Babies, sleep and the Dark Side of the Force (Your Baby and Sleep in general)

Member Name: The Daz

Product:	Your Baby and Sleep in general
Date:	05/03/09 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sleep...wonderful sleep.

Disadvantages: You have to learn to adapt - or else!

Sleep....must sleep. Eyes so heavy, child so noisy, partner so unhelpful, urge to cry rising..

Oh yes - all you chuckling non parents out there may well mock, but it'll be your turn one day!
Actually, I should at this juncture point out that the sleep patterns of all children vary, and your experience of such will also vary. By reading this you accept that the value of your sleep may fall as well as rise, and that past sleep patterns are no indicator to future performance.

Right - legal declarations out of the way. This is probably one of the biggest reasons for complaint for parents, and like a massive hangover, leads to initial cries of 'never again', when you consider having more offspring. The other one is the cost of your offspring, or as the chap on the Virgin advert says 'drains on your resources' - but that's for another review.

So - you get your new baby and partner home after leaving hospital. You turn the heating up, unpack everything, take a shower, maybe even a quick cuddle - and all the while your small wrinkly bundle of swaddling sleeps peacefully just where you left her on the middle of the bed.
This is likely to continue for at least the first evening - and you will start to get the smug feeling that it's all very easy, and your mates with kids are just winding you up.

Hah! It's a ploy. Just like the low introductory rate on a bank account, you are rudely corrected a short while afterwards - and it is at this point you realise that your child possesses a small Tardis in their chest, whereby a space that appears to be no bigger than your hand can produce the sort of volume you'd associate with an Iron Maiden concert. (Similar contortions of space also occur in the nappy as you'll find).

...so you feed the baby, change the baby, cuddle the baby, put her down gently, gently...step away from the sleeping baby, and go down the stairs slowly....and then just as you settle into the groove on your sofa, the concert begins anew. Probably louder now as you've just abandoned them. They're a day old - they have no concept of your existence when they can't see you...Ah..parental guilt. It's like the Dark Side of the Force.

With my child the experience was very tough for the first two weeks, and we were in fact in and out of hospital for various reasons. I can recall being awake at 5am on one night, not having had any sleep because any stirring of the baby would wake me. My wife was unconscious, and would awaken when I gave her the baby for feeding. It was a hard burden, but as I was on Paternity Leave and my wife was recovering from Laser Welding (Caesarean Section), it was up to me to take the day and night shifts and look after them both.

After a few weeks we finally upped her feeds to a level that let her kip for 3 hours at a time. Newborns have stomachs no bigger than an egg at rest, and so you have a constant battle to fill them up, and then do everything else before they need feeding again. This will continue until approximately 6wks-2 months, when the feeds they demand should rocket, and you can begin to shift them to 4hr feeds and train them to sleep at points in between.

Caution - until they are mostly feeding at regular intervals, do not attempt to lower night time feeds - you'll pay for it with more Iron Maiden concerts!!

Initially my baby was only going down to sleep properly at 10pm, after a bath and change and monster feed. She would nap during the day but not for more than half an hour, whereupon she would wake and look at the nearest parent with a 'where's my milk?' look. Early evenings, as plenty of parents will tell you are filled with that curious child obsession of being too tired too sleep. So they whine instead. Don't be tempted to put them down - then they will scream. The Dark Side calls again....

My daughter is now 3 months old. The difference in everything she does is amazing, but the sleep thing is still a balancing act. You know that taking them out in the car or the pram will induce sleep. This is good, and you'll be amazed at how little the baby disrupts your out of the house life - aside from the Tetris Game that is putting the pram and you're shopping in the boot of your car.

We've learnt that routine and familiarity are key for little ones. So, bedtime is now about 8:30pm, and involves getting her changed into babygro and sleeppod (sleeping bag with arm holes), and then putting her in the cot with Mr Zebra to watch over her. We then wake her at about 10:30pm for a monster feed and that usually sees her through til 4 or 5am. The night time feed has been slowly reduced and now replaced with water to encourage her to get fed up of waking and sleep through til brekkie feed at 7-8am.

Trust me. It does get easier. I know some reviews here talk about babies that won't settle unless being held or rocked to sleep - and this is true of some babies, and I even have friends who dream of having a proper night's kip. Some of these problems can be trained out - but it takes time. Some can not, and you may have to accept that your child just does not want to do as you wish! (See disclaimer at top). But even then, it is a phase, and you may suddenly realise several months later how much better they are sleeping than before.

My top tip for mums is to sleep when your baby sleeps. Even half an hr on the sofa in between Loose Women and Colombo (my wife's favourites) will do you good.

Top tip for dads - be patient. Expect to come home some nights and be handed a whining child by your miserable partner. Entertain them, calm them, whatever it takes. It will eventually work. Don't be afraid to make a fool of yourself in private to keep them occupied - it'll help you prepare for having to do it in public when they act up.

So in summary - ignore all my advice, rate me VU for amusement content, and go and have a baby. Unless you experience it yourself you won't really be able to relate to what I've been blabbering about, and you won't be allowed to disagree with me until then!

Summary: A few tips, neatly hidden in some lengthy blather.