When it comes to babies, the years may be short, but night time feeds with a newborn can feel long. So how can you get more sleep with a newborn baby? Here are some easy ways to make night feeds easier, get back to sleep quicker and get more sleep when you have a newborn baby.
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Table Of Contents
Set Up Your Sleep Space
One of the ways to make night feeds easier ensuring that both you and your newborn baby are getting as much sleep as possible, is to set up your sleep space the best way way. Having everything that you need for night wakings, feeds and nappy changes will mean there will be less hunting for things, less crying from a fussy and discontented baby and more sleep for you.
NHS Guidelines – How to reduce the risk of SIDS
Place your baby on their back to sleep, in a cot in the same room as you, for the first 6 months.
Don’t smoke during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and don’t let anyone smoke in the same room as your baby.
Don’t share a bed with your baby if you have been drinking alcohol, if you take drugs, or you’re a smoker.
Never sleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair.
Don’t let your baby get too hot or cold.
Keep your baby’s head uncovered. Their blanket should be tucked in no higher than their shoulders.
Place your baby in the “feet to foot” position, with their feet at the end of the cot or moses basket.
NHS Safe Sleep Guidelines For babies
While co-sleeping with your babies often the easiest way to get back to sleep with a newborn, according to NHS guidelines, it is far safer for your baby to sleep in their own cot in your room.
Side Sleeper Crib
The best compromise that both keeps baby safe and allows for easy night feeds followed by a swift return to slumber, is a side sleeper crib. A side, or co sleeping crib attaches safely onto to side of your bed. This allows you to reap the benefits of having your baby close to you for night feeding and resettling, while keeping the baby safe in their own sleeping space and complying with NHS guidelines.
Organise Your Night Feeding Essentials Before Bed
Before you head to bed, make sure that the room that you share with your baby is fully stocked with a few essentials. The less moving around and hunting for things in the night, the quicker you’ll be back to sleep.
- A drink for you (especially if you are breastfeeding, it’s thirsty work!)
- Nappy changing essentials including;
- nappies
- baby wipes
- changing mat
- somewhere to store the dirty nappies.
- Muslin cloths to mop up spilled milk and baby sick.
- Your phone, charger & headphones
- Spare sleep suits in case of accidents
When my babies were tiny, I would manage to do a night feed and nappy change without even getting out of bed because everything I had was to hand.
Keep Yourself Occupied & Awake At Feeding Time
If all you are doing during night feeds is clock watching and counting the seconds until your precious little bundle finishes feeding, those night feeds will be agonising.
I found the best way was to switch my mindset when it came to night feeds. Instead of dreading them and waiting for them to be over, I reframed them as an indulgent time where I could binge watch series that I enjoyed and cuddle my baby.
Pick an easy to watch series. Avoid anything where detail is important to the plot, as chances are you will only be half awake. If you’re looking for some suggestions, check out my top picks for classic TV shows to watch while breastfeeding.
Get The Lighting Right
While fumbling around in the dark while attempting to feed and tend to your baby at night is not very practical, turning on main overhead lights is not a good idea either.
As I discussed in How To Avoid Insomnia & Get More Sleep, too much light, specifically too much blue light, can impact your ability to fall asleep successfully. Too much bright light can also confuse you baby, giving them the impression that it is in fact time to get up and play.
So keep lighting dim and go for warmer toned lighting if you can.
Bonus Tip: Adjust The Night Time Settings On Your iPhone
Once way that you can minimise the impact of blue light stopping you from going back to sleep after using your phone during a night feed, is by switching on “Night Shift” made. This will change the colours on your phone from cooler, blue lights to warmer tones.
Here’s how you do it;
Keep Spare Bedding In The Room
Spoiler alert, newborn babies are messy. Some of them are super sickers (well, all of mine were) who will cover you in baby sick after every feed. Newborns are also rather likely to do explosive poo-namis that go quite simply everywhere.
When these messy incidents inevitably happen during a night feed, the last thing that you want to be doing is hunting all over the house for fresh bedding. Make sure that you have a set of spare bedding stored in the room where your baby is sleeping so that cleaning up these sticky situations and getting your baby tucked back into a clean crib and off to sleep is a speedy process.
Make sure that under your baby’s bedding you have a mattress protector to prevent having a soggy mattress to deal with on top of dirty sheets.
Utilise White Noise
The womb is a noisy place. If you have other kids, the day time in your home is probably a noisy place too. Some babies find the contrast of night time silence a little alarming and unsettling. If you want your baby to be able to fall soundly asleep as quickly as possibly, you may find that utilising white noise devices help them to do just this.
Help Your Baby To Sleep Longer Between Feeds
In “Doing This One Thing Will Help Your Breastfed Baby Sleep More” I shared the one hack that really helped me get longer stretches of sleep when my babies were tiny. When I discovered it, it was so simple that I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. Click the button below to read about this simple way to get longer stretches of sleep with a newborn, plus why it works.
Accept This Season
Implementing the tips I have shared will certainly ensure that your night feeds go as smoothly as possible. There is no way, however, to escape the fact that newborn babies do not sleep all night. Their tummies are tiny and they simply cannot last such long stretches in the early days without a feed.
What you have to realise is that (although it may seem like it will at times), this newborn phase will not last forever. The sooner you are able to accept this season and stop wishing it away, the easier it will be for you to survive and ultimately enjoy.
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