How do you manage to get Enough Sleep? 2 Young Moms Share their Insider Secrets
I asked 2 Young Moms Club Mommies “How in the world do you get enough sleep?”
When my kids were young I was constantly tired. Their responses were very informative and made me laugh. If I could go back in time, I would definitely try some of these things.
Kaitlan Dawn Lavoie, 20 years old, from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada writes:
How do I find the time to sleep when a toddler runs about and a baby wants to eat every moment I leave his sight? Well, I will start at the beginning:
My two and a half year old, Kade, has been sleeping through the night since about 6 weeks old. He only wakes up at night if he is sick and too hot or just wants mommy to sing him a lullaby. So before we had Spencer I slept like any other person who never had kids. Kade was an awesome baby, I was never tired with him and he never demanded too much. Now with Spencer I haven’t slept through the night since he was born. He is now five and a half months old and exclusively breast fed (EBF) so when he wants to eat I HAVE to be there or all hell breaks loose. He eats when he wants to eat so that could be every 3-4 hours or every time he sees me and my luscious milk makers. So when bed time rolls around we put Kade to bed around 9-10pm and then I will feed Spencer into a milk coma and put him in his crib. I usually climb into bed around 12am and when sleep hits it is not for long. I swear he can sense me sleeping so I get him from his crib and bring him into bed and plop
Kaitlan Dawn Lavoie
him on the boob. Then back to sleep for the both of us. And then he wakes a few hours later and we roll to the other side and go back to sleep.
This is why I enjoy co-sleeping/bed sharing. It is so easy to feed him and sleep while he does. It may seem hard and tiring to some but in all honesty I think its easy. I am never really too tired. Unless its an unnecessarily long night. I get the amount of sleep I need, which is usually nine hours, but that all depends on when Kade decides to wake up. So its pretty easy really. I do have those nasty bags under my eyes but a little foundation fix’s that.
So you may want to know how I get enough sleep. Well its pretty easy. Everyone tells you “sleep when the baby sleeps” and if that’s what you need to do to get your rest and feel better, then do it. Maybe you can’t sleep in the middle of the day, which I know many who can’t. Maybe just taking a relaxing bath when the kids sleep or reading a book.
Also, reading a book is also a good way to make yourself tired. Remember don’t push yourself.
If you need to relax and the kids are just climbing the walls and you can not focus on a thing. Call someone, maybe your mom or a friend. See if someone will take the kids for a few hours while you relax with no distractions. And I mean actually relax. You don’t need to do housework cause that can wait. If you aren’t rested then it will be very hard to get anything done and if you are stressed the kids will pick up on that. So do what you have to do to get some rest. 😀
Santie Meyer, 24 years old, from Brits, South Africa writes:
I am a young mom from South Africa and I have been blessed with a healthy, happy 3 year old boy. I was only 21 when he was born and while my friends were all out partying all night and enjoying life with their boyfriends of the week, I was stuck at home with a colicky baby to take care of every night. Sometimes I went days without any sleep and I would finally pass out on my Mom’s couch or in front of the TV with the little guy in my arms.
At first it depressed me a bit that I didn’t have the time or energy to go out with my friends, but there came a day when I realized that being out on the town every night just wasn’t for me anymore and I actually preferred to spend time at home with my husband and our little one! Being happy and calm has helped me the most in coping with the little sleep and all night Mommy sessions – more than any book or DVD ever did!
Albert’s sleep routines were very difficult in the first few weeks but I had my mother to help out at first and I still remember her
Santie Meyer
coming into our bedroom one morning at 3am. to take a wailing colicky infant from two half asleep and very distressed parents! At the time I felt like the worst mother in the world for not being able to get my own son to sleep, but with time I realized that she was only trying to help and that sometimes you should just let go a little bit!
The biggest thing that I learned is to take friends and family members up on their offers of babysitting for a night every now and again so that you can sleep.
They don’t do it because they think that you are a bad mother but because they care about you and they can see you are going through a rough time. Your body and mind need sleep and if you don’t get enough, your baby feels that you are tense and reflects that by crying and keeping you up all night. My husband is still studying part time while he works full time, so he didn’t have the energy to help out all night at first, but he still tried his best and I am thankful for his efforts.
Even though I wasn’t working at that stage, I had trouble sleeping even when the little one was asleep and I often sat up the whole night to make sure that he didn’t stop breathing or have some sort of accident while I slept.
Coming to terms with being a new mom and having some faith in my own abilities as a mother has helped me tremendously.
It is as though the moment that I stopped worrying about every little detail and stopped thinking that I was the worst mother ever (and that everyone else thought that!), my little boy started sleeping better too!
Two of the most useful things to get my little one to sleep are his Cloud B Turtle Night Light
– there are even ladybugs for little girls
. The night light works with batteries and they really go a long way. The lights are also timed, so that they turn off after 45 minutes if you fall asleep with them on.
– there are even ladybugs for little girls. The night light works with batteries and they really go a long way. The lights are also timed, so that they turn off after 45 minutes if you fall asleep with them on.
The other is Lavender Oil – I put a few drops of this in his bath water at night and it has really helped to calm him down before bedtime. When my son was a bit younger, I used to put two drops of lavender oil on the underside of the bottom of his mattress in stead, so that the smell wasn’t too overpowering and the oil couldn’t come into contact with his skin to cause irritation.
Another trick that I found useful was to get a good sized teddy bear and some broad ribbons to tie it to my son’s cot so that it couldn’t come loose and pose a threat to him, but would still be a comfort since he wouldn’t be alone in such a big bed. Just make sure that you tie the ends of the ribbons down so that your baby can’t get entangled in them! Albert still adores his plush puppy, Fudge, and sleeps with him in his arms every night.
Sleeping is still a problem sometimes, even now! But I am managing to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night and that keeps me going. The best way to cope is to stay calm and believe in yourself as a mother – you will project your confidence onto your little one and they will be comforted by your presence. Get the little one into a routine that works for you: Bath time with a little massage afterwards, story time, bottle time, bed time or whatever works in your instance – no games before bed!
“You are the best mom that your little one could possibly have, you just have to believe it!” <– Tweet Santie’s Wisdom Out
What did you think about these tips to get enough sleep?
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