The biggest shock to me when I had James was the lack of sleep. I could not believe how being woken 2-3 times a night would affect my mood, my skin, my hair, basically everything. I seemed to turn from being this excited new mum to a miserable, grumpy, grouchy woman that even I did not recognise.

Whether you are breastfeeding or formula feeding your baby in the first few weeks will probably wake in the night. I was told by the health professionals that babies don't necessarily have the same body clock as us. In fact, now I know for a fact that babies seem to have the "nocturnal" body clock.

Apparently babies need to learn to sleep and get into a routine - which is your routine. I used to find that when I was pregnant I would wake up at 2am every night for the toilet. I kept telling myself that I was being trained to cope with the night feed, and in fact, James always did wake around 2am for his night feed - was I wrong - I don't know but I do know that it was a completely exhausting time.

It is or can be a frustrating time too, when you are awake in the middle of the night, your baby wants to play and the rest of the world is asleep, including the snoring partner!!!!

I used to find myself feeding James in his bedroom and looking like a bobbing baboon as my head would flop up and down over him as I tried to stay awake. When you are having to cope with sleep deprivation it can seem like the longest time of your time. You will be wishing that you could just get a full night's sleep, and when you do you will wonder how you ever managed without sleeping.

I remember one night when James did not wake up for his 2am feed and slept through to about 6am. What a panic I had, I felt really groggy and light headed and realised that perhaps I had been in training when I was pregnant and perhaps I could cope with waking in the night.

Just to give you a ray of hope, it does get easier and your baby will sleep longer as they get older and bigger. The best advice given to me was "if you do nothing else routine wise, get a good bedtime routine". I always did bath, milk, bed - and even now they follow this routine, but we have added story time in as well. It did work for me, but like all advice it only works if it fits in with you and your family setup.

To help you cope with sleep, I have put together some interesting stories from The Sleep Council about sleeping, getting the right bed and modern day bedrooms - which seems to more hard drive than kisses and cuddles.

Debbie

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