snoozBLOG

A sleep survey was conducted of 13,000 moms of young babies.  Parents.com, posts an undated article about the results. Some highlights include:

• 60% of moms with young babies want more sleep
• 33% sleep less than 6 hours
• first-time moms are more likely to sleep when the baby sleeps; they also report feeling more rested than moms with other kids who don't sleep then
• more than 40% of babies under 3 months and 25% of babies under 12 months wake during the night
• nearly 70% of new moms are the only one getting up during the night when the baby gets up

It's no wonder then, that new moms are tired.

 

The article suggests, and I agree, that even a twenty minute nap can help the situation. That's hard to do, but maybe there's a neighbor, friend, or other new mom who will swap you the occasional twenty minutes of watching the baby for something you can do for them. When I was tiny, my mother belonged to a small cooperative group of women who took turns with nursery duty.

The article also points out that all babies wake up during the night, but some are able to soothe themselves back to sleep. It offers suggestions for how to help babies learn to do this. The thing it doesn't mention is that all people need to be able to do this and the same skill will be at least as important for the new mom who is getting up or trying to sneak in a short nap. If you don't have a good, and reasonably fast, method for getting yourself back to sleep, researching the options and finding one that works for you will definitely improve the quality of your life.