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Sleep and Rest for New Mums (Moms): Coping With Broken Nights

Realistic ways to protect your rest in the early months, share night duty and sleep safely with a baby.

Before you use this guide: This is general educational information, not an individual medical assessment. We do not identify a clinician reviewer on this page, so please confirm personal health decisions with your doctor, midwife or paediatrician.

Broken sleep is one of the hardest parts of life with a newborn. You cannot get your old sleep back straight away, but small changes can protect your rest and your health.

Ways to get more rest

• Rest when your baby rests, even if you only lie down with your eyes closed. Housework can wait.
• Try to protect one longer stretch of sleep. If possible, go to bed early and let a partner or helper handle one feed or settle.
• If you breastfeed, once feeding is going well a partner can give a bottle of expressed milk, or take over nappy changes and settling so that you can go straight back to sleep.
• Keep night feeds calm: low lights, quiet voices and no stimulating activity.
• Limit visitors in the early weeks, or ask them to bring food or help with a chore.
• Say yes when people offer help.

Sleep safely with a baby

• Tiredness can make you drift off during night feeds, so plan where you would feel safest.
• Never fall asleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair. This is a very high-risk place for infant death.
• If you feed in bed, keep pillows and heavy covers away from your baby, and put your baby back in their own cot or bassinet when you wake.
• Bed-sharing carries more risk if you or your partner smoke, have had alcohol, take drugs or sedating medicines, or are extremely tired, or if your baby was premature or small. Ask your midwife or doctor about the safest plan for your family.

How much sleep is normal?

Most newborns wake every two to four hours to feed, day and night. Over the first few months many babies start to sleep for longer stretches at night, but every baby is different. Frequent night waking does not mean you are doing anything wrong.

When tiredness is more than tiredness

Exhaustion is normal. But if you cannot sleep even when your baby does, feel persistently low, anxious or tearful, have frightening thoughts, or feel unable to cope, speak to your doctor, midwife or health visitor soon. Postnatal depression and anxiety are common and treatable, and sleep problems can be both a sign and a cause. If you ever think about harming yourself or your baby, seek urgent help straight away from your doctor or emergency services.

This content is for general information only and is not medical advice. Every pregnancy and every baby is different. Always talk to your doctor, midwife or paediatrician about your own situation, and seek urgent care if you are worried.