You're not alone. Entirely too many parents get way, way too little sleep. A survey from Owlet Baby Care found that nearly half of all parents with children six months or younger get just one to three hours of uninterrupted sleep a night.
New parents will get just four hours and 44 minutes of sleep in an average night during the first year of their baby's life, it has emerged. In the first 12 months of a child's life, mothers and fathers sleep 59 per cent less than the recommended eight hours a night, losing the equivalent of 50 nights of sleep.
Experts recommend that new moms get at least seven hours. While this study provides valuable insight into the importance of sleep, be patient with you and your baby in the postpartum period. Consider asking for help, sleeping when your baby sleeps, and forgoing bed sharing to optimize your sleep schedule.
Almost all parents will experience sleep deprivation in the first six weeks or so after a baby is born. After all, babies don't even know night from day at that point.
Newborns take frequent naps lasting anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, for a total of 16 to 18 hours of sleep each day. New parents are often severely sleep deprived if the only sleep they're getting is overnight.
Older parents are generally less at risk for depression than younger ones. Parents still in their early 20s appear to have the hardest time because they are struggling with their own move from adolescence to adulthood while at the same time learning to be parents.
Try to do more exercise
But regular exercise can help you feel less tired. Walking is one of the easiest forms of exercise. Try to get out for a walk every day with your baby, even if it's just to the shops.
Most infants will be able to sleep through the night with one or two feeds by the time they are 6 months old. However, every infant is different and will have their own pattern of sleeping. These sleeping habits will change as they grow and develop.
Overall, babies simply find it easier to fall and stay asleep next to mom than they do dad. Mothers are also the source of breastfeeding which makes it much more natural to continue the night when milk is available.
Yet fewer than one-quarter of the working moms surveyed said they get the recommended average night's sleep: seven to nine hours. Over half of them—53%—said they get fewer than six hours. One in six said they don't even get five.
Split up nighttime duties.
For example: Take turns feeding your baby. Take turns being the one to handle all nighttime duties, from feeding to changing to soothing your baby. Sleep in separate rooms, leaving one room free for the partner who isn't on baby duty that night.
More moms are choosing to share a bed with their infants. Since 1993, the practice in the U.S. has grown from about 6 percent of parents to 24 percent in 2015.
The Bottom Line. As long as your baby's essential needs are being met and you actively engage them in a loving way, how much or how little you hold them is entirely up to you. If you want to hold them, do. If you want to put them down, even if they cry, that's fine as well.
A baby occasionally sleeping for longer than usual is not a cause for concern unless there are other symptoms. In general, it is uncommon for a newborn to consistently sleep through feedings or to sleep for longer than 19 hours per day unless they are ill or are having feeding difficulties.
Newborns should get 14–17 hours of sleep over a 24-hour period, says the National Sleep Foundation. Some newborns may sleep up to 18–19 hours a day. Newborns wake every couple of hours to eat. Breastfed babies feed often, about every 2–3 hours.
And at the end of the day, moms sleep at least 20% less than dads and are more prone to feeling tired during the day than women without children. So how does parenting affect the sleep of mothers? Moms would have more sleep disruptions at night considering that they play the role of the primary caregiver to the baby.
You can't spoil a baby. Contrary to popular myth, it's impossible for parents to hold or respond to a baby too much, child development experts say. Infants need constant attention to give them the foundation to grow emotionally, physically and intellectually.
This arrangement thus helps to regulate the infant's breathing, sleep state, arousal patterns, heart rates and body temperature. The mother's proximity also stimulates the infant to feed more frequently, thus receiving more antibodies to fight disease.
Anxiety and depression: A new mother may experience postpartum blues where she feels irritable, overwhelmed, inadequate, and extremely tired. She may also feel worried she is not doing enough to care for her infant. All these emotions can contribute to a lack of sleep.
It's natural to feel tired in the postpartum period. Healing from childbirth, taking care of a newborn, producing breast milk, and breastfeeding every 2 to 3 hours requires a lot of energy.
These little ones are developing their language, memory and imagination, and it's a time of discovery, as parents begin to see their kid's personality shine. It's also a time when both kids and parents struggle with unpredictability, expectations and boundary setting, particularly in uncertain situations.
1-3 Months
The first three months with your baby often seem the hardest. Sleep-deprived parents can feel overwhelmed, but that is normal and you will quickly learn how to read your baby's cues and personality.