Contents:
- Medical Video: Breastfeeding with the Thompson Method
- How do you overcome sleep deprivation while breastfeeding?
- 1. Share tasks with a partner
- 2. Don't force yourself to do other things
- 3. Sleep when your baby sleeps
- 4. Try to take a nap
Medical Video: Breastfeeding with the Thompson Method
It's happy now that your household has been colored by the presence of a baby who has been waiting. But maybe a bag your eyes will say something else. Being a new mother is not an easy matter because caring for a baby will take up a lot of sleep. But don't make this an excuse for not taking care of yourself. Not only babies who need to sleep enough and sleep. You too. Check out various easy ways to overcome the problem of lack of sleep while breastfeeding.
How do you overcome sleep deprivation while breastfeeding?
1. Share tasks with a partner
Lack of sleep when breastfeeding can be prevented so you can focus more on caring for your new baby. As long as you have set up your strategy with your partner in advance.
Margaret Park, a sleep disorders specialist from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, advises both of you to discuss about the division of household tasks after the little one is born. For example, when a wife is busy caring for a baby, her husband can help her wash dishes, wash clothes, or take her to go to tutoring. That way, the free time that the wife should spend to clean up the house later she can use to just take a short nap.
Vice versa. Husbands must help care for babies, such as changing baby diapers, bathing babies, carrying them, or inviting them to play while mothers are busy doing household chores. You can also help with household chores when your wife is asleep.
Get third-hand help if needed, such as help from a household assistant or baby sitter, your parents, siblings, or close friends to help care for your little one. So, you will have plenty of time to rest after breastfeeding your child.
2. Don't force yourself to do other things
Caring for a newborn is tiring. Not to mention the hours of breastfeeding that follow the wishes and needs of the child. If he wakes up in the middle of the night and is starving, then you have to feed him. Inevitably you have to cancel the desire to sleep.
According to Susan Zafarlotfi, a head of Sleep and Wake Disorders at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, don't ever force yourself to do homework or anything else when you have just given birth. At present, your focus is only on caring for and nursing your child.
Tell someone at home that you cannot afford to wash, scrub, cook, or deliver your brother to school or tutoring at the same time while still nursing your child. That's why the division of household tasks is very important. Use your time when your child doesn't want to suckle to rest and sleep.
3. Sleep when your baby sleeps
The best time to fulfill sleep needs for nursing mothers is to sleep when your baby is asleep. If your child is asleep, never delay your best time to rest and sleep.
Many mothers think that when babies fall asleep, this is the right time to clean up all household chores, such as washing dirty clothes, washing dishes, or cleaning floors.
You must remember that when you finish your homework, your little one may have woken up again. According to Michael Breus, an author of Beauty Sleep, and head of the sleep specialist division at Arrowhead Health in Glendale, Ariz, force yourself to sleep.
It's not easy to fall asleep with a house that is still messy, especially if you don't have a household assistant or babysitter, but remember that your health is the most important.
Sleep is one way to keep your body fit to care for your little one. So, force yourself to sleep and forget about homework for a while.
4. Try to take a nap
Sleep deprivation while breastfeeding is usually caused by the little one sleeping too late at night, waking up in the middle of the night or waking up in the morning, this makes your sleep time less.
If your night's sleep is not fulfilled properly, try replacing it with a nap, even though sleeping during the day cannot replace sleep at night, but you can use this time to rest. Ask for help from the closest person who can be trusted to care for your child if he or she does not fall asleep while you sleep, the important thing is that you have fulfilled their ASI needs.
You can also pump breast milk to supply if your child cries to suckle when you sleep. If there is an opportunity to sleep when your baby is taking care, go to sleep. Lack of sleep while breastfeeding can stress you out and increase your risk baby blues.
