Coping with a lack of sleep with a newborn

There are nights when your baby wakes every few hours for a feed. Nights when they’re awake for apparently no reason at all – fed, changed, and simply not willing to go back to sleep. Nights when they are crying so much they can’t feed to settle. Nights when they’re sound asleep but you know their nappy needs changing and you’re probably going to wake them up to do it. As a new parent, you’ll have to deal with all of it – and the good news is, you will cope.

“Your body gets used to surviving on less sleep,” says HiPP mum Kirsten. “I heard this a lot before having my baby, but didn’t believe it. It turns out it’s true.”

Surviving, but not thriving, according to HiPP mum Emily, who remembers her brain being ‘utterly broken’. “I kept putting things back in the wrong places – my partner found ice-cream in the microwave and my keys in the fridge!”

Most parents find themselves Googling this question at some point – usually in the middle of a particularly poor night’s sleep. The truth is, there is no magic date by which they should be able to go a full 8 hours without feeding. Nor is the end of night feeds necessarily the end of night waking. Some people are lucky enough to have a baby that sleeps through the night while they’re still technically a newborn. But if you’re one of the many parents whose baby is not sleeping through the night, it doesn’t necessarily help to hear about the unicorn babies.

“Some babies seem to sleep differently to others,” says Emma. “I found it useful to try and focus on the baby I had rather than comparing to how other people’s babies are sleeping. Comparison is the thief of joy!”

If you’re concerned that your baby isn’t getting enough sleep over a 24-hour period, or the lack of sleep is causing you serious problems, talk to your health visitor and see what they advise.