5 Months of Sleep Deprivation: What I Learned as a New Parent

Like many people, I felt like I went into parenthood blind. Here are the things that surprised me the most.

If you’re a bad napper, have bad sleep hygiene, or sleep poorly in general before you have a child, straighten all of that out now. Being able to nap is huge for the first few months of parenthood. I was sleep deprived for 5 months straight, and it really messes with you. I was hallucinating, grumpy, irritable, and overall not fun to be around. Luckily things got much better very soon after our kid was sleeping on his own in his crib after we did sleep training. Those first few months I was maybe sleeping for 3-4 hours a day. I’d wake up and not know if it was day or night. I’d think I had fallen asleep with my kid in my arms, and he was in my sheets. I’d wake up digging through my sheets trying to find my kid. I had never slept with him in my arms at all. I guess I was so worried about him that I’d think he was in my bed. It was truly awful. After sleep training, I was up to 6 hours a night. Now I get 7-8 hours each night. Most of the time I wake up feeling well-enough rested. Not as good as before having our kid, but good enough.

We thought our child was ready for sleep training at 5 months old. We could tell he wanted to sleep on his stomach, so as soon as he learned to roll over on his own, we did the “cry it out” method. He immediately got his arm stuck in between the bars of his crib. The book we read said to not intervene unless you needed to. But was this worth intervening for? We didn’t know. So we waited too long, then he fell asleep with his arm still stuck in the crib. From then on, if he was truly stuck for more than a few minutes, I’d quickly go in and move him. Guess what, it didn’t make the “cry it out” method not work. It worked extremely well for him. The first night was the worst, but that was our fault. If I had just gotten him unstuck after a couple of minutes, he’d probably have gone to bed after 15 minutes of protesting. He was never crying, just complaining. The first week - not counting the first night - I wrote down that we had a total of 60 minutes of complaining, so about 9 minutes each night, which is totally normal. He sleeps great now.

Shushing isn’t rude, it helps calm a baby down. I had only thought of shushing as a way to tell an adult to stop making noise. I didn’t realize that it comforts a baby. I always thought parents who were shushing their babies were being impatient.

Preparing a freezer full of meals that are already cooked and ready to be reheated can not be done enough before your baby is born. I had no brain capacity to think of meals to make. Asking family to bring meals or buy groceries and fast food helped. Grocery store pickup and delivery was also super helpful, but there was a 50% chance that everything we asked for was in the delivery, which ended up causing headaches.

There is some baby gear that you need to get ahead of the baby’s arrival. It’s very helpful to open and try using everything ahead of time. Reading a manual while you’re tired and learning how to be a parent is tough. The essentials that were hardest for us to get working were the car seat and breast pump. Getting a white noise machine set up and any smartphone apps loaded beforehand helps.

There is too much information on the internet, especially around what is “normal” for a baby. I was nervous to call the pediatrician’s office the first few times, but every time I was glad I did. It turns out that there is a huge range of acceptable things with newborns, and kids in general. One baby might poop every few hours. Another might poop once a week. Yup, that’s “normal”. What matters the most is that you pay attention to your kid’s patterns. Do they always do X? It’s probably fine. Are they suddenly doing Y? Call and make sure things are ok. The one book that helped my family, and the only one I’d recommend you look at, is the “What to expect when you’re expecting” series, including the “What to Expect the First Year” book. It goes month-by-month on what you might have questions on, which is super helpful since you can only take things a month at a time early on. So much changes week to week. Comparing your kid to others is almost always a way to get upset, but is helpful when it comes to their health and wellbeing. If something feels even slightly off, call your pediatrician. You’ll quickly learn what is fine and what isn’t.

Taking things one day at a time helped me. Every day was so different the first 5 months. Just think about what you can do better tomorrow. Learn and move on. You’re going to make mistakes, and making your kid cry will happen.

If anxiety or stress is an issue for you before you have a child, it will get worse after you have a child. I got stressed about not knowing what to do right now. I got anxious about not knowing what to expect tomorrow. From what I understand from my peers, starting medication to help with this at parenthood is very normal. I was often awake when I didn’t need to be, and could have been resting.

Asking for help early and often is not a sign of weakness or stupidity. I wish I had asked family and friends for help more often and earlier. I could have gotten a lot more sleep.