Newborn Sleep IRL: A Wild Ride
First there was breastfeeding anxiety, then their was nap anxiety. I never anticipated that I would spend so much time worrying about my newborn’s sleep schedule!
Sleep deprivation, my old pal from medical training, seemed to exacerbate my fears:
Anticipation of the unpredictable night ahead.
Feeling powerless when our son resisted sleep.
The possibility that his persistent wakefulness would interfere with his development.
Dealing with the "wisdom" (guilt trip) of every sleep guru on social media.
Our sleep journey has been a rollercoaster, and I’m certain that one of the most universal experiences of motherhood is crying over your crying baby at 3am:
Day 1: “My baby is so peaceful- the sweetest and cuddliest beacon of peace and joy.”
Day 2: Baby is eating continuously (which I expected as a pediatrician but to experience it after labor and “sleeping” two nights in the hospital… wow). Cue exhaustion and finding my husband asleep in the glider with the baby – a pediatrician's nightmare (more on safe sleep- still a non-negotiable for me- later).
Days 3-14: “Wow, our baby is a unique sleep unicorn, we are so lucky.” At this point I had the pleasure of being “mean mom” and waking him to eat every 3 hours, as he would have slept much longer on his own.
Week 2-5: Back to birth weight! The green light from our pediatrician for longer overnight sleep. Feeling like a superhero with a 5-hour stretch and a 3-hour follow-up. We made bedtime 10 pm for a seemingly manageable single "overnight" feed at 3 am. The cherry on the top was a short nap for me after the 5-6 am feed, while my husband let the baby contact nap for a couple of hours. We were feeling like infant sleep gurus at this point.
Week 5-6: Enter the holidays – independent sleep was out the window. Little man napped on his grandmas all day in some sort of granny trance that we could never achieve on our own. This left him well rested for keeping us up all night. We took turns staying up and letting him contact nap. Happy exhausted holiday! (We blame the grandmas, but in reality his developmental stage played a huge part here— he was truly waking up to the world!).
Week 6-9: Slowly inching back to a 4-hour stretch overnight, trying naps in the crib, and attempting to put him down for a nap awake in preparation for daycare. He continues to stare at the ceiling indefinitely, so most naps are contact naps. We remain humbled and clueless but gradually more well-rested.
What I've learned (hello, old friend):
Follow intuition.
Follow intuition.
Follow intuition.
There is no magic formula for newborn sleep, but a few things have helped:
Swaddling – after a brief swaddle rebellion during the 5 week holiday downward spiral, little man is back in the swaddle and waking himself up less frequently. The swaddle prevents his natural startle reflex, which is a common culprit for waking baby up during those lighter periods of sleep.
Eat/play/sleep routine – Professionally, I never condone true sleep training at this age (and am not yet sure of my personal take at any age), but you can assemble a routine. For us, we eat and play for 1.5 hours, then nap for 1.5 hours and repeat this during the 12 hour “daytime”. Getting good daytime naps helps ensure baby is not overtired at night.
“Rescue” that nap- Try independent naps, putting down awake, etc all you want, but also create a mental rule regarding when you will intervene and “rescue” the nap. For us, after 15-20 minutes without success, we pull out the stops- dance, nurse, babywear- whatever we have to do to get our nap in and prevent over-tiredness.
Extending the nighttime wake window – this was risky. Every evening, babies around the world simultaneously enter a temporary but painful period of fussiness and parents stare at the clock praying for bedtime. It feels easiest to lull baby to sleep at this point, but now that we’ve found tools to sooth our son (swing, bouncer, his favorite toy “pescadito”) we are able to calmly keep him awake longer (~2 hours) to create more sleep pressure for nighttime sleep.
A bedtime routine- A routine will signal baby that it’s time for that deeper overnight sleep. We do a warm bath with lullabies (check out rockaby baby on spotify, it ‘slaps’), quiet time nursing with mom, quiet time for a small 1-2oz bottle with dad, and finally cuddles with dad until asleep and placed in his crib.
Don’t respond to every sound- Babies are loud sleepers. Over time, we started to recognize if our son was '“stirring” in his sleep vs crying out for our assistance. Before this realization, we were waking him frequently for what we thought was crying, but probably was not. I continue to room share with our son, but have moved him from the bedside bassinet to the crib across the room- this means I hear slightly less of the grunting and other random noises overnight and we both sleep more soundly. I will discuss room sharing, an AAP recommended practice, more in a future post.
Gradually reduce stimulation overnight – In the first two weeks, overnight feeds are crucial. We needed plenty of stimulation to keep baby awake and eating so he could gain weight- this meant lights on, sometimes pajamas off, diaper changes between sides, etc. I found that reducing stimulation gradually in the second half of nursing helped me get him back to sleep faster. Now that he is older, we nurse in the dark with a small nightlight, diaper change once overnight with just a nightlight, and stay in our swaddle (arms out until drowsy because little man is bossy). Our overnight awakenings used to take at least an hour each, now they top out at 20-30 minutes.
This is most important: Forget the haters. We're all about nursing to sleep and contact naps. These habits feel right for us. The sleep experts of the internet will disagree and maybe we will regret it later, but he is only little once and these tender moments are important to us. As I type, my son is sleeping on my chest, snug in a baby wrap. It brings me an incredible amount of joy to do something I enjoy with my little man so close.
In conclusion, sleep is a puzzle with too many pieces. There are too many opinions out there and it can leave you feeling inadequate as a parent. If you're anxious and unsure, join the club. I'm right there with you and still learning while trying to follow my intuition. Personally, the awakenings have gotten shorter and less disruptive to my sleep. I feel adequately rested most days (but check back with me once I return to work), and still feel great joy when I stumble over to the crib and scoop up my baby at 2am.
Acknowledgments:
My husband (nap saver extraordinaire), who discovered that our son loves to fall asleep to EDM, and Mexican DJ DeOrro who lulls our son to sleep multiple times per day with this bop.
The people who encouraged us to implement eat/play/sleep- our pediatrician and a good friend (also a pediatrician).
The social media sleep-fluencers- while they’ve contributed to my anxiety, they’ve also helped me create a toolkit of solutions to experiment with along this way. It’s a love-hate relationship.
Stay tuned for a list of my favorite infant sleep products to add to your baby registry!
