Wednesday, August 09, 2006

My sleep will never be the same again

Once we become mothers, our sleep will never be the same again and it all starts with pregnancy.

During early pregnancy, I remember waking up every few moments to go to the toilet. Frequent urination is one of the early pregnancy symtoms that kept me awake at night. Later on, the big pregnant abdoment and uncomfortable sleeping positions helped to contribute to the poor sleep.

And then baby comes along and........the first few months is the hardest. I don't think I had any proper sleep at all especially the first month. Both my babies mix up their day and nights. They slept during the day and was extremely awake at night. Nothing helped. Not reading up and trying all those tricks to help them adjust their day and night sleep wake rhythms. Eventually, they will just adjust on their own when their developmental time frame is right. At least, thats from my experience with my babies so I just had to wait it out and go with the flow instead of stressing myself out.

With the first baby, at least I was able to sleep during the day when she slept. However, with the second, its impossible because when the newborn slept during the day, I still had to look after a toddler. It was really tough.

During the early days, theres also the breastfeeding problems. That kept me awake, pumping and waking up for night feeds. Our bodies make milk at night so the best time to feed babies is during the night if you want to maintain your milk supply.

The interrupted sleep was really hard on me especially on those days when I could not get back to sleep. Usually I just end up reading or eating(!). Being awake at night makes me hungry! Suffering from sleepiness and imsomnia at the same time is a pain!

Then theres waking up just to check that the babies are sleeping alright. Reading up about the cases of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndromes) totally freaked me out leaving me with very light sleep ready to jump up at the sound of any slight whimper. I no longer sleep like a log now. Sometimes I also wake up just to look at them sleeping peacefully and smile to myself.

After the early newborn days, later on there are teething moments or times when they are ill that kept me awake all night sometimes from worry. Then theres the night toilet training....... the list goes on.

Now my girl is four and my boy is two and at last I'm beggining to get a full night's sleep again but my sleep will always be light. I still wake up at every little sound I hear.

And later on as they grow, my sleep will probably still be disturbed by worries about how they're doing at school, during exams, later on in life at work. Its a non-exhustive list. Nope! My sleep will never be the same again as a mother.

Related Posts About Babies Sleep from my Personal Blog:

Sleep, baby sleep
Rock-A-Bye-Baby
Sleep Like A Baby
Night Shift
I don't want to sleep!

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10 comments:

  1. Keith was a good baby I guess. I make him differentiate the day by opening the curtain n let the sun shine into my room. WHile at nite, I'll use the sleeping light.I will not on the light even if he poo poo. I'll clean him up with the sleeping light coz' I want him to know that it's nite time and he needs to sleep. Once in awhile, he'll only stay awake for 1-1.5 hrs and he'll be go back to sleep.
    I do hope my next baby will be an obedient baby too.hehe...
    I just love to bf coz' it's so convenient. I don't need to get off the bed n mix milk. I'll just turn to my side and bf and then both of us will doze off again. hehe...

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  2. You're blessed indeed Sabrina.

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  3. I'm not that lucky. Both my babies slowly changed to reverse nursing by 3 months old, waking up 2 hourly to nurse. Sometimes shorter as they like to nurse for comfort.
    Even if Justin is going to be 20 months soon, he still wakes up from nightmares, dream-talking, etc. Oh boy, I can't remember how to sleep thru the night already...

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  4. shoppingmum,
    Now actually getting several hours of uninterrupted sleep in a night is a luxury.

    try2bsmart,
    Lucky you. Must read. Must read.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sleep..always deprived and will always be so. I tot I was deprived of sleep when I started work but until I got married, got pregnant, and have 2 kids it's almost halved the time I sleep. What more now got new `hobbies' I have to burn midnight oil till late to harp, ramble and wash eye looking at people's ramblings.....sleep is deprived. In addition kids they sleep with u and one wakes up the other sleeps and it alternates, eventually u wonder where the world u get that sleep to `survive'. But we still live..just more saggy eyes and mood swings. Great stuff here! Really..see now i have deprived myself of extra snooze! have a neat weekend.

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  6. I never knew that sleep was such a luxury until my baby came!!! Like u, I am worried abt SIDS n tend to check on her every hr to see is she is breathing properly. I guess I'll only get back my sleep when my girl is much older. And I can understand the breastfeeding part, cos at times, I pump my milk around 3 to 4am after my girl has latched on... its truly tiring.

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  7. Yeap, I never can sleep-in, in the morning ever again :(. When my first one was born, my sleeping time turned chaos. He wakes up every 3-4 hours at night. As they grow, my sleep slowly turning to be normal again.

    ReplyDelete
  8. flowsnow,
    Your new "hobby" is very time consumming. Sometimes I really can't decide whether to blog or read blogs. There isn't enough hours in a day for all the things I want to write and read, apart from my normal daily activities!

    mommytomeia,
    When your girl is much older, then maybe you'll have no.2 and then the sleepless nights start again...

    michelle,
    Yes, nowadays sometimes I even get 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep, which is quite a luxury. :)

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  9. No.1 is not a great sleeper. But still, he sleeps from 7pm-7am. Or rather, he's not allowed out of his room during this time.

    No.2? He's WONDERFUL! HE LOVES TO SLEEP! I'LL BE FOREVER GRATEFUL!!!! My angels-in-disguise!!!!!!

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  10. m.o.t.t.,
    7pm-7am. Wow, nice. Mine usually goes to bed at 10pm sometimes even later.

    ReplyDelete

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