Why do I ask this question?
In the past month, I have had mothers asking me either about their babies/toddlers sleep or lack thereof or their own. There seems to be this concern about how much sleep a baby or toddler should have and how a mom is to cope with the lack of sleep.
Baby’s Sleep
How much sleep a baby or toddler should have can be found out by simply googling on the internet or by reading the many, many books out there in the market. But as your child is an individual, the amount of sleep he needs may be very diferent from your friend/sister/colleague’s baby.
I am one of those whose children that do not require much sleep.They drop their morning naps as early as 12mths – 15mths! And I have a friend whose child used to take two 2hr naps a day even after he turned 2yrs old and still went to bed at 9pm and woke up at 7am! Was I envious? You bet! Lol!
What’s my point? I think we should stop obsessing about the amount of sleep our children need or do not need. You can always tell if the child has had enough rest by looking at his behaviour.
Cranky? Super hyper? Having meltdowns by the minute? The child needs sleep. If he is fighting sleep, then it becomes a discipline issue. Deal with it firmly. It is for his own good that he gets enough rest.
Mom’s Sleep
Now what about mom’s lack of sleep?
Firstly – why is mom not getting enough sleep? Is it due to a “seasonal” occasion – sick child/child with nightmares. Or is she staying up late to finish up things that could not be dealt with during the daytime?
If the former, it’ll pass. If the latter, I strongly suggest doing your chores during the day when the child is awake. For those other “stuff” that need to be done uninterrupted, I suggest doing it over the weekends when daddy can be around to watch the young one the next day.
But I think it should be taken for granted that when one becomes a parent, a mother especially, you will get less sleep than you ever did before. Even if you have an easy baby. Babies afterall, are not robots. They will go through developmental changes or get sick or get spooked by something/someone during the day and have nightmares. These are normal occurences for the child and mom.
So unless you farm out your child during the night, sleep deprivation it is almost a guaranteed rite of passage every mother has to go through.
Now I am all for a well rested mom. But life happens! So our attitude towards these curve balls life throws at us is critical because it affects how we react to it. We could be all grumpy and bad tempered the next day or we could choose to see it as a lesson on self-control and patience.
Hey! With 5 children in 6 years, I have had my share of sleep deprivation! And no, I did not always see it as a lesson in patience and self-control But what has helped me tremendously is scheduling a nap in the day.
I have largely survived sleep deprivation this way. How? By scheduling everybody’s naptimes to coincide with the younger ones. Those who need to nap, nap. Those who don’t, are required to be quiet and rest till naptime/rest time is over. I have had to stagger naptimes so that the younger ones will be asleep when the older ones go in for their rest. If I put all in at the same time, no one is going to get any rest!
But despite careful scheduling, there are times when I do not get to even lie down for 10minutes. So what happens? I just get on with life . I used to moan and groan about it but that did not get me anywhere! It was better to just roll with the punches.
Be careful not to love sleep too much! If you get your 8hrs of sleep, great. If not, just deal with it. It is not the end of the world, though it may feel like it. The Bible reminds us twice in Proverbs 6:10 and Proverbs 24:33
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest –
and poverty will come on you like a bandit
and scarcity like an armed man”