What would be your strategies on managing sleep deprivation in the early months?
Such a hard one!! Ultimately be kind to yourself. I struggled with letting myself sleep during the day when she was sleeping because I wanted to prep dinner, clean, sort washing or even just watch some TV. We outsourced a bit of this by getting a cleaner and bulk cooking when we could.
Making a plan with your partner before you go to bed has been a good thing. When you are both tired and woken from sleep it can be easy for little things to turn into silly fights. We found when we made (make – still doing it!) a plan of who would get up when it made it easier. Sometimes we would split the night up 1 for 1. Or depending on who had to work the next day one would do bedtime until 1am and the 1am until wake up. This also depended on feeding during the night.
We have also learnt from hindsight as our daughter fed to sleep up until she stopped nursing at 15 months, but then she needed to be rocked to sleep because she had formed a habit … this will not happen next time! We fell into the habit with her, but with the next one we will be starting tenable sleeping habits from the beginning!
Trying not to always figure out what had changed or what was causing crazy sleep patterns. We could spend hours analysing what was different and what we should change and what needed to stay the same. In the end we never knew, letting it go and just managing in the moment was helpful.
Making yourself go to bed early (well earlier than we were used to) Our daughter tended to sleep really well from bedtime until about 2am. So instead of staying up until 10/11pm I would make myself go to bed by 8/9pm so I could get in the good hours of sleep before it was disturbed.
Screens off! I’m still working on this, but when you get up during the night, if you go back to bed and stare at your phone it only makes it harder to get back to sleep. Although I did use my phone to listen to podcasts when my daughter was sick and just needed to be held for hours on end during the night. Kept me from going crazy in the dark!!
How do you both balance work like with motherhood?
We don’t!! ha ha I do feel like I’m letting down both teams some of the time, but I have to say following some positive Instagram accounts like Circlein have helped me to realise that everyone feels the pull from home and the pull from work.
We have managed childcare and then Steph works a split weekend (Friday/Saturday) so that means I can work 4 days and Steph has Fridays with Anouk. This has been really positive for their relationship having that regular time together. It also improved Steph’s parenting confidence having to parent solo and not be able to refer to me (as the parent that spent the most time with Anouk the first six months).
I definitely have a different attitude to work than I used to. I don’t put in the long days that I did pre-baby. I have made some changes with my role at work which means that I don’t have to bring home the work that I used to.
I am not an organised person, but as a family we are constantly putting in new strategies to keep up with ourselves. Meal planning, a joint calendar and packing the night before are all little things we didn’t do before we had a baby.
Give myself a break, sometimes I feel guilty that on my one non-work week day we might just go to the park, do washing or run some errands and that I don’t plan stimulating learning activities. I realised that she gets lots of learning activities at childcare and she just loves hanging out and spending time with me. We talk and sing all day long, which gets more and more fun as her vocabulary grows and even hanging out the washing gets us out in the yard and exploring the garden. And if I have had a big week, it is okay to spend the day quietly at home and perhaps watch a movie on the couch in the afternoon.
Family support is valuable with a new baby how did you manage with little family assistance nearby?
We are still juggling this! I have lived in a different state or country from my parents for about 15 years now. I have always spoken to my mum every day or so but I have never really missed living near them until I had Anouk. We are lucky that my parents are retired and come down and visit every couple of months or so and we have been able to works these trips around things like going away for a wedding. We definitely miss that on the spot babysitting. It can be really hard to juggle things like exercise (gym/pilates), appointments (physio/hair), unexpected things (like the dog needs to be driven to the emergency when the baby is asleep!) We have learnt to ask those friends and neighbours that offer their help. People don’t offer (well most) if they aren’t genuine. We also make sure to organise a date night/day in advance so that we make the most of it when family are around.
This is something we still struggle with on a regular basis but just manage the best we can. We plan visits to great grandparents that can’t travel anymore and live interstate. We use an app called tinybeans to share photos with our family on a regular basis (the app means we don’t forget anyone and they can access the babyspam as often as they like). And we facetime regularly – with everyone!!
My mum came and stayed with us for the first two weeks when Anouk was born, not everyone’s idea of fun I know, but she was amazing. She kept us fed and in clean clothes – and let us figure out our baby. We didn’t want her to go home! Steph has recently had shoulder surgery and can’t work for 8 weeks, can’t drive or change nappies for 6 weeks. This has been hard work (we are only 3 weeks in!) Having to support Steph but also do everything for Anouk and our household. This would have been good to have family just around the corner for those little things and that hands on moral support. But it just makes us appreciate them all the more when they are there.