How Much Sleep Do You Need to Feel Your Best?

I need 8-9 hours uninterrupted to feel really good. Now that my kids are 4 and 8, that often happens. When i was nursing, that never happened and I was constantly exhausted. I was tempted by caffeine, but my LO had enough tummy issues. I didn't want to add that to the mix.

Hang in there! It will get better!

Oh, those younger years were just a sleepless blur. I never, ever felt refreshed - how can you when you sleep for only 1-3 hours before you get woken up again? When my kids were babies, I was probably in bed at around midnight and up at 7 with one or two night wakings in between. Actually with my oldest, his colic would keep him fussing until around 2 AM and I had to get up at 5:30 AM for work. I napped a lot in my car those days.

For me, co-sleeping helped to minimize how "woken" I felt when night nursing so if you don't do that already, you might get some relief by moving the baby into your room or into your bed until your baby sleeps longer.

Now that I'm approaching 40, I do best on 7-8 hours of sleep but one day a week I average only 4 hours due to an early morning hockey practice for one of my kids. When I was younger, 7 felt glorious but I routinely got by with 6. Everyone is different through - one of my sisters can't get by with less than 8 on a regular basis so she hired a night nanny when she had her babies LOL. It never occurred to me that you could hire your way out of new baby exhaustion but apparently anything, including a good night's sleep, can be purchased ;-)

That's a tough cycle you have started, with waking baby and sleep through it all husband.

How old is your baby? If baby is over 6 months or 10 lbs, you should be able to have fewer awakenings.

A few ideas:

- have your husband retrieve the baby and change diapers through the night. After nursing, have him put the baby back down, but if he's not been doing that the baby will probably not be too happy with this new arrangement - for awhile. Stick with it though. Even if your husband committed to doing this every other night, you would get more sleep, every other night and start to feel less sleep deprived.

- have you considered co-sleeping and nursing lying down. Of course this depends upon the size of your bed and your personal beliefs.

And personally I need 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep several nights a week. I can go on 6 hours, but it must be followed by a longer sleep the following night. Otherwise I'm toast. Toast with lots of strong tea.

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I have gotten 8-1/2 hours a night since my son first slept through the night at 16 weeks, 3 days (yes, I knew that to the day). Before then DH and I were walking zombies. Worst sleep deprivation since my internship. Why on earth are you doing all the nighttime care by yourself. DH and I split it. If it was before 2 am, it was his. If it was after 2 am, it was mine. I am non-functional when woken soon after going to bed, so this worked for us. If you are breast feeding, you can pump and DH can do 1/2 the nighttime care.

If you are going to bed at 9, DH can do all the nighttime wakings until say 2 am. That gives you at least 5 uninterrupted hours. He gets from 2 am until whenever he generally wakes up - let's say 7 am. The sleep deprivation s*cks - there is no way completely around that - but it shouldn't be just you.

If I can get 6 hours straight of good sleep I am ok. But my optimal is 9 hours.

Lack of sleep was the main reason we only had 1. I am terrible without sleep. And my husband is dead to the world while asleep.

Maybe it was our age. We were 30 when our daughter was born. I noticed, younger couples seem to fare a lot better with lack of sleep due to infants.

I do best with 7 1/2 hours of sleep each night but that was never possible when mine were little. I read once that you really need at least 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep to be able to function well and that seemed to be true for me. Even if I was in bed for 8 hours or more and was woken up every 2-3 hours I was still dog tired.

so instead of your husband sleeping through it all, why don't you wake HIM when the baby wakes up and have him do part of the baby care?
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khairete
S. (who needs a good 8 hours and prefers more)

Yikes - you are totally sleep deprived! It's not the number of hours - it's how much time you get in REM sleep. I'm sorry your newborn is getting you up so often - I know they have to eat a lot and feeding on demand is kind of what you have to do. But if you are in bed from 9 PM until 7 AM (the 10 hours your husband is talking about) and the newborn is feeding every 2-3 hours or so (if he's up 4 times, let's say you're nursing at 12, 2, 4 and 6 or so), you're only getting 1.5 hours of sleep at a clip (assuming 30 minutes for nursing and changing a diaper or two). That's just not sustainable.

Is there any way you could consider pumping so that your husband can feed him? I realize it would take a few elbows into his side to get him to get up with the baby (!) but you really can't function the way you are! Caffeine only helps in short bursts because then you get the crash. If you are home during the day, you can try napping when the older kids are in school, but you're still only getting a few hours of sleep at a clip, and that's just not safe.

I usually get 6-7 hours a night. Any less and I'm not much good to anyone. I don't drink caffeine but I do use cellular nutrition and a safe product for focus. If I get more than 9 hours, I'm actually pretty groggy for the rest of the day. I do believe in naps on a Sunday afternoon!

I used to go to bed at 9pm too bc of what you describe. I had to be at work early too. I like 8 hours or even a bit more. I really love sleep. I can be ok on 7 but it seems to depend on quality of course. I used to sleep 10 hours regularly! Are you nursing? My husband used to do a "dream feed" around 11pm so hopefully I was woken less later. He's also a late night person who can sleep like the dead and be totally fine on 6 hours. Can your husband do that feeding? Seems a bit unbalanced how you're doing it now unless maybe you're napping a lot during the day...

My husband snoozed right through feedings too. However, if I was really needing sleep, I'd just kick him and have him take over for at least one feeding, so I'd have extra time to sleep. We also had my son in his crib at two weeks, so we would feed him in his room, and then go back to bed. I would get at least 4 hours at night, and sleep three hours during day. Once he was a month old, he slept through the night. Then it was 6 hours, then 8. Now he is 11, and wakes up before me! I need at least 7 to function. 9 is best.

No wonder you are tired. We co-slept so lack of sleep wasn't an issue for me.

How much sleep I needs varies wildly by what the day before was like. There are times when I only need 5 or 6 hours of sleep but I probably average closer to 7 or 8 hours.

Where we live the master bedroom is on the second floor but not our kids. It is a pain because we gate off the stairs for safety and almost nightly we wake up to someone knocking at the base of the stairs to come up.

I really like having 7 to 8 hours of sleep. More is nice, too!

A couple of ideas that might help. If you kids go to bed at a consistent time (and that's a big if) you could try taking Melatonin to help you get to sleep. Take it about an hour before bed, and it will really help you relax so that you can get to sleep. It's not like a sleeping pill, so it shouldn't make getting up for baby any harder than it already is (and I know that's hard). It also shouldn't make you drowsy in the morning .. well, any more than usual :-)

Have you ever tried nursing your baby in bed? That was a lifesaver for me!!! I would pick him up the first time he woke, place him in bed next to me, lie down next to him, latch him on and fall right back to sleep. I would usually just leave him there the rest of the night, but when he woke again to eat he was right there and I didn't have to get out of bed! You'd have to be ok with co-sleeping, but for us it was so worth it!!!

My son didn't sleep through the night until he was over a year old, so when he was a baby, I was usually up at least twice a night to nurse. I'm single, so it was just me. He's 8 now and isn't up during the night unless he's sick. I usually go to bed around 12-1 and get up at 6, so I'm good on 5. Even if I go to bed early, I will still naturally wake up after about 5 hours and it takes me about an hour to go back to bed. On the weekends, I usually take a long nap on Saturday and a short nap on Sunday. If I don't get the naps on the weekend, I'm usually shot on Monday.

I like to get a solid seven hours. If I wake up for any reason, even to pee, I don't feel rested. My husband sleeps five hours and my kids sleep nine hours.

When my kids were babies I cut out night feedings at about six months of age, so I could sleep for about a six hour stretch a night.

I am probably not a good measuring stick as I often function on 3 to 4 hours. Best for me is between 5 and 6. Beyond 7 hours, I wake up feeling sluggish and slow. I'm a night owl by nature, but I also like the quiet of morning and my days start early, so sleep is one thing that gets sacrificed. I'm trying to do better as I know sleep is important.

In your case, when you have a nursing infant, sleep deprivation is just part of it. My little guy never seemed to sleep more than 1 1/2 hours during those early nursing months. I was quite exhausted much of the time, and when I went back to work, it was really difficult at first.

People used to tell me to rest when the baby naps, but I never did. It was always one more load of laundry or dishes or a moment for myself to try and read (I was often so sleepy, reading was a monumental task)! But, if I had it to do over, I would have listened to those sages and tried to power nap. Maybe you can do that during the day, if you're not working outside the home? Get the other little ones out the door; get tasks done while baby is awake, and then rest when baby naps.

I'd like to be able to tell you it will be better soon, but I don't know how old your baby is. Once the baby starts to sleep in more solid blocks, you'll feel better. Until that time, go easy on yourself and rest when you can. You may want to check out the book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," by Marc Weissbluth, M.D. It was really helpful book on family sleep habits.

Good luck and rest when you can!

J. F.

I'm good on 5 hours but I shoot for 6-7. And I can do an all-nighter once in awhile (like with a sick kid) and power through the next day just fine. I try to fall asleep between 10-11 and I wake up sometimes 5:30 sometimes 6:30 depending on the childcare plans for the day. I could always get more sleep! But I seem to function just fine on the minimum.

But night after night of being woken 3-4 times for nursing... I could probably handle it for short time only... like when there is a new baby in the house and I'm on maternity leave with no JOB... how old is your baby? I don't remember getting up more than once a night after about 6 weeks. Usually I would start to feel better as soon as I could get that one long chunk of 4 hours somewhere in the middle of the night nursing. What is your longest stretch? Can't be much if is 3-4 sessions of nursing a night.

I would be tired too! We co-slept with our babies (no long term issues with that) and I nursed as well. If they needed to nurse I could do it half asleep.

Otherwise my husband was great with changing diapers at night, rocking baby if they were fussy, whatever.

He can operate on 4 hours and I need 8. I honestly think your husband needs to help a little more -even if you are a stay at home mom. You will be better to EVERYONE if you can even skip just one of the night time wakings.

Now? I go to sleep around 9-930, I get up at 515 for work. Fortunately, I rarely have trouble falling asleep, but sometimes I do.

Oooof, I need so much sleep! And I rarely get it. To feel good by 6:40am when I get everyone up for school, I need to be falling asleep by 10pm. I'm a single mom, so I'm the only one who ever et interrupted sleep! :)

Bit of advice: If your baby is over 3 months old, be sure you stuff stuff stuff him with food so he can sleep through night. If he's still exclusively nursing, you may have to wait since that's not very filling, but if you are supplementing formula or food, feed him ALL DAY LONG (not only just before bed) so his body gets more satisfied and doesn't wake. It takes about three days of increased food before his body will realize he's not hungry during night and he'll stay asleep!

***just read SWH: Stuff him with tons of food all day! He'll stay asleep after a few days. My first was waking for over a year before my cousin (mother of ten) taught me that trick. My second two slept like rocks from 3 months because I fed fed fed them. And whenever I slacked and missed some snacks....they woke up during night.

The truth is that you are not getting enough sleep. Since you are waking up to nurse your child you are not getting that uninterrupted sleep you need.

I assume you're home with the baby during the day since you didn't mention having issues with being tired at work so you should lay down and nap every time your child lays down for a nap. You need as much sleep as you can get.

When my grandson was younger and still waking up several times during the night, he was a toddler by the way, I all but collapsed one day. I sat down on his bed to dress him and couldn't move. So I forced myself to get up and call a friend for help. She came over and I promptly fell asleep and slept for about 6 hours. You need a break too. I suggest you get a family member or friend to take the baby during the day or stay at your house during the day and they let you go crash.

Your immune system will break and you won't be able to feed the baby because you'll be on high power antibiotics and possibly antivirals and not be able to pass that on. So you have to get some rest. Pump, give them your milk, go to bed and sleep. Tell hubby to shut up and let you sleep round the clock if you need it.

I sleep about 6 hours per night and do well on that.

I would be completely satisfied with 4. If I ever got that! Right now, I'm running on 6 hours in 3 days! Coffee is my best friend! Lol

I would put in him in another room and stop night nursings. I did this recently. Sucked but worth it. Make hubby go in but not pick him up. Baby will get hint no more boob at night. Put multiple pacifiers in crib if he takes one so he can find it at night.

Five hours. I think you need to do some sleep training with your baby. Too old to be getting up 3 or 4 times. That will solve the problem and you could get some sleep.