Apparently I have a lot to say about surviving one month with a newborn, so I’m breaking this update into parts. Here’s the update on eating. Now let’s talk about mama’s favorite subject: sleep.

Ahhhh, sleep. I’m surprised to report that I’m functioning better than I thought possible on such small spurts of sleep. I think the key is getting enough sleep in total – while it’s no comparison to the feeling of a really long, deep sleep, it’s enough to survive and even feel pretty darn normal a lot of the time. I should also add that the part Jason plays in everything from feedings to diapers to swaddling is invaluable, and me getting any rest at all would be nearly impossible without him. Single mamas, you are amazing.

Food and sleep are obviously intrinsically linked for newborns. Like I mentioned in my previous update about eats, if we can get him to take a full feeding, we can count on a solid 2 hour nap. And at night, that’s often more like 3 hours of sleep. Praise hands emoji here!  The exception to this is when he hits little growth spurts. We’ve had two over the last month, and then we’re all just in survival mode around here. When the growth spurts come calling, we’re looking at about a day of one hour of eats, one hour of sleep. And lots of coffee.

Jason and I are trying hard to enforce good sleep habits early. For us, the one non-negotiable is that he always sleeps in his own bed, which right now is a bassinet in our room. Or of course, in his stroller if we’re out and about, which is at most one nap a day. We also try not to rock him or feed him to sleep, and to put him down before he’s fully asleep so he starts to learn to settle himself on his own. Note the word “try” in that sentence, because all of those things have definitely happened multiple times. We do what we gotta do.

At night, we’ve started a bedtime routine of bath (THE CUTEST!) then his daily “dad bottle”, where Jason feeds him and we can be sure he gets a solid feeding — often 4-5oz in hopes that he’ll sleep a longer stretch.

These efforts, and his generally good ability to sleep on his own, have led to pretty predictable daytime naps and sleep at night. (Again – so lucky! Though I do think we deserve a little credit here, too :))

Thanks to his solid weight gain at our two week appointment, our pediatrician recommended we start trying to “stretch” his sleep into longer periods at night, and I spent a very frustrating week trying to accomplish that by using the pacifier to hold him off. But considering his general state when he wakes up seemingly STARVING, I’m pretty convinced he needs a little more time to get there on his own. We’ve had a few nights where he’s slept 4 hour stretches (and angels sang down from the heavens), so I am hoping that continuing our efforts of full feedings and good daytime naps will eventually translate to him sleeping longer nighttime stretches on his own, without me unsuccessfully trying to shove a pacifier in his angry little mouth in the middle of the night.

Some sleep-related milestones that I’m hoping for over the next month: moving him to his own crib for naps and overnight sleep, and the holy grail — the baby version of sleeping “through the night,” which I believe is about 5-6 hours.

Next up: my recovery.