Pregnancy & Baby: Mother Nurture: Getting more sleep

Pregnancy & Baby Index: Baby Health: Sleep: Mother Nurture: Getting more sleep

Mother Nurture: Getting more sleep

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Rick Hanson, PhD and Jan Hanson, MS

Parenting is a lot of work! But to be the best parents we can be, we have to take time to nurture ourselves as the people we are outside of being Mom or Dad. Psychologist Rick Hanson, PhD, and acupuncturist & nutritionist Jan Hanson, MS, authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships, are here to help!

Your question
Our twins are one year old, but they are still waking up a lot at night, and it usually falls to me to deal with them. What can I do before I go out of my mind with sleep deprivation?

Rick and Jan Hanson answer
Loss of sleep is a major reason why many mothers of young children feel depleted. Besides wearing you out, sleep deprivation robs the brain of certain substances you need for health and well-being.

Some suggestions:

Make sure your kids don't have any health problems, like allergies, that could be waking them up.

Explore approaches like the family bed or the Ferber ("cry it out") method to get your children to sleep through the night. But pick a method that suits you and your family rather than be pressured into some one-size-fits-all approach.

If you're home with the babies, take naps during the day when they do instead of turning to housework. Your health is more important than a tidy home!

Negotiate with your partner to take over more of the night-time parenting. With expressed breastmilk or formula, there is no reason a dad can't handle at least half of those duties. If you're a stay-at-home mom, your day-time job is at least as hard and as important as his is, and the same is obviously true if you go off to work.

Adjust Dad's sleep schedule so he goes to bed earlier with you and the babies and then can get up with the kids in the morning when they're typically easier to handle while you get an extra hour's sleep.

If you stick with it, you'll definitely get more sleep!

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About the authors: Rick Hanson, PhD and Jan Hanson, MS, are the authors of Mother Nurture: A Mother's Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships (Penguin, 2002; with Ricki Pollycove, MD). Rick Hanson is a psychologist who works with couples, individual adults and children. Jan Hanson is an acupuncturist and nutritionist whose private practice focuses on women's health and on temperament problems in children. Find out more about them here, or visit their web site at NurtureMom.com.

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