Are you in a sleep emergency and lying awake even when your newborn is asleep?
These newborn sleep pages are intended to get you started in the first challenging few weeks of life. But this sleep work will be most useful in your family's life if you quickly move on to the comprehensive Possums Baby Sleep Program, starting with The essentials, here! Please see your GP if you have concerns about your own mental or physical health.
When you know (with sinking heart) that your newborn is going to wake again very soon, it’s common to find yourself lying awake, feeling stressed about your desperate need for sleep, which of course makes it very hard to fall asleep.
Or it can simply seem as if your body has lost the habit of sleeping, because you've been woken up so much!
"How on earth am I going to cope tomorrow?" your mind might ask you, over and over. Maybe you notice feelings of dread or bone-deep exhaustion in your body. You might have other unpleasant physical sensations resulting from to your own dialled up sympathetic nervous system, perhaps in your chest or abdomen.
In this situation, which is so common when we have a tiny newborn child, I suggest that you
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Work steadily through The Possums Baby Sleep Program, starting with The essentials, here. To my mind, this is the most important thing to do, because we need to quickly align your baby's sleep regulators with your own
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Become a self-compassion ninja – your wakefulness is a normal response to a highly stressful situation
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Read about managing our exhausted minds in the night
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Brainstorm about how others might support you.
You might also find it helpful to read 'When you're in a sleep emergency and lying awake even though baby is asleep'.
Recommended resources
The body clock: baby sleep regulator #1
Sleep pressure: baby sleep regulator #2
How to change #1 cause of newborn sleep problems: hunger
How to change #2 cause of newborn sleep problems: body clock not in sync with yours yet
When you're in a sleep emergency and lying awake even though baby is asleep.