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Home › Articles › Sleep Issues › Nighty-Night?

Nighty-Night?

Better Rest for Mom and Baby

By Teri Brown

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One of the most challenging aspects of having a baby is the lack of sleep – for both Mom and Baby. Sometimes it seems you're too tired to even enjoy all that is wonderful about having a newborn. That's exactly how Jessica Winum, a mother of three from Waldon, N.Y., felt with her second child.

"Some mornings I just woke up and cried because I was so tired from having slept with Riley on my chest all night," says Winum. "Because I had a 2-year-old, I couldn't nap whenever the baby did, as all the books tell you to do, and had to be functional for her sake."

Winum recalls when she was sleep deprived, everything seemed larger than life to her. "I couldn't think straight or handle the stress of having a newborn who needed so much attention and a toddler as well," she says. "Sometimes I would just sit in front of the washer machine and cry, or go in the closet and scream. I was, as I realized some weeks later, suffering from postpartum depression aggravated by sleep deprivation. I mean, I am a woman who needs at least eight solid hours of sleep!"

Sleep Routines
Dr. Cathryn Tobin, pediatrician and author of The Parent's Problem Solver (Three Rivers Press 2002) believes there are reasons why mom and babies can't get good sleep.

"Newborns sleep 16 to 17 hours, but it comes in snips and snaps," says Dr. Tobin. "Newborns do not sleep according to a circadian rhythm. They sleep when they're tired and that occurs every few hours. Unfortunately, parents get into bad habits at this point and then have to break these habits with cry-it-out or other strategies. It's completely natural to jiggle, suckle or rock a newborn to sleep, but the problem is that Mom and Dad should adjust their going to sleep routine as the baby gets older, but most parents don't realize this. Once a baby gets hooked on parent-driven bedtime routines, it's very hard to break this habit."

Dr. James Sears, pediatrician and co-author of The Baby Book

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