I remember when I was pregnant with my first son and the overarching advice I heard was, “Get your sleep now while you can because once the baby comes you won’t be sleeping for years!” I quickly became annoyed with this advice and had to refrain myself from rolling my eyes whenever someone would offer it.

Now, on the other side with 2 children, I can definitely appreciate this advice but I still have to stifle the urge to roll my eyes when others give this advice. Did you know that a study conducted in 2019 found that sleep for moms and dads had still not returned to pre-pregnancy levels SIX years after having their first child?

Yes, of course you will undergo sleep deprivation in those early months but as for years of sleep deprivation? That does NOT have to be our new norm Mamas! 

Let's talk about why YOUR sleep matters too. This first is a BIG one and hopefully it’s not too shocking…

YOU are a human being and just because you are a mom, that does NOT mean that your basic needs disappear. Sleep is a basic survival need along with food, water, and oxygen.

It’s crazy that this even has to be listed as a reason but so many voices out there are telling mothers that these are our new norm now and we should just embrace it and enjoy it because when our children are grown we will long for these sleep deprived days. I’m sorry, but I despise this message.

Not only does it invalidate a mother’s current struggle but it also aims to make a mother feel guilty for not enjoying every single second. As a mother, I can un-ashamedly tell you that I do not enjoy every single second and that’s okay!

Chronic sleep deprivation can lead to a whole host of health problems.

To quote Matthew Walker, neuroscientist and author of Why We Sleep:

“Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer. Insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Inadequate sleep- even moderate reductions for just one week- disrupts blood sugar levels so profoundly that you would be classified as pre-diabetic. Short sleeping increases the likelihood of your coronary arteries becoming blocked and brittle, setting you on a path toward cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure… Sleep disruption further contributed to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality.”

Now I think we can all easily get behind this list of reasons why sleep is important. But the trouble is taking that head knowledge and having the motivation to apply it. Just like I know that eating McDonalds every single day is not good for my health, it can be hard to break out of the habit if I’m just making the change for myself. This leads me to my next big reason why sleep matters for us moms.

YOU are a better parent when you are well-rested.

Besides the obvious that you are a safer driver for your children- drowsy driving causes more accidents than alcohol and drugs combined- you are also less irritable and less likely to engage in permissive parenting.

In addition, pediatrician Kathleen Berchman states that, “Without sleep it’s very hard to be attuned to kids, to provide them with the attention and positive parenting they need, especially in stressful situations.” 

Oftentimes I hear parents cite attachment theory as their big stumbling block for improving their child’s sleep and therefore remaining sleep deprived themselves. Parents can be hesitant to make any sleep changes or allow their child to be uncomfortable for fear of ruining a secure attachment. But the big kicker is that it becomes significantly harder to provide a secure and safe attachment for your child if you are chronically sleep deprived. Secure attachment has everything to do with being a warm, loving, and emotionally available parent and nothing to do with cosleeping, breastfeeding, and anti-sleep training ideologies. 

Back to my analogy of eating McDonalds every day… you may start to think twice about making that daily stop if your children are present in the car with you and observing your behavior. Will it be easy to break your habit? No. But you will be more motivated because you want the best for your children. 

I hope that if you know you need more sleep and have been putting it off because you’re okay with putting yourself last, that this helps you to see it’s also in your child’s best interest for you to be well-rested.

5 quick tips for better sleep as a mom:

1. If you need to make some positive sleep changes for your child before you can get better sleep yourself, do that. You can sleep coach on your own or you can hire a professional, either way will work!

2. Try to stick with a consistent bedtime for yourself. As moms, it can be easy to stay up super late some nights to finish off our to do lists but it’s much better for our bodies if we have a consistent bedtime.

3. Aim for 8 hours of sleep overnight. If you know your child will be up by 6am, then force yourself to go to bed by 10pm.

4. Add a sleep mask and a white noise machine to your nightly routine. Just like with babies and young children, a dark sleep environment and continuous white noise help us get better quality sleep.

5. Consider turning that monitor volume down or off. This can be a hard one for moms and definitely depends on the age of your child, but if you can hear your little one crying from their room without the monitor, try to turn it off. Babies and children can be noisy and if you are awoken by every brief waking they have, you will miss out on a lot of sleep.

6. If you are still currently feeding your baby overnight, avoid being on your phone as much as you can during that time. The blue light from your device can make it that much harder to fall back asleep once the feeding is over. Instead opt for a podcast or music that you can listen via headphones to as your baby feeds.