Sleep deprived mums

Clutching your fifth coffee and contemplating propping open your eyelids with matchsticks, you glance at the clock. It’s only 3pm, but time has lost its meaning a bit as you’re just as likely to be awake come 3am. You’re in sleep-deprivation Hell – otherwise known as having a new baby.

People might have spent nine months making jokes about sleepless nights, but you still had no idea it would be quite like this. But don’t worry, there ARE ways of getting through the sleep-deprived haze of those first few weeks.

Sleep over

When you carry your precious new baby through the door, any hope of a proper night’s sleep flies out of the window.
‘It’s quite usual for new mums to be getting as little as two hours sleep in 24 hours,’ says Professor Jacob Empson, author of Sleep and Dreaming (Palgrave Macmillan, £15). ‘When it comes to sleep, nature favours the baby over the mother. You can see how tired new parents are by their washed-out faces, and dark eyes.’
Hey, and don’t forget the sick-stained clothes and comedy hair!

Most new babies feed every three to four hours, with a lovely stinky nappy soon after. Then there’s the crying that can have you seeing in the dawn in a daze. Days pass in a whirl of nappies, feeding, washing, worrying, fielding phone calls and entertaining visitors. Who wouldn’t be cream-crackered?

‘I honestly could not believe this was right,’ says Lorna Kells, 30, from Liverpool, and mum to 11-month-old Joe. ‘I wanted to grab people by the lapels and yell, “I haven’t been to sleep for two days! How can that be?” ’

Not getting enough sleep does funny things to your brain. ‘Sleep loss can affect people in different ways,’ says Professor Empson. ‘It can make you disorientated, so you feel snappy or weepy. It can also make you feel anxious, or cause lapses in concentration.’

Every new parent has a story about the moment their brain turned to porridge. ‘Ryan was a week old and we were shattered,’ says Heather Lewis, 28, from Coventry. ‘We went for a walk with the pram and my husband Ray was so zombied, he ‘posted’ some letters in a litter bin without realising. We had to fish them out again while people walked by, giving us funny looks.’

Even holding a conversation can be a bit of a challenge after your umpteenth sleepless night in a row. ‘I was talking to my sister, but my words wouldn’t come out right,’ says Terri McMann, 29, from Manchester, and mum to Liberty, four months. ‘I was so tired I literally couldn’t string a sentence together.’

Nappy naps

If sleepless nights go on too long, you can end up really miserable, according to psychologist Dr Richard Woolfson. ‘New parents are always thinking, are we doing it right? Add sleep deprivation and things start to get on top of you. You have a sense of drudgery and can end up in a downward spiral.’

If this sounds familiar, it’s time you got some zeds in – somehow.
The midwife always say: ‘Sleep when the baby does.’ And you always think, ‘Yeah, right. Like it’s that easy...’

But there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, according to Professor Empson. Even a few ten-minute ‘opportunistic naps’ can take the sting out of a sleep drought. Research shows your body will make the most of the shut-eye it gets – using even short spells for deep sleep.

‘People think they should be getting on with the ironing when the baby is asleep,’ he says. ‘But that’s not a good idea if you’re only getting three to four hours sleep a night. It’s much better to let things go and get some sleep. You can fall sleep anywhere comfortable and dark if you give your brain permission to shut down. ’

Don’t let guilt rob you of rest. With so many demands on your body and emotions, there’s no more efficient way of spending the baby’s nap than grabbing 40 winks yourself. Let the Hoovering go hang.

‘At first I’d breastfeed Ruby to sleep, then heave myself around trying to get the flat to look like it did pre-baby,’ says Paula King, 34, of Brighton. ‘One day my partner Paul actually ordered me back to bed to sleep. He took charge of the housework and said resting was my ‘job’.’

Night right

When you’re worn out the best thing you can do is get help, says Dr Woolfson. ‘New parents are often reluctant to accept offers of help, thinking they should be responsible for the baby round the clock,’ he says. ‘But if Granny offers to watch the baby while you have a rest, take it!’

Handing the baby over to someone you trust so you can grab a catnap needn’t be the last resort, says Caroline Haig, 26, from Stockport. ‘One day when Tam was about three weeks old I was so tired I felt like the room was spinning. So when my mum walked in for a visit, I just handed her the baby and a clean nappy and staggered off to the bedroom for a blissful two hours.’

The other sanity-saver is getting organised. ‘Try to get some structure into your life,’ Dr Woolfson says. ‘Split up the nights. If doesn’t take two to get up to a crying baby, so agree you’ll take it in turns.’

One night you sleep while he gets up if the baby cries. If you’re breast-feeding let Daddy do the carrying to and from the cot, winding, pacing and nappies. Next night, swap over.

If nights are still a bit of a nightmare after four weeks, think about how you might do things differently, Dr Woolfson advises. You might want to find the middle ground between instantly comforting the baby and ignoring her cries, so she learns to settle herself. Instead of picking her up, maybe you could soothe her by touching or talking to her.

And of course, there’s always that sixth cup of coffee…

If all else fails..

• Don’t waste time making the bed when you could be lying on it, snoring happily.

• Say you’re having a bath – then take the duvet in instead. Clean, schmean.

• Tell hubby to hold the fort while you pop out for, er, bread. Drive round the corner and hunker down for a nap.

• Paint eyes on your lids, then you can snooze in secret as doting rellies pass round the baby.

• Napping on the loo might not be ideal, but then neither is double vision.