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Sounds like a plan. By the wonderful Grace Farris.
P.S. Books I could write, and major life changes.
How to Sleep When Your Baby Sleeps
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67 Comments
If we could only clean up after our kiddo and sleep at the same time! Exhaustion is no joke.
My husband and I still take naps most weekends when our 18 month old is napping, or if one of us is home with him while he’s sick, on vacation etc. We find it a way to feel rejuvenated for all the awake time, and during my maternity leave I found that I could do all the laundry/dishwashing/etc. while the baby was awake but I definitely couldn’t sleep while the baby was awake. I took showers with the baby in the bouncy seat in the bathroom, wrote thank you notes with the baby in the pack and play etc. I’m glad to see so many others feel seen or heard by this comic, but I truly think that many people (myself included, in the early months) underestimate how much you can do while the newborn is awake! No one is saying to nap EVERY SINGLE TIME the baby sleeps, but in general, naps are awesome, and we should all take more of them :)
95% unrelated, but will you be doing your Motherhood Around the World series again this summer?
hi! we are just deciding on that — and if we want to approach it in a new way. please stay tuned, and tahnk you so much for asking! xoxo
Nice set of tips Joanna! I’ve been following your blog for quite some while and this is the first time I commented. I really love the way you share your experiences. I’m also a mother and I can understand how difficult it is to manage your day when have kids, tough job though. I wish you all the best and happy life ahead. keep sharing!
8 days postpartum and this made me actually LOL – thanks, I needed to read this! Seems like society’s message to new moms is something like “wake up your baby to feed every 2 hours never wake a sleeping baby breast feed on a schedule on demand never co-sleep keep your baby physically attached to you make sure they self soothe don’t let them use a pacifier or suck their hands. Oh, and don’t forget about your self care.”
YES!!! It’s so hard to filter all the mixed messages!!
When my second daughter was born, I was so tired that one day I realized that it was Saturday morning and I had my last shower on Tuesday.
I’ve had five children and with the first four I felt this way. Like yeah right lady, how about you come over and fold all of the socks! Then magically when I had my fifth I found that if I didn’t sleep when the baby slept, I just wouldn’t sleep. So the laundry suffered, the house was a mess, but I was sane! Life went on and somehow everyone mostly smelled of fresh laundry. I think this advice comes from a very good place, honestly. If there are ten things on your to-do list when baby comes, eight of them should be feed the baby and the other two should be take a couple naps. I have a six month old so I’m still in the thick of it.
I always fall asleep when I dry my hair!!
My baby only slept when I was driving him around in the car or pushing him in the stroller. So I slept…never. He’s now 7 — we survived and he’s the best! — but the “sleep when the baby sleeps” advice still makes me bitter AF.
Same! My daughter 2.5 years now and she still doesn’t sleep. She has slept “through the night” less than 10 times in her life and only naps in the car while the car is moving. There is still very little sleep happening at my house. My closest mom friend has a daughter the same age who taked 3 to 4 hour naps everyday(!) And has slept 8 to 8 since she was 6 weeks old. It is the one big disconnect we have. Sometimes I imagine what my life would be like if I had a sleeper. We probably would have tried to have a second child by now (through adoption/surrogacy bc of some issues I had with pregnancy). Now we are pretty sure she will be an only. Mostly because of the sleep deprivation we are still in the thick of. But I love her deep down to my bones. And I would so it all over again for her. But what if the second baby is the same and I don’t love them as much? Because how could I ever love something else this much? It’s all very confusing.
Thank you for this!!!
I was one of those moms that actually slept when the baby slept :-). In my country we get fully paid pregnancy leave (and you can take it from day one or you can work throughout the whole pregnancy, it’s up to you) and then we get 1 year fully paid maternity leave after the baby is born, so I really had time to immerse myself in motherhood with both of my kids. With my first, I slept when he slept but not every time, but with my second I literally religiously slept when she slept during the day. She was on a schedule and slept twice a day and always at the same time so the moment she would fall asleep I would drop everything and jump straight into bed. I enjoyed those sleeps so, so much and would be so relaxed once my older would get back from the kindergarten. Once I got back to work, it took me a month to get over those sleeps as I would literally fall asleep while my colleagues were mid sentence :-)
I also slept when my baby slept. I was given this advice from friends and my mother and I wasn’t offended because it actually worked. The stuff that “needed” to get done had to wait until I was rested enough to do it.
My sis always gives a birthday card that has a picture of a woman on the front pouring coffee into her mouth. The inside says, “Sleep when you’re dead.” Maybe that’s what I’ll tell the next person who tells me this “helpful advice”! If I am fortunate enough to have another child! As for me, I chose to do laundry and take a hotter-than-heck bath instead. So. Much. Laundry. And hemorrhoids.
best one yet!
This is SO FUCKING TRUE AND HILARIOUS, I‘m screaming! I love her for it! Exactly like some others said before, this stupid advice is so enraging because it makes you feel like you‘re failing for not managing to do this thing which sounds like the easiest thing in the world! But yes, it‘s so hard to squeeze in a nap exactly at the time your baby is sleeping while you got a) shit to do, like, organize your life, b) no idea for how long baby will sleep c) or a baby who only sleeps in your arms and you‘re afraid you‘ll let it drop if you fall asleep yourself or she‘ll suffocate in your arms, etc etc. And no matter how exhausted I was, I could not switch to sleep mode at 10 am after just having done some dishes and taken the older one to daycare… I‘m so glad these days are over!
Oh my god, this hits home!!
I don’t think I can recall I single piece of useful advice anyone gave me when I had babies, but I do remember a lot of little unexpected kindnesses. Once I was in a parking lot trying to keep my lawless 2 year old from running into traffic while not suffocating the screaming 2 week old I was carrying, holding the grocery cart with my foot so it would’t roll away while loading bags into the car, when a 20-something guy asked if he could take my cart. He seemed so young and businesslike that I assumed he was headed into the store, but I watched him return the cart to the stand, walk back to his car and drive off. It still makes me cry a little to think about it…even now that I consistently sleep more than 4 hours at a time.
Anyway, I say kindness beats advice any day!
“Kindness beats advice any day!” I will embroider this on a pillow and throw it at the people offering unsolicited advice. It won’t hurt them but they will hopefully shut up already!
I have never felt so seen in my life. I have given this rant many times. Can I get this on a t-shirt please, or maybe blown up on the hood of my car would have more impact.
Even when I am tired I can’t just like, fall asleep on command in the bright morning sunshine of 10am for a 10 minute chunk. You can thank this thing called your circadian rhythm for that.
I have always cringed hearing people give this advise (which is all the time…like why?)
I am having a baby on Thursday so this is SO perfectly timed. :)
Everyone at work keeps asking why I am not taking off time to “rest before the baby comes” and I have to explain to them that no amount of rest before the baby comes makes the sleepless nights with an infant better!! I would just rather work up until the last day and have every single day of my maternity leave.
Sarah, I felt the exact same way before my first child was born – I wanted to maximize the amount of maternity leave spent with my baby and didn’t want to waste any of my time off before she arrived. As it turned out, I was in the office on a Friday and went into labor on Saturday. In hindsight, I do wish I had taken at least a few days for myself beforehand. Life changed so quickly once baby arrived! For me, it would’ve been less about the rest and more about savoring the experience of having nowhere to be, no one to wait on, and for me, maybe sitting on the couch with a good book, uninterrupted for hours on end. It has been a long time since I’ve had that luxury. :)
Best wishes to you for the safe arrival of your little one.
Crazy that you’d loose days from your leave if you take them beforehand. In Norway you get four weeks off before your due date, on top of the normal maternity leave.
I used to fantasize about self-driving cars with my colicky firstborn…I imagined curling up in one with her, falling asleep, and waking up in California. I literally thought about that all the time.
Haha! Me too!!! Even California, where my sister lives and it is warm. …this was my ongoing fantasy.
I love this cartoon! So, so good! Also, I truly think the advice should be rephrased as “Don’t feel guilty if you fall asleep while the baby is napping.” If it happens that you doze off while the baby is sleeping, and the dishwasher doesn’t get unloaded or the laundry doesn’t get done, do not beat yourself up. Just say “YAY NAP!” and keep going.
In the same vein: I try to vacuum whenever my baby vacuums.
oh my god Jane, you’re so smart! Why am I not doing that?!
Hahaha!
Comment of the year ?
I remember someone giving me this advice when I was pregnant with my twins. I wanted to simultaneously whisper “Oh sweetie…you have no idea” and also punch her in the face because she had no idea. We did eventually get the twins on the same sleeping schedule but that took months of work. One baby was pretty much awake the entire newborn phase. Oofda.
Oh yes this. I timed it once with our twins because I couldn’t stand hearing it anymore. On that day, after nurse, feed, pump… I had 8 minutes to sleep while the babies slept.
When I was a brand new mom, I told my husband it should be permissible by law to throat-punch anyone who told me to sleep when the baby sleeps.
Just sayin’.
My baby likes to take all her naps in our arms (and while I was on maternity leave, I took all the cuddles I could get). But they also tell you not to sleep while holding the baby, so I watched a LOT of Netflix. That should be the new advice–or the new “Netflix and chill.”
And of course – let me sleep while I push the stroller!
Love this! Was my plan, then I actually had a baby.
My babies aren’t babies anymore and I still haven’t learned to sleep when they do. When else am I supposed to be ALONE?
agreed!! i especially need that grown-up time after bedtime.
I wish I had this as a flyer to hand out when my girl was little. And also as advice/warning for myself because I spent a good few months feeling like I was doing it wrong. :)
That was my thought, too! I’ll save this in case I have another child and need an answer to that piece of advice again!
HAHA! 100% accurate.
Ha! I actually regularly took power naps in a Trader Joe’s parking lot with a sleeping baby in the back seat! Baby would fall asleep on the way to dropping off my three year old at preschool and would wake up as soon as I tried to move the baby seat. So I’d let him sleep and try to take a nap myself. Ahhh, memories…
With a brand new 7 week old baby in my life, this brings me so much joy! Everyone who says this to me in earnest while I stare at them exhaustedly is a bit of an asshole. Thank you, Grace Farris, you get it.
THANK. YOU. Good God, I never understood how people actually followed through with that advice of “sleep when the baby sleeps”. How do we ever get anything done if we do that? If our only jobs were to eat, sleep and get our bottoms wiped I think it’d be doable. Obviously, we have to fit more in. Much more!
YESSSSSSS….. I would reel whenever I was given this “advice” even if you did manage to get horizontal when the baby was sleeping, the new mom hyper-vigilance would wake me up at every sound. Or she’d sleep for two hours or 15 minutes. There was no telling!
yes! those early days are so hard!
They call it dangerous now, but I set up my baby in the carrier sleeping next to the treadmill in the carrier. I lost the last 15 pounds of baby weight. This only works for your first child though :)
If only the baby would sleep…
I know people mean well, but this one really annoyed me when I was pregnant/in those hazy newborn days. It is such a ubiquitous piece of (unhelpful) advice that it isn’t even worth the energy it takes for the words to form and come out! It would be more useful for you to tell me a random animal fact (i.e. slugs have four noses) or say literally anything else.
hahahaha!!! this is a great comment.
Agreed. My husband and I have literally no help (grandparents/family). No village! . So there is no time for me to sleep or there will be no meals or clean underwear, and a VERY messy existence of a home if I nap. If those who say this would just hold their “helpful” comments and come over and comfort my baby so I can get things done…maybe I would have time to nap! Ha! ? Now that would be helpful!
This comment made my day. Thank you for the fun fact about slugs.
This is my biggest fear when my second comes this fall! Even the tiny nap I snuck in each day with my first won’t be an option with a 3 year old running around! Lord beer me strength.
Beering you some major strength, Savannah!
Hi savannah,
I have three kids and my biggest help was a baby sling. You just wrap the baby in it, they sleep like a dream and you have time (and hands) for your other child.
(Still doesn’t he’ll with naps but at least the baby will sleep and sometimes this is all you can ask for with more then one child ?)
Good luck with everything!
I’m going to send this to everyone who has EVER told me to sleep when the baby sleeps. Also every new parent.
While most unasked for advice when my kid was a teeny baby felt mostly just judgment couched in faux concern, this one was my biggest pet peeve by far!
Sure I will sleep when the baby sleeps, and who will cook, clean, take a shower, do laundry, pay bills, run errands, and generally get shit done for me???
Truly the advice that enraged me then, and again three years later just THINKING about how much I tried to get done between newborn naps!
Amen! Biggest load of BS ever!
For me, it made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Like somehow there was this whole hoard of new moms magically sleeping while the baby slept and I just didn’t have my shit together enough to pull it off. When in reality, we were all just trudging along completely exhausted and resenting the hell out of this useless piece of advice.
Omg YES. When are you supposed to get life together if you nap when baby naps?? Such annoying advice, closely followed by the people who kept offering to hold the baby for me. Folks, I don’t need you to hold my sweet newborn. I need you to do dishes, do laundry, clean my bathroom, run errands, vacuum, etc. K thanks.
Exactly! Sleeping when my baby sleeps would require me to adopt her other habits — like wearing a diaper (so I don’t need time to go to the bathroom), having all of my meals brought to me (so I don’t need to cook), etc.
Not to mention that adult sleep cycles are not like baby sleep cycles. Yes, I’m exhausted, but that doesn’t mean that I can convert to a habit of sleeping for random 15-90 minute chunks of time throughout the 24-hour cycle and feel well-rested.
Hahaha yes!
Awesome! And if I sleep when the baby sleeps I can do laundry when the baby does laundry, cook dinner when the baby cooks, do dishes when….. hahahahaha!
This is too funny!
hahhaaha
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