Sleep (knits up the ravelled sleeve of care... or something...)
Inspired by tikiwanderer's latest post about babies and sleep, I bring you a long post about what all newish parents want for Christmas:
kirmish are no doubt discovering the joys of having a new member of the household with no concept whatsoever of the difference between day and night. It does get better from there - but babies aren't adults, and night-time parenting doesn't stop when they realise night is for sleeping.
The first few weeks are so overwhelming. Particularly for mothers: recovering from the most intense physical workout I'd ever done, needing energy to produce half a litre of breastmilk every day, I just felt constantly exhausted. It was really difficult to get both enough food and enough sleep into 24 hours while dealing with baby demands. I learnt strategies like keeping waterbottles anywhere I might sit down, and stashes of food next to the bed and my feeding chair, and planning to be in bed for 14 hours in order to get 7 hours (cumulative) sleep. I remember the night she first slept 4 hours in a row; I felt like a new person!
The SIDS guidelines seem like a joke at that stage: don't fall asleep with your baby in bed, or on a chair, or a sofa. When you are that tired you run the risk of falling asleep at every feed, so I was constantly stressing about falling asleep on her and suffocating her. (Less of a worry for me with small boobs and no fat rolls, but still!) Plus she wouldn't sleep unless she was on/next to an adult for the first two months... I did a lot of reading about how the mother's heartbeat and breathing regulate the baby's when they are in close contact, and learned to love my slings.
I also gave up on the idea of putting her in a cot overnight any time soon. Bed-sharing stopped sounding like an unusual hippy idea and seemed really sensible! The SIDS guidelines have lots of rules about how NOT to bedshare: don't do it if you have a doona (risk of overheating and suffocation), waterbed (suffocation from sinking in), if anyone in the bed is affected by alcohol, drugs or medications that cause drowsiness (so they might not notice if they roll on the baby), if you are obese or large breasted (on the basis, apparently, that you have less awareness of where the edges of your body are?!), if you have jewelery, ribbons on nightclothes, or long hair (unless tied back) as these are all strangulation risks. They don't have any guidelines about how to do it safely. This is, I suspect, not because it's inherently unsafe, but because they don't want to be sued. So, as with many health messages, it's all about the "don't"s.
I found some useful information about safe bedsharing from Pinky McKay (ABA-approved 'parenting expert' and certified lactation consultant), and from her, Dr James McKenna and his sleep lab at the University of Notre Dame. He has written a number of articles about how sleeping close to your baby can actually reduce the risk of SIDS, promote breastfeeding, and increase wellbeing for mother and baby (like this one).
Apart from where to sleep, the other big thing is how long. There's the myth that you should 'train' your baby to 'sleep through' from an early age. This doesn't actually sit that well with the practice of breastfeeding: babies are designed to digest breastmilk efficiently and feed frequently, even overnight. They don't get enough food from solids for the first YEAR. Formula fed babies do sleep 'better', ie longer, but you pay for that with increased risk of health problems. Just because a baby's tummy is full, doesn't necessarily mean they're getting all the nutrients (and antibodies) they need - just like adults and junk food...
At an ABA meeting a while back, someone commented that night feeds would be really nice - just you and baby cuddled up with no distractions - if it weren't for knowing you have to be functional the next day. I like this sociological perspective; as with so many things about babies, it's not what they do that's a problem, so much as what we expect/our culture demands. Given the environment in which we evolved, it's just insane to expect most babies to sleep eight hours at a stretch, alone in a cot, without food or reassurance from their mothers.
As for us:
Eventually we had enough practice of breastfeeding to latch on without the light. That helped D get more sleep. Then she stopped pooing (mostly) at night feeds, so I stopped changing her. We bought a bed rail and changed from doona to blanket, so now she sleeps right next to me on our bed. She still wakes at least twice a night for feeds, but I just roll over with my eyes still closed, so it's not that bad. And we're all much happier than if we were trying to settle her in a cot for an hour before bed every night!
kirmish are no doubt discovering the joys of having a new member of the household with no concept whatsoever of the difference between day and night. It does get better from there - but babies aren't adults, and night-time parenting doesn't stop when they realise night is for sleeping.
The first few weeks are so overwhelming. Particularly for mothers: recovering from the most intense physical workout I'd ever done, needing energy to produce half a litre of breastmilk every day, I just felt constantly exhausted. It was really difficult to get both enough food and enough sleep into 24 hours while dealing with baby demands. I learnt strategies like keeping waterbottles anywhere I might sit down, and stashes of food next to the bed and my feeding chair, and planning to be in bed for 14 hours in order to get 7 hours (cumulative) sleep. I remember the night she first slept 4 hours in a row; I felt like a new person!
The SIDS guidelines seem like a joke at that stage: don't fall asleep with your baby in bed, or on a chair, or a sofa. When you are that tired you run the risk of falling asleep at every feed, so I was constantly stressing about falling asleep on her and suffocating her. (Less of a worry for me with small boobs and no fat rolls, but still!) Plus she wouldn't sleep unless she was on/next to an adult for the first two months... I did a lot of reading about how the mother's heartbeat and breathing regulate the baby's when they are in close contact, and learned to love my slings.
I also gave up on the idea of putting her in a cot overnight any time soon. Bed-sharing stopped sounding like an unusual hippy idea and seemed really sensible! The SIDS guidelines have lots of rules about how NOT to bedshare: don't do it if you have a doona (risk of overheating and suffocation), waterbed (suffocation from sinking in), if anyone in the bed is affected by alcohol, drugs or medications that cause drowsiness (so they might not notice if they roll on the baby), if you are obese or large breasted (on the basis, apparently, that you have less awareness of where the edges of your body are?!), if you have jewelery, ribbons on nightclothes, or long hair (unless tied back) as these are all strangulation risks. They don't have any guidelines about how to do it safely. This is, I suspect, not because it's inherently unsafe, but because they don't want to be sued. So, as with many health messages, it's all about the "don't"s.
I found some useful information about safe bedsharing from Pinky McKay (ABA-approved 'parenting expert' and certified lactation consultant), and from her, Dr James McKenna and his sleep lab at the University of Notre Dame. He has written a number of articles about how sleeping close to your baby can actually reduce the risk of SIDS, promote breastfeeding, and increase wellbeing for mother and baby (like this one).
Apart from where to sleep, the other big thing is how long. There's the myth that you should 'train' your baby to 'sleep through' from an early age. This doesn't actually sit that well with the practice of breastfeeding: babies are designed to digest breastmilk efficiently and feed frequently, even overnight. They don't get enough food from solids for the first YEAR. Formula fed babies do sleep 'better', ie longer, but you pay for that with increased risk of health problems. Just because a baby's tummy is full, doesn't necessarily mean they're getting all the nutrients (and antibodies) they need - just like adults and junk food...
At an ABA meeting a while back, someone commented that night feeds would be really nice - just you and baby cuddled up with no distractions - if it weren't for knowing you have to be functional the next day. I like this sociological perspective; as with so many things about babies, it's not what they do that's a problem, so much as what we expect/our culture demands. Given the environment in which we evolved, it's just insane to expect most babies to sleep eight hours at a stretch, alone in a cot, without food or reassurance from their mothers.
As for us:
Eventually we had enough practice of breastfeeding to latch on without the light. That helped D get more sleep. Then she stopped pooing (mostly) at night feeds, so I stopped changing her. We bought a bed rail and changed from doona to blanket, so now she sleeps right next to me on our bed. She still wakes at least twice a night for feeds, but I just roll over with my eyes still closed, so it's not that bad. And we're all much happier than if we were trying to settle her in a cot for an hour before bed every night!