The No-cry Sleep Solution (73 page)

11

Baby’s Sleeping (Finally!)

but Mommy’s Not

After following the No-Cry Sleep Solution—making your sleep plan, charting your progress, persevering night after night—your baby is finally sleeping. It’s incredible. It’s wonderful. All is well with the sandman in your house. Your baby is sleeping through the night.

But
you
aren’t.

Mother-Speak

“The baby’s sleeping all night but I’m up every two hours star-ing at the clock.”

Robin, mother of thirteen-month-old Alicia

Take heart: This is a very common situation, and this chapter will tell you how to improve your own sleep.

What’s Happening?

A few things in the past year or more have disrupted your sleep.

Things like pregnancy, followed by a baby, and perhaps followed by another pregnancy, and one or more additional babies. If your 225

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226

The No-Cry Sleep Solution

baby joined your family by adoption, you’ve lost sleep throughout the long and involved process, and then through the early months of baby sleeplessness.

You may not realize that you’ve actually gotten into the
habit
of waking up during the night. Your
normal
night’s sleep includes many night wakings, and your system has become accustomed to a certain level of sleep deprivation.

It’s probably been a long time since you’ve really had a full night’s sleep. Almost certainly even longer than you realize!

Many parents actually forget what their sleep patterns were like before children entered their lives. Many assume that they used to get eight hours consistently and without interruption. Eight hours
is
the amount of time that sleep experts recommend for most adults. In reality, though, according to the National Sleep Foundation, adults sleep an average of about seven hours per night. Furthermore, at least half of all adults have trouble sleeping—falling asleep and staying asleep—baby or no baby. In other words, if you weren’t sleeping like a log before baby, you won’t be sleeping like a log now, either.

There’s another aspect to your current sleep situation to consider. As we age (and you’ve been doing that over the past few years, you know), the amount of sleep we need and the amount of sleep we get tend to decline, and sleep problems increase.

Recent studies by the National Sleep Foundation have acknowledged the impact of the ebb and flow of monthly hormones on our sleep. In their studies, 43 percent of women reported disturbed sleep during the week
before
their period; 71

percent reported sleep problems
during
their period. In addition, 79 percent of women reported sleep problems during pregnancy.

(Personally, I think this figure is far too low—probably because the 21 percent who checked the “no” box in this poll were just too tired to understand the question.)

Baby’s Sleeping (Finally!) but Mommy’s Not

227

According to sleep experts, it’s not only age, but also the stresses of adult life that contribute to our sleep problems. (Plus, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have something even more to look forward to. An estimated 50 to 90 percent of people older than sixty have sleep problems.)

Add all of these situations together and there are very few nights when our sleep is not disrupted for some reason.

So, now you know
the rest of the story
. You can’t blame
all
your nighttime problems on parenthood!

How to Get a Good Night’s Sleep

Because you’ve just experienced a period of frequent night waking, I don’t have to tell you that the quality and quantity of your sleep can affect your entire life. Getting adequate, restful sleep is essential to your health and well being.

Everyone has different sleep needs, and you should gauge your sleep requirements according to your own health. Let your own body tell you what it needs, and do your best to listen to it. Learn to recognize the signs that tell you that you are or are not getting enough sleep.

The following are a few helpful tips for improving adult sleep that I’ve run across in my exhaustive research for this book. Sift through the list and use as many as you wish. Applying even just one or two of these suggestions should prove helpful.