeeding.
You are also probably getting up to pee a lot in the night which is good prep - after my baby was about 12 weeks he started sleeping 6+ hours and I am now getting much better sleep than when I was pregnant.

Can you catch up on sleep in the daytime? (Not asking in terms of logistics but your body.) Because the answer affects potential solutions.

I need sleep to function or I'm a depressed foggy zombie mess as well. Even just 1 to 2h short makes me totally incapable of functioning. I can have issues falling asleep at night, but when my body hits its tiredness limit, whatever time that may be (even at 4pm), I can knock out and stay asleep. So I just need the right environment to catch up on sleep. Whereas others with sleep issues I know just can't sleep if they've missed their night time window

In the early days, I reframed my own sleep to naps. So I wouldn't go to sleep at night thinking I was going to sleep - this helped!

Like someone said above with DC2, we started implementing methods to help them fall asleep in their own from an early age - with DC1 I didn't know anything about sleep and rocked them until they were. 6months, where we moved to a different approach.

You will be ok and you will survive. You will be tired - but it doesn't last forever!

Yeah if it's that important you don't even miss an hours sleep for your mental health then you're going to need a night nanny.

That said, don't stress yet. Everything works different with a baby. Bed in for the first bit, read up on the fourth trimester and stay laid up like a Queen whilst you adjust. Yeah the sleep thing is different but other than the odd weigh in/ HV appointment/ jabs you don't have to go anywhere. Cosleeping was what worked for us but I wouldn't do it with a newborn in a single bed.

Came on to say this (though DD2 is only tiny still, so I might regret jinxing things).

Also - sleep train. In my experience there are three kinds of parents: the very, very rare kind with babies who sleep independently early on; the ones who sleep train at 6-12 months ish and so are basically fine from then on; and the ones who don’t who often have sleepless nights for several years.

I need my sleep too, and so I knew I couldn’t cope with night wakings for 2+ years, and so sleep training DD1 was an almost literal lifesaver.

First time mum of a 6 month old here - I was exactly like you, if I lost even an hours sleep I’d be furious the next day.

But it’s actually bizarre how your body adjusts to less sleep. I don’t think I’ve slept longer then a 2 hour block in about 2 months sadly. But definitely take it in shifts if you can. Do anything you can to get that sleep in - cuddly newborn naps of a day time are the best thing ever. But try to eat well (easier said then done), try and drink some water and get out for a bit of fresh air if you can and maybe grab a XXL coffee.

If you really really need a nap say to your partner or family you’re going up to sleep for an hour or 2 - sometimes you feel like you’re going to crash and you’ll have to ask for help.

Praying your blessed with a good sleeper (I sadly was not) but I promise you’ll be okay.

I could have written your post OP. At least you are aware of what might lie ahead of you. I was not. And, at least in my case, the fact that I was exhausted (to the point of spontaneous weight loss) did not mean I would "just sleep", without all the props. The unpredictable newborn/baby sleep further messed up my sleep to a ridiculous degree. So my only advice would be to take any and every help you can get, OP. In whatever form (family, GP, HV, sleep consultants - for the baby and yourself, etc).

I agree with others that I was surprised how ok I was with less sleep - the mindset for the first couple of months might need to be survival in the knowledge that it’s not forever.

Sleep whenever the baby does and just chill in the day. Get your partner to stay up with baby, do a bottle and wake you when it’s time to feed next. Arm yourself with knowledge of what can affect babies sleep (colic for example) and my two wouldn’t sleep well without being swaddled.

You'll adapt to the sleep deprivation- we all do. It's hard wired!

Like others have said you do just adjust. It’s surprising how quickly that adjustment happens. I started to use the night feeds as a bit of me time…time to listen to an audio book or podcasts and really loved it. When I was done with the feed I was so exhausted that I went out like a light and had really good deep sleep (even if it was only in 2-3 hour chunks).