Sleep, Showers, and Sanity: The Postpartum Survival Triangle

Almost any parent you talk to remembers the first month or so after having their first baby, and not all of the memories are fond ones. Sure, you remember the snuggles and the first smile, but you also remember the constant cycle of feeding and changing diapers. And you wonder how you'll ever have a second baby after how much work the first one is.

There are ways to keep your sanity, even with a newborn. Despite all of the hormonal changes and the emotional roller coaster that comes with them, new moms need to remember to take care of themselves alongside their new babies. That includes getting enough rest, proper hygiene, and doing things that make you feel like yourself again.

The ideas here aren't meant as a substitute for getting help for postpartum depression. If you have symptoms listed in this Mayo Clinic guide, call your doctor immediately.

How to Get Enough Sleep During the Day

We've all heard the advice that you should sleep when the baby sleeps. This sounds great in theory, but my first baby started on about a 90-minute cycle where she would spend 40 minutes eating, 30 minutes sleeping, and then 20 minutes getting her diaper changed and making random noises until she was hungry again.

Even in my exhausted state, it would take me 10 minutes to get to sleep, and 20 minutes of sleeping out of every 90 just made me more groggy and grumpy. So I asked my husband or my mom to take over the 50 minutes between feeding sessions at least once or twice a day so that I could take a more consolidated nap and use the next 30-minute sleep cycle to do something else, like showering or eating without holding a baby.

Splitting Feeding Responsibilities at Night

As an adult, you're still going to want at least four or five hours of sleep during nighttime hours. I recommend getting your partner on board and alternating who gets up with the baby in the middle of the night. If you're exclusively breastfeeding, you're still going to have to be awake, but you can put a comfortable chair in your bedroom so you don't have to move to another room to feed the baby.

When it's your partner's turn to get up, have them change the baby's diaper and then bring baby to you in your bedroom. When you're done feeding the baby, have your partner get up again and put them back in their crib. Minimizing your time out of bed should allow you to get back to sleep faster.

Once you start using bottles, your partner should take half of the nighttime feeding shifts, regardless of who is working and how much. Set your bar low and accept that neither of you is going to get eight hours of sleep for a while. You'll be pleasantly surprised when you start making it to three or four-hour stretches with no one getting up to feed the baby.

If you can, have the partner that needs to get up earlier in the morning go to bed a little earlier than usual and take the first feeding shift. Then, they'll have a better chance of getting five or more consecutive hours later in the night.

Showers Are a Right, Not a Privilege

In case you don't know by now, the first months of motherhood stink — literally. You constantly have a little human on you, and if you're breastfeeding, you get sweaty easily, and you usually smell like milk in some way. Plus, for the first several weeks, you're still sitting on that pad of fluids leaking out of you, and it can feel like having your own diaper on. It only takes five to 10 minutes to take a shower, and it can make a world of difference in the way you feel.

I've already noted that you don't have to sleep every time the baby sleeps, so use one of those intervals to shower during the day. You can even shower twice in a day if it makes you feel better — just don't use too much soap so you don't dry out your skin.

If your baby starts crying while you're in the shower, don't feel guilty. As long as they're in a safe place (their crib), they can survive for a few more minutes so you can finish showering.

Remember that you grew a lot of new hair when you were pregnant, so some of it is going to come out now. Stick to your regular hair washing routine and don't get alarmed if you get a couple of big handfuls of hair coming out. It all goes back to normal after a few months.

Above all, remember that showering is a right, not a privilege. You're still entitled to five to 10 minutes a day by yourself, with no one making demands of you. This, too, gets easier with time.

Save Your Sanity by Reclaiming Yourself

Everything changes when you have a baby, and your hobbies and interests will change, too. But I found that returning to at least one thing you did before having babies helps you keep your sanity. You probably won't be able to return to all of your hobbies and interests right after your baby is born. Just set aside some time every day to do something you enjoy that's not related to your family.

For me, it was running. I made my partner aware before we had children that I didn't intend to give up on running after we had kids. I waited four weeks until all of my body's many floodgates started closing, and then went out for 20 minutes of run-one walk-one immediately after feeding the baby. I was able to gradually work up to an hour of uninterrupted running before my daughter's first birthday.

If working out in some way is your chosen hobby, make sure you focus on doing it for your own interest instead of to lose weight. It took nine months to put on the baby weight, and you're not going to lose it in nine days, or even nine weeks.

Plus, with a baby plowing through a pint of breastmilk every day, I was eating an extra thousand calories a lot of days, and it was going straight to my boobs. Once I stopped worrying about numbers on the scale, I was able to relax about working out and just enjoy it again.

Use Social Circles to Stay Sane

Another way to help keep your sanity is by finding a like-minded community of mom friends. Look for a Fit4Mom franchise, a local library with baby story times, a YMCA or other community center with mom and baby classes, or the mom friend finder app Peanut.

Being a new mom is extremely isolating, and finding other people going through the same things is a huge comfort for many women. This will pay dividends later in your kids' lives. Both of my kids still have friends that we met when I was in one of these groups.

Don't discount the help older people can give you when you first have a baby. If your child has grandparents that you can rely on, ask them for help and advice. You don't have to accept every tale they tell as gospel, but if they raised you or your partner, they're likely to have something insightful to say.

Many families have a grandparent or two who will recognize your need for help and pitch in without you asking. Don't rebuff the help if you can get it. Every diaper grandma changes is one you don't have to do yourself.

This is Your Job — For Now

Remember that your job in the first few months of your baby's life is to keep them alive. Any other work you do is secondary at that time. That's why we have maternity leave. I felt the urge to start checking in with my job during week seven or eight, and it really wasn't necessary. There was an intern covering the essential bases of my job, and no one could replace the work I was doing for my child at home.

You are the most important person to your baby in the first months of his or her life. But you also can't pour from an empty cup. Keep yourself rested, fed, clean, and supported so that you can keep your baby healthy and safe in the most important time in their lives.

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