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How Much Sleep We Got with a Newborn

Posted on May 20, 2021May 20, 2021 by Billable Baby

Many parents describe the newborn phase as "a blur." The round-the-clock feedings. The lack of sleep. The terrifying new reality of caring for a helpless, tiny human. When you are in the middle of it, it feels never-ending. You hear that "it gets better," and you wonder, but when?!

Because I love data, I would like to show you exactly how much sleep I got, from my last trimester through the first three months with Billable Baby. My Apple Watch (note: affiliate link) was not perfect at tracking sleep, but I figure these data points from a new mom's sleep schedule might be interesting to other expecting or new parents out there.

Last Week of Pregnancy

I was in the hospital during the last few weeks of my pregnancy on monitoring and mandatory bedrest (more on this in a future entry). In general, it is difficult to get a good night's sleep in the hospital (see YouTuber Doc Schmidt's hilariously accurate take on sleeping in the hospital). Add in the back pain, bladder issues, and baby kicks in the third trimester, and you have these fragmented sleep graphs. My nights were bookended by vital checks, and I was usually woken up at 7am for the nurses' morning shift change or the OBs' rounds. During the hours when no one checked in on me, Billable Baby decided it was a good idea to throw parties in my uterus. Needless to say, the few days when I managed to sneak in one or more morning naps were glorious.

First Full Week Baby is Home

Billable Baby came home a few days before the Sunday on this graph. I should note that my husband and I had (and still have) no in-home help. We got through the first few days on pure adrenaline and almost zero sleep. We eventually figured out how to take shifts. This graph shows the first few rough days when sleep deprivation and hormonal crash hit me like a bus.

One Month Old

What a massive improvement since the last graph! We quickly realized that we have a fairly good sleeper on our hands. Thank you Billable Baby! I was responsible for the 10 pm - 6am shift, which was usually punctuated by two middle-of-the-night ("MOTN") feedings and one pump.

Two Months Old

Over the course of a month, we gradually moved up Billable Baby's bedtime from 11 pm to 9:30/10 pm. When she was eight weeks old, Billable Baby dropped her midnight feed. The MOTN gaps here were actually wider than necessary; I savored those early morning moments of quiet and spent it reading, writing, and researching after Billable Baby went back to bed.

Three Months Old

At week 9, Billable Baby began sleeping 4-5 hour stretches and went down to one MOTN feed (We're lucky! I know!). At week 10, we decided that my husband would start her day with a consistent 7:00 am wake-up, which made the schedule for each day more predictable. For me, 7 hours of punctuated sleep is not ideal, but it is definitely doable for a few months and not significantly worse than a busy stretch at work.

With some trepidation, we are now approaching the so-called four months sleep regression. Who knows? Maybe Billable Baby will continue to surprise us. I look forward to sharing more sleep graphs in a few months' time!

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Billable Baby Blog
This blog chronicles the adventures of two Washington D.C.-based lawyers and their baby daughter ("Billable Baby"). Read more about us here.

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Recent Docket Entries

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https://billablebaby.com/archives/reflections-on-the-first-200-billable-hours-after-parental-leave/
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For those of you who have experienced recent life upheavals with circumstances outside of your control, how did you cope? How are you doing today?
I initially thought that my experience feeding Bil I initially thought that my experience feeding Billable Baby was, to put it mildly, a HOT MESS. As a NICU baby and a preemie, Billable Baby was formula-fed in the beginning. After she came home, she drank formula and expressed milk. After my milk came in fully, she breastfed during the day and at times drank pumped milk from bottles at night. Then, she had nursing strikes and we switched to bottles during the day and nursing at night (if she latches). Having basically experienced every method of feeding a baby on any given day (exclusively formula, exclusively breastfeed, exclusively pumping, combo feeding, triple feeding, quadruple feeding—JK that’s not a thing), I realized that the grass is not always greener on the other side and that there are trade-offs and hidden costs for every method. It took four months, but I finally recognized that my breastfeeding/pumping journey is not a “hot mess”. Rather, it was a blessing for me to have experienced EVERYTHING. I have no idea what next week brings. For this week at least, I’m proud of the 700 minutes I pumped and the chubby little nugget that Billable Baby has become. #breastfeeding #breastfeedingmom #breastfeedingjourney #pumpingmom #exclusivepumping #newborn #breastpump #newmom #lawyermom #lawyermomlife #newparents #triplefeed #pumpingmama #pumpingmilk #combofeeding #triplefeed
New blog post! Link in bio. Do you remember how mu New blog post! Link in bio. Do you remember how much sleep you got when you brought a newborn home? When I asked my friends this, everyone said the newborn phase was a total blur. Since I’m obsessed with data, I used my Apple Watch to track my sleep over the last three months of Billable Baby’s life. Swipe ➡️ to see how much sleep I got during the last week of my pregnancy (I was being monitored in the hospital that whole week), Billable Baby’s first full week home, and then 1️⃣ month, 2️⃣ months, and 3️⃣ months later. These days, I feel so refreshed in comparison to that first week when we had no idea what we were doing and no help raising a baby in a pandemic. To the parents out there, how are you sleeping these days? #babysleep #newborn #pregnancy #pandemicbaby #pandemicpregnancy #sleepdeprived #newmoon #newparents #lawyermom #lawyermomlife #sleeptraining #allnighter #sleeptracker #dcmoms #dcmom #dcmomsblog #mommyblogger
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