“In our experience, the mothers who stay particularly healthy postpartum are the ones who allow themselves to sleep as much as they feel necessary. Most say that they took two- to three-hour naps every day for the first six months of their babies’ lives. They didn’t jump up to clean house or cook or pay bills when baby fell asleep. When their babies slept, they slept. “

“Of course, you’d like to sleep better than you do. But a lot of the typical sleep advice is about improving your sleeping environment and calming yourself before bed. That’s all well and good. It’s just that adjusting the feng shui of your bedroom or buying a Soothing Ocean Tide Sound Machine won’t help much when you’re up six times a night replacing the pacifier in a squalling infant’s mouth.”

It’s a balance.

It’s such a fine line. You know you need more sleep. You want more sleep, hell, I crave more sleep. But when they aren’t sleeping it’s so hard. And when they are sleeping, sometimes it can feel like the only time that’s truly yours. I’ve been reading a lot of literature on the importance of sleep in general, but in particular for new mothers and fathers. Most of us are genuinely sleep deprived. And this can cause us to be more frustrated, more anxious, more short tempered and less productive than we normally would be.

It wasn’t until I melted down a few weeks ago that I realized how much sleep I really need. I put Agatha to bed at 6:15pm and then I crawled into bed and I slept for two hours. When I woke up, I felt like a new human. I ate dinner and then went back to bed at 10pm. I genuinely felt a fog lift. All of a sudden it hit me, I’m not totally crazy, I’m not a terrible mother or a horrible wife, I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted to the point of not recognizing a lot of my own self. And that’s when I decided to make myself a promise ( I think I tried this once before during the first 3 months of Aggie’s life but it didn’t keep ). I will sleep. I will sleep again soon. 

Whatever the form of help is that you need, get it. Don’t be ashamed to ask for it. Don’t be afraid to call someone up. They’re professionals for a reason. They have that job because they are really genuinely good at it.

As a new parent we are literally in the dark most of the time. When something happens we all think why didn’t someone tell us about this? People can share wisdom about a large number of things but how it happens always seems to be different. You know why? Because our babies are individuals. They are teeny tiny people with their own personalities and needs and quirks. What worked for one might not work for another. I find Jeff and I lie awake in the middle of the night tossing out a myriad of things we think could be keeping Agatha from sleeping solidly. I won’t go into them because they’re particular to us and that means there will probably be some difference in what’s going on with you.

I read, and then I put the book down, I look online, and then I shut my computer down. I look around for who I can call, for who I want to help guide me through this transition and then I stop.

I sit down. I turn inward. I breathe. I focus. I ask the universe a simple question – What’s going on? And then it hits me. I kind of know. Watching her, seeing her, interacting with her every day all day – we are separate but we still function very much as a unit. So I take that mama intuition and I run with it. I make headway because sitting around and contemplating isn’t helping any of us move forward, it’s only helping us to stay a little more still exactly where we are.

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Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. 

[ Khalil Gibran, The Prophet ]