Is a newborn keeping you from getting any sleep? Here are a few suggestions to help you out…

So I have been off the air for some time now… Getting married and having babies… After getting only 1 hour of sleep last night I thought it would be appropriate to start back with some strategies for sleepless nights!

My baby is heading towards 10 months now, and out of a group of 12 mothers from our mother’s group, my darling son is 1 of 2 who isn’t sleeping through the night yet. The good news is that he doesn’t need much when he wakes, but if he doesn’t get the dummy he gets louder and louder until he eventually wakes himself, us and most of the neighbourhood up with his crying! For this reason he is still in our room and no more than a step from my side of the bed…

The bright side is that there are no more night feeds and no more waking up completely 4 times per night. This comes off the back of the toddlers and pre-schoolers finally sleeping in until a decent hour. So, how do you cope with broken sleep, or no sleep with a new baby in the house. Here are 5 tips that worked for me:

1. Get some sleep when the baby sleeps. The newborn has sleep periods of 2 hours or more at a time when born, so forget the laundry, dinner, cleaning, emails and get some rest when baby does. Soon baby will be sleeping less often and for shorter times during the day and you will wish you had gotten more sleep when baby was sleeping in the early stages.
2. Get your husband/mother/sister/friend to take baby for a walk for a couple of hours in the pram. They will love the bonding time and you will feel more able to relax without baby being in the house.
3. Sleep sitting up/slouched, with baby sleeping on your chest. Make sure you are a light sleeper (as most of us are when holding baby) and you have no dangerous surroundings where either of you can fall. There are many photos of me sleeping on the couch with baby sleeping on my chest. He slept well there because of the heartbeat and I loved the feeling. I was saddened when he stopped sleeping in this position.
4. Go to bed earlier than you normally would in the first few months. If baby goes to sleep at 7pm and wakes up at 10pm, don’t wait to finish the 10om feed before you go to sleep for the first time, get some sleep at 7pm too! An extra 2-3 hours makes the world of difference!
5. I know that most people advocate pure breast milk feeds, but I did the research and whileit is good, there is nothing to prove that it makes a difference after the first 3-5 days, so get you husband/partner to do a formula bottle during the night, either before they go to bed, or the middle of the night feed and you will feel 1000 times better. We did a formula feed once every 3 nights, from around 2 weeks old and there is no difference between our baby and one who has been breastfed for all feeds. The other option, which we did a few times in the beginning, is to express and get your husband/partner to do a night feed with that milk. Getting that consecutive 5-6 hours will make you feel like a whole new woman!

So, the moral of the story is… Do what is right for you to get through the time. Baby is very reliant on you and it is a tough time to get through. Sleep deprivation will weaken even the strongest woman, so get some sleep anytime you can, don’t feel guilty or like you need to be a superwoman and use the help of those around you… They would love to have the bonding time with baby too.

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• Why Strategies for Parents?

I decided to start a blog about teaching and learning strategies for parents after a number of friends and family members commented that I was a wealth of information and ideas for different areas, particularly relating to the discipline, growth and understanding of problems and concerns about their children. They are especially fond of the variety of approaches I offer to resolve those concerns. It has even been commented that I should get paid to go around and help parents! I’m beginning to sound like the Australian Super Nanny?!!!

While, going around to people’s homes and helping them find alternative approaches to solve the problems they are having with their children sounds fun, it wouldn’t quite fit into my schedule at this point in time. However, it did lead me to wonder whether my skills and knowledge really could be of use to parents, teachers and others who work with children.

I have an extensive background in everything teaching and child-related. I started teaching children (and adults) from the age of 15, where I ran a judo classes for the younger students and self-defence classes for high-school girls and women of all ages. As far as sports are concerned I have also taught basketball, softball, hockey, aerobics, gym classes…and many others. My favourite sport to teach was swimming, which I did full time for 4 years. I was a swim instructor and supervisor to all age groups and sizes. My youngest student was 3 months old and my oldest was 57 years young. I taught babies lessons, learn to swim (children and adults), stroke and stroke correction, and squads. I have also been involved in tuition for 15 years as well as English language lessons, drama, craft, day care, preschool and I was a classroom teacher in the NSW public school system for 5 years. I was always the teacher who got “the naughty children” because I could “handle them”. Little did anyone know, but they were some of my favourite students! On top of this I am the first called to babysit my friends and family’s little ones…With the common comment being: “We know we can trust you” or “We know you we can rely on you to be strong with them”.

I have always taken those comments as compliments. As a school/swim teacher I was considered strict and tough, and it is true, but I have always had exceptionally good relationships with all of my students and they often comment that I am “hard but fair” or “the best teacher”. More comments I take as compliments. My philosophy was always to set the rules, consequences and rewards from the beginning. Then the hardest part, but most important, is to follow through on them! So long as you can do those 3 things (and a few lesser strategies) the children learn the boundaries and good, open, respectful relationships follow.

I am forever committed to making the lives of children filled with enriched experiences and ensuring they both learn and receive respect and ethics. I love to learn new things about teaching and learning and have always enjoyed the challenge of a difficult student. I am dedicated and passionate about our younger generation, seeing them as our future, a future that is becoming increasingly lost and forgotten as we adults become more time-poor and less involved with kids. As our patience and time deteriorates we are becoming less connected with our children. This results in us not knowing what skills or strategies to use in different situations. That is where I come in. Not only can I see things from an external view point, but the chances are I have experienced it before.

I intend for this blog to give ideas, tips and strategies for dealing with children of all ages, backgrounds and experiences. There will be focuses on specific areas of concern that arise through the media, posts and forums, but I want the majority of the direction to be guided by you, the readers. I anticipate the blog to expand over time into other areas of parenting and teaching/learning as we progress, possibly into product reviews, specific schooling rules, regulations and requirements, and/or the feelings and frustrations of you, the parents and teachers.

So, please, I invite you to join me in this blog creation journey as we endeavour to become more connected with our children and the youth of today and form stronger, more open and loving relationships with our children. I encourage you to read, ask questions and make comments on the posts and in the forums and if there is a topic you would like my opinion or first hard knowledge and research on please ask, I would be delighted to respond.

Lisa Donohue

Strategies for Parents

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• Sleepless Nights!!