Babies and sleep

Listen to all the heroically nightmarish - and generally exaggerated - claims of "How I survived on 15 minutes' kip every 24 hours until our firstborn was three" and you would be forgiven for believing that chronic fatigue is a necessary condition of fatherhood. Dad-of-three Stuart Shephard looks at the downside of a newborn and offers tips on getting through it...

Becoming a dad is uplifting. Becoming an insomniac is hell. But coping with your baby's shifting sleep patterns is never as bad as you think.

Fair enough, you probably won’t sleep as well or as much as you used to, as a recent survey from the toy company Tomy proved. You could even fall into the unlucky third of people losing up to a night a week.

Be reassured! Most new dads usually find the lack of sleep noticeable - but definitely bearable.

• Baby's home: what next?

Whose turn is it to sleep?

Try not to fall into the age-old trap of competitive sleep syndrome, where you and your partner find yourselves arguing about who is most tired, who gets least sleep and who gets up most at night.

According to the survey, such arguments  are a feature in the lives of roughly half of all couples with babies.

Bickering about weariness is unproductive at best. At worst, as the figures from Tomy show, it puts a strain on one in four relationships.

• Your relationship when you have a baby

The first few weeks…

As I recall it, getting up in the night to feed and change your baby is a delight, not a chore.

At least for the first month.

The huge wave of emotions and adrenalin that got my partner and me through the stresses of labour and birth were still doing their stuff. I would stumble around for cotton wool balls and make tea for us grown-ups with misty, rather than bleary, eyes.

Meanwhile concepts such as work, commerce and bosses remained a distant memory, even alien.

But of course the novelty can wear off - particularly for the 38 per cent of parents still getting up in the middle of the night by the end of the first year. You’ll feel like you are swimming in treacle – baby-lag gets you at home, at work and play. (You try staying awake after two pints feeling like that. No chance!)

The best advice I can give is catch your sleep when you can: if you know your baby will want to nap in the afternoon, make the most of it too!  A few precious hours can make all the difference.

• Your newborn: do's and don'ts for the first few weeks

Establish a routine…

I know from personal experience that developing a routine with your baby makes a huge difference and gives him, you and your partner the kind of uninterrupted rest we all need.

Lots of experts, some of them blood relatives, will offer or force advice about this on you.

Essentially, how you approach it will depend on your needs, personalities and lifestyle, not to mention what you think your baby will adapt to best.

• Hanging out with a newborn

Whether you go for what some describe as the more prescriptive approach – Gina Ford’s Contented Little Baby for example – or something a bit more homespun. It will probably include what Dr Vincent Ianelli at www.talkaboutsleep.com calls sleep associations and transitional objects.

• The best evening routines that prepare baby for bed consist of a pattern of low-key events such as a feed, bath, change of clothes and story.
• If, as Dr Ianelli recommends, you can get them attached to a soft toy or blanket during this phase it will act as a comfort or soother when they go down sleepy but still awake in their cot.
• Learning to go to sleep without a grown up around is the key to it – and what helps them go back to sleep more readily if they wake up later.

Don’t stress yourself out…

Be realistic too.

None of us is superhuman. If you are back at work and your partner is still at home, does it make sense for you to be sharing nocturnal duties? Difficult as it may be, a sit-down conversation with your other half about the work/life balance will probably clear the air on a lot of these issues.

Author

Stuart Shepherd is a freelance journalist who lives in Suffolk and is dad to Sam aged 23, Millie aged seven, and Noah aged two.

Your thoughts

What worked for you? Have you managed to get your baby sleeping through the night within six weeks, or has it been a year-long nightmare of sleep deprivation? Use the comments system below to share your wisdom with other dads.