The Nighttime Dread
Everyone tells you you don’t get much sleep after you have a baby. You don’t really internalize that before your baby is here. Then it hits you like a ton of bricks. OH. You don’t get much sleep after you have a baby. OK, no problem. You get up with the baby in the morning (morning is defined very loosely here..anywhere from 5am-11am) and get your coffee. You yawn. Yes, you’re tired and sleepy but the sun is up and you somehow power through the day.
Then….the sun sets. I don’t mean in a beautiful painting or award-winning photograph kind of way. I mean it in the OH MY GOD here we go AGAIN kinda away. Nightime descends and the anxiety and dread sets in. You know you are going to be up so many times. You’ll definitely not get a full night of sleep and you may only get an hour two of sleep.
I remember coming home with my newborn son. He definitely had his days and nights mixed up and was ready to party all night (ok, he also didn’t really sleep during the day). My supply wasn’t great so I felt like I was feeding him constantly. If I HAD just fed him, he maybe would go to sleep for 20 minutes and then wake up again. I fell into a cycle where it seemed pointless for me to even go to sleep. What was the point when I would likely be up again feeding him in an hour. This, my friends, was a disaster. I was getting maybe an hour sleep total each night. I dreaded the nights so much because my body knew that nights were for sleeping yet I knew that wasn’t going to happen. When the sun started to go down each night, so did my mood. I was so anxious about the night ahead and remember crying thinking I was never going to sleep again.
Good news, that newborn is now a successful college student and I did actually get to sleep again! But man I never thought that day would come when I was 3 weeks postpartum with a fussy baby. I just sucked it up and powered through those first few weeks and months but I was barely functioning.
Here’s what I wish I could go back and tell my newly postpartum self….
Take some deep breaths. This is going to get better.
Ask for help. My husband was a wonderful partner and very hands-on when our kids were babies. He would have gladly stepped in to feed the baby a bottle of pumped breastmilk or formula so I could get some sleep. But I insisted I was fine and could just take care of things.
Show myself some grace. I was so determined to breastfeed that I never even considered a bottle of formula. I also didn’t know how to use my pump for a long time so pumping wasn’t an option then. I wish I had known that one bottle of formula per night would have not derailed my whole breastfeeding journey. In fact, it would have allowed me to get some protected sleep and probably helped increase my milk production and decreased my feelings of anxiety.
Lean on a friend. My husband was working a 2nd job while I was on maternity leave so he was often gone during the evenings. This made that nighttime dread 1000 times worse because I was alone and isolated. What I wish I had done was called a friend to come stay with me from 6pm-10pm. Even if they could come only two times per week, that would have helped me so much with my emotional state. I think I didn’t want to bother anyone and, honestly, I didn’t want anyone to know I was struggling. I didn’t know back then that almost everyone struggles at least a little bit in the postpartum stage.
I can’t go back in time to tell myself these things but I do hope these words are helpful for someone who has just recently had a baby. If it is in your budget, consider hiring a postpartum doula to come help you in the evenings and even stay overnight to help protect your sleep. You shouldn’t have to dread nighttime and I hope that some of these suggestions help you come to some peace about your evenings ahead.