Things That Would Send First-Time-Mom-Me Into a Coma: Sleep Edition

With my first baby I was a little *extra* and she would honestly die at how I do things now.

When I first became a mom, I had no idea what the hell I was doing. Despite being a life-long baby lover and having a Master’s in education, the jump into motherhood was much more intense than I’d anticipated. I also happened to have a high-needs first baby, rather than the “chill” one I assumed we’d be blessed with if we were simply chill. So when he arrived to the world a little more sensitive, a little more needy, and a little more fussy, I was thrown for a total loop.

The way this manifested for me was mostly via sleep. I was desperate for it, like most new parents are. He was not so interested in it. This clash made for a really difficult postpartum where I felt resentful much of the time. I missed my old life. I was anxious all the time. What I thought gave me a sense of control was managing and obsessively tracking his sleep, so I dove into the sleep training world head first.

I bought PDF’s, I read at least 7 of the best-selling books making some pretty big promises. I went to classes. I downloaded wake window charts. I even hired sleep consultants when nothing else was working. I thought that if I could simply crack the code that my life would go back to the way it was before, and that my baby would be happier and healthier too. I won’t bore you with the rest of the details about what happened when we formally sleep trained, but all I’ll say is that we took a pretty hard left turn for our second and third kids.

Believe it or not, even once I became sleep consultant while postpartum with my middle child, there was never one singular strategy or magic hack that made my babies sleep better. It was lots of little things, namely time, that got us to where we are now: with three young kids that happily go to bed when they’re tired, sleep through the night, and wake up refreshed. What largely shifted things for me was two-fold. First I got educated in infant sleep biology, attachment and mental health. But with that education came something else I didn’t expect.

What I actually learned was that there simply was no strategy that I needed. I learned that I was the strategy. I was the answer. That nurture and connection and patience was 90% of what was needed for them to sleep well. I stopped stressing myself out about what sleep “should” look like, did what I wanted and what felt intuitively right, leaned into things that made our life easier, and trusted nature to do the rest.

I did the opposite of what you’d probably expect a sleep coach to be doing with her own children. I stopped living and dying by wake windows and clock-based schedules. I let my kids bed share and I nursed them to sleep. I made sure they knew they were always welcome to come into our bed, and that bedtime was not something I was willing to make into a battle in our home. My husband was on the same page, luckily, and the results truly speak for themselves. We don’t have the same sleep issues that I see lots of our peers dealing with. Of course this could be for lots of reasons, but I think loosening my grip on the need to control things and over-delivering on nurture and connection at night has paid off in spades.

Here are the things we’ve done that would truly shock that first-time mom version of myself, sending her into a coma or at the very least a deeply anxious spiral.

This image, sent to first-time-mom me, would have for SURE sent her into a coma.

1. I nursed to sleep. With my first baby I was made to feel like this was the worst thing I could possibly do. I would keep him awake for his bedtime feed by constantly touching his face and singing to him. When he’d start to drift off I would get up off the rocking chair and change him, then try and plop him in his crib awake. Doing the MOST and for what?! It’s not like he slept through the night so why did it matter!? With my two girls I happily nursed them to sleep and it worked every mother f*ckin time.

2. I bed shared. I learned how to eliminate hazards and knew we were not high risk (babies were full term, we’re not smokers etc.). We set up our bed to be as safe as possible and I bed shared first on hard nights, and soon it became the default. With my first, I didn’t even know bed sharing was an option!? It simply never crossed my mind. Although, I did bring him into our bed around 5am every morning to try and get him to fall back asleep, and I definitely fell asleep sitting up with him in the rocking chair while nursing. I didn’t know those things are so much more dangerous than intentionally bed sharing! I think first-time-mom-me would have looked at present-day me like she was some weirdo attachment parent hippie but it has worked so well for us to get better sleep and to feel a close bond.

3. My kids ask to go to sleep. I literally never thought I would see the day back when they were little and I had to put on a one-woman show of books, back scratches, and songs to get them to fall asleep at night. Now? My older two (6 and 8) will tell us when they are tired or they will simply decide to get in bed themselves, sometimes to read on their own before lights out. Most nights we’ll all read books together and they get in bed around the same time, but they are so good at listening to their bodies and going to bed earlier if they feel tired. When I was a newer mom of super little kids I simply never thought I’d see the day that bedtime wouldn’t be work.

4. I stopped worrying about schedules. Once when my parents were visiting right after I started back at my teaching job (around 5 months postpartum) I was driving back home and saw them running down the sidewalk. They were pushing my son in the stroller, fully GALLOPING towards my apartment. I looked at the clock and realized it was about 5 minutes from his designated nap time, and apparently I’d put the fear of God into them about being sure to be HOME lest the nap not be “restorative” enough. Was I deeply unwell? Probably. With babies 2 and 3 you realize that you really can’t always live your life around a nap schedule, and you don’t want to be tied to a dark room all day fighting your baby to fall asleep. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. Now we work in naps on the go, sleep in the stroller or car, on the beach etc. into our life when needed or wanted!

5. I still let our kids in our bed. My three year old still toddles into our room and climbs into bed in the wee hours of the morning most days, and I absolutely love it. If she doesn’t, I wake up fully panicked and also so sad! I am going to miss the days of my kids coming in for a morning snuggle probably more than any other part of parenting. If there is one thing you ever learn from me, it’s this: it doesn’t last forever. Everything is a phase, and if something isn’t bothering you now, don’t worry about stopping it.

6. We stay up past bedtime. This past week, we broke 2 rules- we watched TV during the week, and we stayed up past bedtime. My kids really wanted to watch the new Dinosaurs docuseries on Netflix (ok, it was mostly me). Since it was the week of the clocks changing and they were staying up a bit later anyway, I figured why not? Zero regrets. We also routinely let them stay up later if they’re being babysat, if there’s a family dinner or birthday party, or if we have fun holiday plans or travel. Sometimes this does result in a poorer night of sleep (for my youngest who is more sensitive to being overtired, but not as much as she gets older) but YOLO!

What’s something that’s surprised you most about sleep as your kids get older? Do you find it easier to not GAF as time passes, too!?

If you’re still a new mom in the thick of it, I promise things change, and mostly get easier. Everything is temporary and you WILL sleep again, my friend!

Up Next:

Is Cosleeping a Life Sentence?

Welcoming Baby #2 (or #3)? Here’s What You Need to Know

Baby Sleep “Bad Habits”

Sleeping Through the Night is Not a Thing

These New Moms Have Built-In Support

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