As parents, we do our best with what we have been given. But sometimes, the best-laid plans can go astray. While we all want to be there for our kids in every way, we can feel burnt out by life, especially when it comes to feeling the exhaustion that comes with parenting a young one.
After giving birth, you may have that concern that your baby “may never sleep again,” but beyond going through the numerous developmental leaps that affect most kids’ sleep, the harsh reality for many parents is that their child may not necessarily sleep properly until they hit around seven years old!
For those people who have just had a baby or are trying to figure out how to make sense of it all and survive, let’s show you a number of tactics.
Does Co-Sleeping Help?
When we’re feeling so exhausted a few months after birth, when we just want to have some form of sleep, this usually means letting the baby sleep in the bed, which is co-sleeping or having them nearby. There is a difference between co-sleepers and co-sleeping; a co-sleeper is a small bed for your baby that either attaches to your bed or rests on your mattress, and co-sleeping means having the baby in bed with you, also known as bed-sharing, but could also mean having a separate sleep surface for the baby, but keeping them near.
The experts say you should not have the baby in your bed because of the risk of suffocation, but this is where having another solution, like a co-sleeper means they can have their own space so they are closer to you, so you might be able to have some sleep. However, the problem with having a baby sleep in your bed and you giving them comfort all night, every night, means when it comes to them sleeping in their own bed, you’ve made a rod for your own back.
Why Routines Are So Important
A routine is not just so you can get the children to bed, but it’s a reinforcement tactic that can help them get to sleep by themselves. You may have encountered many parents who decided, as soon as the baby comes along, they are going to sleep by themselves. Parents who decided to do this are clearly people who prioritize their sleep!
While you can spend a lot of time agonizing over your first child, potentially peeping through a gap in the door every 5 minutes or looking at the baby monitor to see if they are sleeping (or, as the first-time parents would say: if they are breathing), the importance of having a routine in your baby’s life from the very start is critical, but it’s also something that becomes more essential as they get older.
If you are beyond this and your child comes to you every time you put them into bed, the general guidance includes the following:
- Starting a winding down routine approximately 30 minutes before the time they should be falling asleep.
- Setting a limit on how much time you spend with your child when you put them to bed. The key is to stick to this routine. They may have one story and one song, and then you tuck your child in and say “good night.”
- Make sure they have their comforter or favorite toy or pacifier before they settle in.
- If your child gets up, you need to keep taking them back to bed without making any fuss, and doing this for as long as necessary. This is a technique that helps children over 12 months old and can help when your child wakes up in the middle of the night.
The key is about making sure that you bring consistency into those routines. It is something that doesn’t just help your child, but it helps you.
How Can We Deal With Lack of Sleep as Parents?
We can all do our best to make sure that our kids are sleeping, but there can be many parents out there that feel that they’ve tried absolutely everything, in which case, they have to keep pushing on to make sure they are doing everything necessary to look after the kids but also look after themselves. Some parents get on okay with a lack of sleep, but there are others who realize that, as soon as their children are born, sleep is the key to making them feel sane. This is why we need to bear in mind some of the following:
Do Not Overdose on Caffeine
Caffeine is something that can definitely help us during the first year, but problems occur when we start to rely too much on it. Over time, we can become caffeine-adapted and it loses its efficacy, meaning we end up increasing the dosage. Caffeine in the form of coffee is, for many people, going to give them the jitters. Luckily there are other alternatives to having caffeine without the dose, like guarana tablets that provide a good dose of caffeine without those jitters. However, it is important to make sure that you don’t consume too much in general. Think about the things that give you that little bit more energy beyond coffee.
Having Some Exercise
You might think that exercising is the worst possible solution when you don’t feel great, but you need to incorporate what is known as “exercise snacks” into your life. A few press-ups, running up and down the stairs quickly, or some jumping jacks can get the blood flowing and make you feel a bit more reinvigorated.
Stop Looking at Your Phone in the Middle of the Night
We can spend hours sitting with our child holding their hand or them sleeping on us, meaning that we get the phone out as a way to keep us stimulated while also alleviating boredom. If you need your phone as a distraction method, that is all well and good, but you need to keep the blue screen off. Get a blue light filter, as this means you will have far better quality sleep when you get back in bed. You might think that you can sleep on a spike, but good deep sleep will help you feel more restored.
Reduce Your Stress
The problem we have when we wake up in the night or if our children are not playing ball at bedtime is that we can get overwhelmed and stressed. Stress interferes with sleep and practicing stress-reducing techniques can help you to feel like you don’t necessarily need that much sleep. If you are someone who feels incredibly cranky when you haven’t had optimum sleep, reducing your stress will make a big difference here.
Eating Better
If you have too much caffeine, you can feel the jitters, and the same occurs when you have too much sugar. It is essential to eat as well as possible when you can. When you maintain a healthier diet and have more stable blood sugar, this will ensure you don’t feel those peaks and troughs that come with consuming too much caffeine or sugar. Foods that contain slow-releasing carbs can be a great tool here. When your child is not sleeping, now is not the time to be experimenting with different diets or intermittent fasting. You are in full on survival mode!
Look at the Big Picture
It tends to be around the age of seven when our children start to sleep better. If your child has just passed their first birthday, this can seem like an incredibly tough slog to get through, which is why, if you’re thinking about making career changes or altering your life in some way, it’s best to hold off on those plans, at least until the children properly.
Some people think that they can just weather these storms, but sleep has a number of detrimental consequences. In the short term, it can heighten your stress response an worsen your cognition and memory, but it can also have devastating impacts in the long term, such as an increased risk of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and depression.
You may encounter plenty of parents that seem to function absolutely fine with lack of sleep and talk about how they managed to get a good six hours in total last night, but if this isn’t you, don’t feel like you are the exception to the rule. Whatever your sleep threshold is, it is critical for you to function at your optimum.
We need to do our best as parents, and sometimes, we can feel like we’re not giving our children the best of ourselves because of a lack of sleep. If it is having an impact on every aspect of your life, you need to make peace with the fact that as long as you’re doing everything you can to survive now, this is enough.
It is not easy to deal with a lack of sleep and most of us can function okay after a couple of nights, but it’s when it goes into the months or years of poor sleep that it can really wear us down. But don’t lose heart, it will get better!
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