Tips For Getting Sleep With A Newborn
Newborn babies can be cute and you might be strongly bonded with yours to the point where you would do anything for him or her, but that doesn't take away from the fact that they wake up often in the middle of the night and cry, causing you to become sleep-deprived. You need to make sure that you are getting enough sleep when you have a newborn or else you are not going to be able to provide adequate care. Here are some tips for sleeping while having a newborn and keeping your sanity.
1. Pump and Sleep
The first thing that you want to do is make sure that both parents have access to breast milk so that they can take equal turns with feeding the baby and the responsibility does not lie entirely with the mom. You can do this by having the mom pump breast milk before going to bed relatively early, like at 8 or 9 in the evening. At 10 or 10:30, the other parent can wake the baby up and feed him or her. Then, that parent can go to sleep. The mom who pumped milk before going to bed can wake up again when the baby wakes up in the early hours of the morning and breast feed again. Then, both parents can go to sleep until the morning. Taking turns staying up and feeding the baby will go a long way towards making taking care of a newborn bearable.
2. Eat Protein When You Have to Be Awake in the Middle of the Night
The next thing that you need to do is make sure that you eat protein whenever you have to be awake in the middle of the night. Keep the snack small, but a little bit of beef jerky, peanut butter, or hazelnut spread and a banana can go a long way in making sure that when you do get up to face the day, you feel rested.
3. Rotate Sleepless Nights
Rotate nights where you don't sleep with your partner. Have one partner field all of the calls from the baby all night while the other partner sleeps and then switch off the next day. It will ensure that you will get a good night's sleep every other night, rather than a poor night's sleep every night if you try to split up the baby calls each night.
For more information, talk to a company like Willow Oak Pediatrics.
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