PostPartum
Maybe I missed the memo on baby sleep. Or maybe I spent too much time writing my birth plan and determining what deli sandwich I wanted as my post-delivery meal. Regardless, I was absolutely and utterly unprepared and uneducated on what to expect or how to ‘hack’ my new babies sleep. We left the hospital exactly 24 hours after having our baby girl. She was born at 6:59pm and around 10:00pm we were settling in to sleep. I asked the nurse to come in and swaddle my baby in a blanket and she gave me quick directions as she wrapped her and placed her in the bassinet. I imagine that entering the world was as exhausting for her as it was for me and she slept beautifully in the hospital. “Sigh” I have such a good little sleeper….
The following evening we were packing up to leave around 6:59pm. We loaded into the car around 8:30pm. Her going home outfit included a tiny t-shirt and tights, which of course she hated so as soon as we arrived home I took it off. I asked my husband to swaddle her with a blanket and put her in the pack and play we had purchased for her sleep space.
“The swaddle is too loose!”
“It’s up around her face”
“That’s not safe, that’s not how it is supposed to fit”
“No, no, no she cannot sleep like that”
After several more swaddling attempts on this patient, sweet baby…. I determined the only way she was going to survive the night was if I stayed awake and held her. So, that is exactly what I did. The text messages I sent that evening to every mom friend I had, my own mother, my sister…read as a desperate, agonizingly exhausted, defeated shell of a mother. I’d labored for 16 hours, slept 4 in the hospital, rushed home with my baby. To stay awake for another 24 hours. I could not fathom how moms before me lived like this, do I just never sleep again? This is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. How do we survive like this? This is postpartum.
The following morning my mother, sister, dad, and nieces came over. I had zero energy to put clothes on and walked around with engorged breasts waddling around in my diaper and nursing top with wild hair and baggy eyes. If I didn’t anticipate the need to pee, when I made it to the bathroom and began to squat down I’d be peeing without even knowing until I’d feel it on my leg. In order to make it that far, I had to let the water from the sink warm enough to fill my peri-bottle which always stimulated my bladder, but at least at that stage the pad for my PP bleeding could be dual purpose.
Peri-bottle
Change your pad
Spray Benzocaine front to back
Line your pad with witch hazel
Apply dibucaine to your stitches
Do all of this as fast as you can because your baby is looking for you and repeat every single time you use the bathroom. But don’t procrastinate or delay any bathroom breaks, or you are going to pee on the floor. This is postpartum.
Thus began the desperate search for the perfect baby sleep items. For the next week I posted in every single mom’s group I could join, I asked every mom I knew what they did and I purchased the following items:
Pack and Play with sleep area
Halo Sleep Sack
Halo Bassinet
SwaddleMe Velcro Swaddles
4Moms MamaRoo Bassinet
Hatch Rest
Owlet Sock
I was gifted:
Love2Dream Swaddle
SnuggleMe Organic
Warmie Bear
I will spare you all the details of each specific item but will Cliff’sNotes the good parts:
I hated the Halo Sleep Sack that had been hailed as the ONLY thing that works. It has entirely too much material to it and I had a petite baby, it became bulky and you couldn’t get a snug fit.
The Halo Bassinet was nice because it would oscillate around your own bed, but other moms claimed it created a snug fit for a baby with the newborn insert that felt like a hug. They lied.
SwaddleMe Velcro annoyed the fuck out of me because there was this weird hole in the back I could never figure out….lo’ and behold a quick Google search would tell you that is so they can wear it in a carseat. But double whammy, my little did not like her hands at her sides.
4Moms MamaRoo bassinet. Fuck. My. Life. My most expensive sleep purchase made in the wee hours of the morning as I laid awake nursing my baby back to sleep. I had such high hopes for this revolutionary item suggested by multiple mothers. My baby laid in it for less than 5 minutes before I resold it for a discount price.
The Love2Dream swaddle gifted by a mom of 3 was a Game. Changer. My little babe with dreams of being a flying squirrel snuggled right into it with her arms above her head. It was easy to use and zipped from the bottom or the top. You can do a no nonsense 2am diaper change in the dark and when they are overtired there is no struggle or time spent messing around wrapping fabric. God Bless this item.
The SnuggleMe Organic, gifted by the same mama. Actually hugs and snuggles your newborn in a pillow hold. This thing is a gem for the baby that likes to be held. It is not strictly “safe sleep approved” which brings me to my next item.
Warmie Bear. The most simple and genius hack. A rice filled lovie who warms in the microwave and can be placed in their sleep space to be removed when they are laid down.
The Owlet Sleep Sock. Worth, every single expensive dollar. It is not to be relied on but it does grant significant peace of mind to see real time oxygen and heart rate from your baby. Pro-tip, put a sock around the foot wearing it so that it stays snugly pressed against their foot and you aren’t woken up to an alert that it can’t read anything. Twice it gave me “false alarms” when positioned incorrectly but at 11 months now, I still swear by this item.
The Hatch Rest. This bougie night light is the coolest thing. You can change the color, customize the color, dim the color, choose a sound, choose a volume, set alarms to gently stir you and your little in the morning and can be controlled from your phone or the device directly. We set it at 30% volume, TV static for a constant, consistent hum. For middle of the night changes we use a custom red color to promote sleep.
During that first week I had been gifted the SnuggleMe, the Love2Dream, my Warmie and had my originally purchased Pack and Play. With those items, my baby was up every 30min to an hour and was nursed back to sleep. In response I spent the 100s of dollars on all the above items that not only did not improve her sleep….but made it worse. She woke immediately in the Halo bassinet and MamaRoo, she refused any other swaddle, but I was convinced that she just needed the right item.
You know what she ultimately needed? To wake up every 30min to an hour to nurse. This is normal. This is infant sleep. This is a baby who has been attached to her mother for her entire existence and needs some time to adjust to the outside world. This is being a mom. This is the most exhausting, most rewarding, most challenging, most profoundly sweet moment you will share with your baby.
Ultimately, our sleep routine became the following:
Bath-
Coconut Oil-
Owlet Sock on-
Zipper Onesie-
Love2Dream Swaddle-
Hatch Rest On-
Warmie placed on the SnuggleMe Pillow-
SnuggleMe nestled inside that original Pack and Play-
Nurse to sleep-
Hold her for 20minutes-
Remove Warmie and place her down-
Then I got 30min-hour of unbroken sleep. Eventually that became 2-3 hours. And eventually those evenings, those midnight, 2am, 4am, 9pm, 6am, 1am wake ups where it was just me and her in the middle of the night snuggling and nursing became my all-time favorite moments. This is baby sleep. This is normal. Western society pushes sleep training, it pushes formula or rice cereal to extend your baby sleep. But this is a season. This is a moment, a blink in time where your baby needs your closeness, your smell, your nourishment, you. You cannot train your baby to sleep and there is no product out there that will replace the comfort a mom can give.
If there is anything to be predicted about baby sleep, it is that it is unpredictable. Sleep regressions will come, dependency on you will wax and wane. Some mothers find it is easiest to meet your babies needs by continuing to co-sleep for easy access to wake up with baby in the same room. Some mothers find that bedsharing suits their needs especially when breastfeeding. Our sleep journey did eventually morph into bedsharing. Another special period, that will end too fast to be discussed at another time…. xoxo
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