Give it to me straight: sleep deprivation

[Anonymous]

We have been talking about TTC but I have been putting it off because I am legitimately terrified about the sleep aspect. I have always needed a lot of sleep, am really groggy on less than 8 hours, and have a very hard time falling back asleep once awake even if I’m exhausted. DH is well-rested on 6.5 hours, but he will only have 2 weeks of paternity leave (I’ll have 4 mo mat leave) and after that will have to go into work 5 days a week with a 30-min commute (his job is onsite and is not possible to do any WFH) and of course driving on very little sleep is not safe. I know people have been doing this for centuries, but if you needed a lot of sleep pre baby how did you get through it?

[Anonymous]

A night nurse if you can afford it

If you can't, a family member who can come stay with you and help during the day so you can catch up on sleep.

And yes, DH should be doing some of the overnight even if he has to go into work.

[Anonymous]

Caffeine.

[Anonymous]

It really depends. My first was a terrible sleeper, my second almost as bad, and I was very sleep deprived. But I've had friends with babies who slept wonderfully. No baby is going to sleep through the night from the get-go, they do feed around the clock, and if you're nursing, you're the one on call. But it gets better and you run on adrenaline (and caffeine) and get through it.

Personally I wouldn't have traded my horrible sleepers, now older teens who can and will sleep through anything, to preserve my sleep.

[Anonymous]

We have a one year old and we are similar sleep wise. We made it a priority from the beginning. We skipped a vacation last year when I was pregnant to afford a night nanny.

Night nanny 3x per week
Snoo
Sleep training / starting good habits early (A lot of this was guided by the night nanny)
Have a family member come help with chores, etc. so you can nap

I’m not sure if it was luck or all the work (money) we threw at the problem, but our baby was sleeping through the night at 8 weeks.

[Anonymous]

For those saying night nanny, how much does that help if you are BFing? If you are still being woken up 3x a night and have a hard time falling back asleep, that doesn’t seem like it would help.

[Anonymous]

Like you, I was really worried about this. Personally, I did not find it to be as bad as everyone said; seems like it is one of those things people love to say to scare expectant parents. My baby has always been a really good sleeper. He's 8 months old and has been sleeping through the night consistently for months now. But I think it really depends on your kid, and I'm sure there are people on here who have had awful experiences.

One of the things that probably helped us is that we do formula. I know that can be controversial, but if sleep is your top priority, you should consider it. It allowed us to share the responsibility of feeding him and get him on a schedule. Even in the newborn stage, when babies have to eat every 2-3 hours, we were able to work it so that we each only had to get up once in the middle of the night to feed him. Formula takes longer to digest, so he wouldn't wake up hungry between feedings. I think by around 4 months we had dropped the overnight bottles entirely.

Depending on how much money you want to spend, there are lots of other solutions out there. Night nurse, sleep consultants, the Snoo...I'm sure there are more.

[Anonymous]

It’s fine OP. You’ll be tired fr a while. You will get used to it and be glad you had a baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s fine OP. You’ll be tired fr a while. You will get used to it and be glad you had a baby.

This is not universally true! Some people struggle with the physical and emotionally difficulties of sleep deprivation for years, and not everybody is glad they had a particular baby. I am so glad I had a second but you can't say it's universally true that it will be fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Like you, I was really worried about this. Personally, I did not find it to be as bad as everyone said; seems like it is one of those things people love to say to scare expectant parents. My baby has always been a really good sleeper. He's 8 months old and has been sleeping through the night consistently for months now. But I think it really depends on your kid, and I'm sure there are people on here who have had awful experiences.

One of the things that probably helped us is that we do formula. I know that can be controversial, but if sleep is your top priority, you should consider it. It allowed us to share the responsibility of feeding him and get him on a schedule. Even in the newborn stage, when babies have to eat every 2-3 hours, we were able to work it so that we each only had to get up once in the middle of the night to feed him. Formula takes longer to digest, so he wouldn't wake up hungry between feedings. I think by around 4 months we had dropped the overnight bottles entirely.

Depending on how much money you want to spend, there are lots of other solutions out there. Night nurse, sleep consultants, the Snoo...I'm sure there are more.

this is true for many other things, like co-sleeping. Many recommendations are overly cautious for benefit of the child and have no regard for the sanity or health of the parents.

I found sleep deprivation to worse than what people said it would be. I survived, obviously, but it was torture. My first was a terrible sleeper. Also I had postpartum anxiety and so I couldn't sleep when the baby slept (I really should have gotten medicated for that but I didn't know that I could). I am really glad I got to be a SAHM during that time and didn't have to do anything but keep myself and my baby alive. The second was easier because I co-slept and he was a really good sleeper, plus I didn't have postpartum anxiety that time. But I was still crying sometimes during the day because of how tired I was.

That said, I don't think that sleep deprivation should be *the* reason somebody doesn't have a baby. You will (god willing) enjoy your child for a long time after the impacts of sleep deprivation ends. I do think that you should give yourself permission to do whatever it takes to get as much sleep as you can (depending on your particular sleep needs). Formula, cosleeping, CIO, SSRIs, night nurse, more time off work, whatever. Make your needs every bit as important as the baby's needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those saying night nanny, how much does that help if you are BFing? If you are still being woken up 3x a night and have a hard time falling back asleep, that doesn’t seem like it would help.

No, a baby nurse doesn’t help the sleep aspect much if you are breastfeeding. To establish a supply you need to be feeding or pumping every few hours in the beginning. My daughter started sleeping through the night pretty early- by 6-8 weeks- and through trial and error I think I pumped late at night before bed while she slept and then didn’t feed until she woke up. But this doesn’t work for everyone and I never made as much as au did for my firstborn; where I pumped around the clock (and he didn’t sleep through the night until sleep training at close to a year.)

Long story short- good sleep habits, formula feeding, and baby nurse all help odds that you’ll sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A night nurse if you can afford it

If you can't, a family member who can come stay with you and help during the day so you can catch up on sleep.

And yes, DH should be doing some of the overnight even if he has to go into work.

+1. And don't BF exclusively. I said it. The DC area is full of La Leche League die-hard types, and don't get me wrong breastfeeding has benefits, but if you tether yourself to being the sole source of nutrition for your infant, you're gonna have a bad time sleep-wise. Introduce a bottle early - in the first two or three weeks of life. Otherwise it will all be on you, Mom

[Anonymous]

Are there maybe other reasons you’re on the fence about potentially having a baby outside of losing sleep during the newborn phase?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A night nurse if you can afford it

If you can't, a family member who can come stay with you and help during the day so you can catch up on sleep.

And yes, DH should be doing some of the overnight even if he has to go into work.

+1. And don't BF exclusively. I said it. The DC area is full of La Leche League die-hard types, and don't get me wrong breastfeeding has benefits, but if you tether yourself to being the sole source of nutrition for your infant, you're gonna have a bad time sleep-wise. Introduce a bottle early - in the first two or three weeks of life. Otherwise it will all be on you, Mom

I'm 100% pro-choice in how you feed your baby, just keep in mind that formula-feeding is not a guarantee that your baby still sleep through the night, or even "well". Yes your DH can help with the feedings, but that doesn't mean you get plenty of uninterrupted sleep, and naps can be tough too. I formula fed my first and he was a terrible sleeper as an infant/baby/even into early toddlerhood. My second was breastfed and her sleep was better.

[Anonymous]

Hi OP. I'm definitely like you and so is my husband. We have a 4 year old and 18 month old. They were pretty crappy newborn sleepers (no new newborns sleep through the night, but there is a spectrum based on seeing my friends, so for us this meant not great at napping unless on someone or for 30 min bouts and not on the early end of sleeping longer stretches at night), but we survived. Now they are ok sleepers (sleep trained first at 6 months, second at 4 months but with a more gentle approach). Mostly good, but there still are wakeups when they go through different phases.

But your body does adjust and even during pregnancy sleep is impacted and I think it prepares you. By the time the baby comes, your body isn't used to the same sleep and kind of knows sleep will be a little interrupted. I'm not saying it's not hard at times, sleep definitely makes me the most ragey of all the parenting things. But it's still worth it. We're pretty rigid with schedules for our kids because it means they sleep better and we need that. But while there are some low moments both postpartum and then occasionally when they go through something weird that disrupts sleep, it's always a phase. I just go to sleep super early, in bed starting to wind down by 9p. That helps a lot.

So, you adjust. It's a hard part of parenting for sure but doable and the highs of parenting have definitely been well worth it from both of our perspectives.