When you're in a sleep emergency and lying awake even though baby is asleep

These six topics in the It's an emergency section of The Possums Sleep Program are the place to start if you're in a baby sleep crisis. To really turn things around over the next couple of weeks, so that the days and nights are as enjoyable as possible, and you're no longer so utterly exhausted and sleep-deprived, please go to the whole of The Possums Baby Sleep Program, starting here. Or you might like to go to the Brief & simple version first, starting here.

It's common (but miserable!) to find yourself lying awake in the night while your baby sleeps

It’s quite common and also quite normal to find yourself lying awake in the night while your baby sleeps, wishing you could sleep too, but finding you can’t. It’s normal to find your mind worrying about how much longer you’ve got until the baby wakes next, or how you’ll cope the next day. You might find that your mind wants to worry, in the middle of the night, about how you are doing everything wrong with your baby’s sleep!

Our minds are hardwired to protect us with lots of warnings. Our minds try to prepare for worst possible outcomes. We can expect our mind to get busy with frightened, despairing thoughts, especially when we are very tired! It’s awful though, especially if we find this pattern of thinking is happening a lot. We might also find that we are carrying unpleasant, anxious feelings in our body, stimulated by these unpleasant thoughts. This is normal and common, too.

The section in The Possums Sleep Program called Caring for you gives you many proven strategies for managing distressing thoughts and feelings in the perinatal period. Here are five steps to help you through your immediate sleep emergency.

Practical ideas to keep your own body clock healthy

• Start the day at the same time, as early as you can do it.

• Early morning sunlight helps keep your own circadian clock healthy.

• Try not to let yourself sleep very much or even at all during the day if you are lying awake regularly in the night.

• Get up after twenty minutes or so if you are lying awake in the night, and do something kind for yourself. Go back to bed when you feel sleepy.

• You might try to lower your expectations of how much time you need to be asleep and don’t try to go to bed early to catch up, as this just places more pressure on your sleep and might further disrupt your own body clock

• Exercise as much as possible during the day. When you are the primary carer for a baby, this often means walking a lot. Avoid intensive exercise in the last hour before you go to bed.

• The sleep science tells us that adults with sleep problems are prone to overestimating the impact of poor sleep on their lives, and to overestimating how much sleep they need to function the next day. The sleep science also tells us that worrying about how much sleep we are getting makes sleep worse.

• Reduce technology use in the evenings, in particular blue light. Binge viewing (such a temptation when you finally get some time to yourself!) has also been associated with worse sleep.

• Don't drink coffee late in the day.

• Remember this too will pass – it’s a particular time of life. I think back now with a full heart on those long broken nights with little ones in the house. It was very tough at the time, and seemed to go on forever. But when I look back on those years now, it seems to have been such an incredibly short time, really. I am grateful for the closeness, the cuddles and love, that I was able to offer them in the nights, now that they are adults with their own lives and children.

Don’t try to get rid of your painful thoughts and feelings, but make space for them in your mind and heart and anchor your attention in the present moment

• If we try to get rid of thoughts because we think they are negative or miserable or because we're ashamed of them, we often find the thoughts get even worse. Dr Russ Harris calls this switching on the struggle switch. That’s why it’s best to accept that the human mind is endlessly creating warnings and worries (mine does too I can assure you) and that this is normal in humans.

• What matters is how well we can expand our attention to notice other things that are in the present moment, too, through our senses: what we can see and hear and smell and touch and feel.

• Are there things you are grateful for? Can you bring your attention to the things that have gone well the previous day, or that you are grateful for in the night? Like comfort in your bed, safety, a partner near you perhaps, the miracle of your baby?

Ideas for managing our busy, worrying minds in the night

• Practice slow deep breathing, over and over, noticing your breath, the sensations at your nostrils and in your chest and abdomen, listening to the sound. Try holding your breath for a few seconds once you have breathed in, before you slowly let the air out. Then you could hold your breath for a few seconds once you’ve breathed out, before breathing in.

• Tense up all your muscles for a minute or two. After you’ve relaxed, do a body scan starting with your toes (or wherever you want to start really), consciously releasing all muscle tension from that part of the body.

• It’s often best to not try to get rid of upsetting thoughts but to accept that they are there, and then notice lots of other things that are here in the present moment as well. Like the feel of the sheets or the doona, the sounds of the night, the little blotches of light and dark behind your eyelids when your eyes are closed.

Ideas for managing our upset and painful feelings in the night

• Imagine your breath surrounding those feelings of distress and worry in your body as you breathe in. Imagine that your breath carries in healing light which nestles around them, surrounding those feelings, and which then expands a healing light throughout your body.

• It’s often also best to not try to get rid of emotions and make them go away, but to accept that they are there, and then pay special, detailed attention to lots of other things that are here in the present moment as well.

• To be human is to experience a great deal of pain as well as joy. This is a hard thing to say, and I am still coming to terms with this myself, even at my age. It is easy to think that we shouldn’t be feeling as much pain and distress as we do, and that there must be something wrong with us, to have so much pain and distress in our life. I find myself thinking this all the time. This is not to say that you don’t reach out to friends or professionals for support. But I have learnt from my patients over many years, from my friends, and from my own life, that in our society we often think life should be easier than it is. We think there is something wrong with us, when we are simply living a richly engaged human life. Being human and being alive is a miracle beyond words – and it often, much more often than I’ve wanted to believe – really hurts. Caring for a baby can be unexpectedly and overwhelmingly hard.

Deep self-compassion is essential for managing your night-time distress

In the night, we humans are very vulnerable and prone to fear. This is true, I have found, whether or not there is a baby or toddler in our life. Babies and toddlers are particularly prone to fear in the night. Could I suggest that you join with me, as we practice becoming self-compassion ninjas?

The first step is to be incredibly kind to yourself about your wakefulness. Your wakefulness is a normal response to a highly stressful situation.

Please do see your GP if you have concerns about your own mental or physical health. I'd also invite you to work through the whole of the Caring for you section of The Possums Sleep Program.