Coping with Sleep Deprivation
Possibly the hardest thing to come to terms with when you have a baby is the chronic sleep deprivation. Friends and well meaning colleagues at work may joke about the sleepless nights, but at 3am when you’ve been pacing around the house with a screaming baby for 2 hours, it just isn’t funny. My daughter, Ella, is now 10 months old and doesn’t sleep through the night. I have done quite a bit of research into why some babies don’t sleep, and wanted to share my experiences on dealing with sleep deprivation.
Ella is my first, and at present only child and although I had been a hands on Auntie to 3 lovely nephews, nothing at all could have prepared me for coping with a new born. I’d heard about the “sleepless nights”, but I had no idea just how draining and exhausting it could be. Sleep deprivation is used in some places as a form of torture, and it’s easy to see why. You become irritable, clumsy, irrational and so desperate you’d probably confess to shooting JFK if it meant you could get some sleep! It becomes a fight for survival and although you begin to feel like you will never feel normal again, there are things you can do to help you get through it.
So how much sleep do children need? The following table is a rough guide:
AGE
|
Approx. amount of sleep needed:
|
|
Newborn
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16 to 20 hours per day
|
|
3 weeks
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16 to 18 hours per day
|
|
6 weeks
|
15 to 16 hours per day
|
|
4 months
|
9 to 12 hours plus two naps (2 to 3 hours each)
|
|
6 months
|
11 hours plus two naps (1 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours each)
|
|
9 months
|
11 to 12 hours plus two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
|
|
1 year
|
10 to 11 hours plus two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
|
|
18 months
|
13 hours plus one or two naps (1 to 2 hours each)
|
|
2 years
|
11 to 12 hours plus one nap (2 hours)
|
|
3 years
|
10 to 11 hours plus one nap (2 hours)
|
|
4 to 5 years
|
10 to 12 hours. Usually no nap.
|
But of course, newborn babies don’t take their 16-20 hours of sleep in one go!! The 1st night we had Ella at home, she was awake every 15 mins!! These are of course approximates. As adults we too function on different amounts of sleep. Margaret Thatcher famously ran the country on 4 or 5 hours a night, where as the average is 8 hours. Babies are the same. Some require much less sleep than shown above, some much more.
You midwife and health visitor will say “sleep when your baby sleeps”, which is OK but not always possible. If you’re anything like me, you can’t fall asleep at the drop of a hat and there are other factors to consider, like other children, the need to eat and go to the toilet! Ella would often drift off in her crib; I would try and sleep on the sofa only to be woken 10 mins later by the sound of her snoring! One of the best pieces of advice given to me was why stand if you can sit, and why sit if you can lie down. 10 minutes lying on the sofa reading a magazine really can help…
It’s very important to make sure you are eating and drinking well too. Food and drink provide our bodies with energy and insufficient of either will make us feel 100 times worse. But at the same time, it’s often difficult to find time to eat and drink, let alone anything warm! Instead of trying to prepare Jamie Oliver style meals, keep it simple. Try and keep healthy, slow energy releasing food around and eat little and often if that helps. Eating 5 small meals during a day will keep you going longer. Examples of such snacks would be bananas, brown bread, soup etc. Slow energy release foods such as these will maintain your energy longer than the quick hit you get from chocolate or biscuits. One thing I found very helpful was to keep a pint glass of water in every room – it sounds stupid but even now I get so caught up in baby things that I forget to drink. By having a glass of water in the kitchen, the lounge and Ella’s bedroom, it’s always to hand and over the day I do actually drink something!
You may be very fortunate and have a child that for a good chunk of the night from 5 weeks, but in reality, most babies don’t start to sleep through until they are 3 or 4 months old and can go longer between feeds. When you have a disturbed sleeper, the key is to make sure that you look after yourself and have some time when you are off duty. Here are a few tips to help you survive:
- Remember that you are not alone. Every parent goes through this to some degree and on a scale of your child’s life, this is only a short period of time and it will get better.
- Accept all offers of help. If your neighbour offers to do your washing, just say yes! Accept all offers of food, cleaning etc – don’t try to be super woman and run round with the hoover when your baby is napping when you are nearly dead on your feet.
- Try and have some “me” time – even if its 10 mins with a magazine when baby is asleep.
- At least rest when your baby does. If you can sleep, do but if not, have a sit or lie down.
- As your baby gets older and sleeps longer in the day, if you are tired, you have a lie down at the same time. There is no shame in afternoon naps!
- Remember to eat and drink to keep your energy levels up. Try to have healthy snacks around the house to help you avoid the not so healthy ones.
And finally, remember that this site is here to support you. Talking to people who have been there or are there at the moment really can help. They may have tried something you haven’t and if nothing else, can offer a sympathetic ear.
This is a members article written by Dizie
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