If people gave me one piece of advice, it was to sleep when the baby slept. While I appreciated the overall sentiment, taking that advice literally is not particularly helpful. First, sleeping when she slept was physiologically impossible. She sleeps for 15 hours a day! Not to mention that sometimes when I do actually nap with her during the day, I find myself even more tired and lethargic than if I stayed awake. Psychologically, it would be much more useful to use that time cleaning - not because I have some sort of obsession with cleaning (quite the opposite, really), but because that would help clear my mind more than sleeping. The sentiment behind the advice is to rest, because new mothers desperately need it. You're no good to your baby unless you're taking care of your own needs as well. But taking a shower, actually getting a chance to sit down and eat a bowl of cereal, watching TV, checking my email, writing, reading etc are all more relaxing than lying in bed in the middle of the day wondering why I'm not asleep when I'm soooo tired (hint: because your house is a mess, you smell like spoiled milk, you're hungry, bored and disconnected from the world cause all you do is eat-sleep-breathe baby). The advice should be rephrased "Figure out what's relaxing to you and make sure to build it into your day" but it's not nearly as catchy as "sleep with the baby sleeps".
Personally, I chose to use nap time to watch old episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 on SoapNet. After 6 seasons of the 90s teen soap, I have decided that Brandon Walsh is a dreamhunk, Brenda is the original Marissa (lets build a whole soap around her, cast the most dreadful actress to play her and wait a few seasons to get rid of her before the show can be what it was meant to be) and drug use & cheating have serious consequences that can be resolved in just a matter of 2 weeks.
I completely hated the advice to "sleep when he sleeps." I only mastered it a few times and mostly found that I was COMPLETELY unready to wake up when he did. Which only meant I was even MORE incapable of caring for him.
ReplyDeleteAlso. I love BH, 90210 and though I watched A LOT of bad TV during my maternity leave, I didn't even think of catching up with what was one of my fave shows!
ReplyDeleteThe worst was when I'd lay down, nurse her, she'd fall asleep, I'd fall asleep...and then wake up and have to sneak away without disturbing her. Oh, but just wait until she's older... ;-)
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