Sleep is one of the most important components of postpartum recovery, yet one of the hardest things to get enough of while feeding a baby throughout the night. It’s even harder to get with more than one child in the mix. As moms, not only is it physically difficult for us to get enough sleep, it is hard to give ourselves permission to sleep. It always feels like there is so much to do or someone else to take care of. No wonder why we often end up feeling like zombies.
The feeling that there is always something to do likely comes from our culture constantly focusing on doing and becoming more successful (generally, monetarily) rather than being. Our culture values staying busy and productive, whereas most traditional cultures take care of their new mothers and allow them to rest for 30-40 days after having a baby. Taking time to sleep can feel like you are being lazy or unproductive. It feels contrary to our culture. So, often it is difficult to feel okay with taking the time to slow down and rest without some level of guilt attached to it. We tend to take care of everyone and everything before ourselves (I am certainly guilty of this!). However, for our health and the health of our families, it is important for moms to prioritize taking care of themselves (put on your oxygen mask first!).
We often talk about the importance of nutrition in the postpartum period, rightfully so. However, I would argue that sleep is actually even more important than nutrition in this period. Sleep plays such a critical role in our health. Without it, we will have more trouble healing and recovering. Sleep is necessary for balancing our hormones, detoxifying, growing/healing, properly digesting our food to obtain the necessary nutrients from our diet, cortisol production, adrenal health, thyroid health, liver health, memory/brain function, energy production, stress reduction, making milk if you’re breastfeeding, and so many other functions that our bodies rely on. All of these processes ultimately affect our health, emotional well-being, and our ability to parent. Ultimately, all of this affects our children, their health and wellbeing, and our relationships with our significant others. It’s really ironic that during a period of time where we need the most sleep of all to enhance our recovery, we are the most sleep deprived we will likely ever be in our lives.
I learned a very valuable lesson during the postpartum period after my first son about how important sleep is to heal and recover. I learned the hard way, at the expense of the health of my adrenal glands and thyroid. I did not take very many naps in the early period when my husband was home and could help out. By the time my son was three and a half months old, I was working late hours, I was breastfeeding through the night, and choosing to workout or do things around the house rather than nap when I could in that first year. This ended up excessively stressing my thyroid and adrenal glands and has left me struggling to recover from this stress since. I lost the ability to work out like I loved to do because I just didn’t have the energy. I was so exhausted I would lay on my workout mat at the bottom of doing a pushup and stay there because it felt so good to lay down. I lacked the energy to get through a day taking care of my son without napping or feeling utterly exhausted all the time. It was difficult to wake up in the morning, and every time I heard my son call my name I had to drag myself out of bed. When I started my nutritional therapy program and figured out what was going on, I learned to slow down, workout with less intensity (mostly walking), rest, and nourish myself so that my thyroid and adrenal glands could have a break and recover.
Prior to giving birth this time around, I made the commitment to give myself permission to rest and do less. I gave myself permission to honor this period of time. It’s taken me a while to become okay with the idea of relaxing and being rather than doing all the time, but it has made a huge difference in my recovery. Instead of always trying to get things done, when the opportunity to nap arises, I take it. Sometimes that means I need to ask for help (which I don’t like to do) or that the dishes don’t get washed or chores don’t get finished. However, without the necessary sleep, I know my body won’t be able to recover in the way I want it to. I want to be able to workout again, to play tennis, to surf, to enjoy my boys, have the energy for my relationship with my husband, to have patience, to find joy, and to like a whole person again.
Learn from my mistakes. It’s easier to maintain your health than to regain it. Give yourself permission to prioritize sleep after having a baby, especially in the first six weeks. The dishes can wait, housework can wait, and the unfinished projects can wait. Allow yourself the time to rest and recover so that ultimately you can actually be a better mom and/or wife, as well as more productive in the long run. So really…sleep when the baby sleeps. Go to bed by 9 PM. Ask for help. This is a different season of life. For a period of time, put productivity aside and prioritize self-care. This season will soon pass. Honor this period so that once it is over, you can thrive and be the best version of yourself because you have allowed yourself to fully recover from childbirth.
Comment below on your favorite strategies for resting and recovering during the postpartum period!