Looking back, I am not at all surprised I was anxious during my first year of motherhood. After two pregnancy losses before my pregnancy with O, the beginning of my motherhood journey was spent worrying. On top of that, I was pregnant with O in 2020 and 2021 during the pandemic; naturally another source of anxiety. I naively thought that once O arrived and was safely in my arms that all my anxiety would melt away. And honestly, for the first few months it did. I was thriving in motherhood and was trusting my own instincts along the way. So needless to say, I was not prepared when I started to have anxiety around sleep when O was three months old.
You can read all about O’s sleep during the newborn days here.
But knowing what I know now, I am not at all surprised. I’ve since learned through my certification that a risk factor for postpartum anxiety is having anxiety during pregnancy. I also learned that sleep is a common anxiety trigger for many moms. Sleep anxiety is also a topic that comes up while talking with some of my mom friends. I see it often while working with families. So while my experience isn’t out of the ordinary, I wish more moms didn’t have to go through this.
*If you are reading this and really struggling, PostPartum Support International and Post Partum Support Society are two resources enocourge you to check out if you need immediate support.
May is Maternal Mental Health Month. In honour of this month, I am sharing the five shifts I made during my first year of motherhood to ditch my anxiety around sleep. I can honestly say O’s sleep no longer causes me stress. If you are anxious around baby sleep, I hope you find these five tips helpful.
1. Therapy
Let’s start with an obvious one… therapy. I am a huge advocate for talking with a therapist in all stressful seasons of life, and sometimes motherhood falls into this category. I found a great motherhood-focused therapist when I went through our second pregnancy loss and continued to see her throughout my pregnancy with O and after she was born. I still see her every couple of months (actually, just saw her this past week) to talk through any anxiety that comes up in motherhood or life in general.
It was through talking with my therapist that I came to the realization that despite feeling confident in trusting my intuition, O’s sleep was still a trigger for me. I had found sleep solutions that worked for us, but still worried that I was doing something wrong. And was very worried about what others thoughts about our approach to sleep. I felt like I was doing everything different than my friends.
My therapist gave me the tools to identify when I was feeling anxious and techniques to ground myself when those moments happened. Which led to the four other shifts I made during motherhood to reduce anxiety around baby sleep discussed below.
When looking for a therapist, my number one tip for moms is to find someone who specifically works with mothers. They are more likely to understand your specific struggles. I also recommend going one step further and asking if you can bring your little one to your appointments (if nothing more then to see if they truly get what life with a baby entails.) One of the things that made seeing my therapist easy during motherhood was the fact that I could bring O along if I wanted to. O attended every appointment until she was about eleven months old. I also have the option to do a virtual appointment when needed, and this is very helpful when O has been sick or I when I can’t find someone to look after her while I attend an appointment. Finding someone who is flexible, understands the demands of motherhood and who you feel supported can make the world of difference if you struggle with anxiety.
2. Journalling and Daily Affirmations
Journaling is my go-to when I am feeling anxious. Getting my thoughts “out of my mind” and on paper helps me so much. I have an entire journal filled with anxious thoughts from our TTC days and my pregnancy with O. Once she arrived I found it hard to make the time to journal everyday and was no longer filling pages each entry when I did find the time.
When O was ten months old I started using the Five Minute Journal (linked here, not sponsored) and love it! Of course I still need long open-ended journal time every now and then, but the Five Minute Journal helps me stay on top of getting my thoughts on paper.
One of the most helpful parts of this journal was the prompt to write a daily affirmation. When I am feeling anxious around sleep, I tend to write some of the following affirmations:
“I can cope with this.” – this was a recommendation from my therapist. I write this when I am feeling anxious because of the uncertainty or lack of control that sometimes comes with baby sleep.
“This phase will pass.” – I write this when we are in a particularly difficult sleep phase (teething, separation anxiety or sleep progression).
“I give myself permission to rest if I need to today. Rest is important. Everything else can wait.” – I write this when I am tired after a rough night or feel overwhelmed by my to-do list.
“Comparison is the theIf of joy.” – I write this whenever I find myself worried that O isn’t sleeping as she “should be.” Luckily I haven’t had to write this one in a long time, but I’ll talk about that more in tip 6 & 7.
You don’t need a fancy journal to do this. Even working this into a mindfulness practice can help tremendously. Or simply writing an affirmation on a piece of paper will do the trick.
3. Focus on what you can control
One of the anxiety around sleep triggers I uncovered while talking to my therapist was the uncertainty that comes with baby sleep. What time would she nap? How many times would she be awake at night? Would she fall asleep in the car, stroller, carrier if we decided to go out? All the unknown and lack of control was part of what caused me anxiety. I heard this from some of the moms I work with as well.
One thing that helped me ditch the anxiety around sleep was focusing on all the non-sleep related things in my life I could control. And the non-sleep related focus was key. Not finding the perfect wake window. Not focusing on all the sleep environment elements I could control. For me to let go of my anxiety around sleep I needed to take the focus off sleep all together.
For example, focusing on things I could control like eating nourishing meals, getting in a daily dose of sunshine (you can read all the benefits of time outside here) and moving my body were all things within my control that could help me feel at my best even if I didn’t get a good nights sleep.
I also realized I could control my own sleep habits. I started getting off my phone at night (my husband got me bluelight glasses for Christmas to help with this). I started going to bed a bit earlier. I bought a blue light blocking book light and started reading before bed again. Once I realized I could control my own sleep hygiene it made me feel less overwhelmed by the uncertainty around O’s sleep. By focusing on all that I could do to feel less tired, I knew I had plenty within my control if we had a rough night. And once I felt like I had a bit of control, a rough night didn’t seem so stressful.
4. Curate your social media
Following the right accounts on social media was an important step in releasing the anxiety that I was feeling around sleep. As I shared in my first blog post (click here) I took a popular newborn sleep course when I was pregnant for O. This sleep trainer (who I didn’t even realize was a sleep trainer) was the only account I followed on Instagram until O was six months old.
Even though I ditched the program really quickly because it didn’t align with how I felt about sleep, I didn’t unfollow the account for quite some time. Her page, among others I didn’t follow (thanks to Instagram’s algorithm) popped up on my screen daily. Every day I saw posts that caused me to second guess my instincts. I was consuming content of babies taking two-hour naps in their crib, with perfect schedules and sleeping through the night.
And O wasn’t doing any of that.
It didn’t matter that I loved contact napping and baby wearing, or that our daily walk where O napped in her stroller brought me so much joy, I thought I was tackling naps wrong. I felt ashamed for bedsharing, because all I saw was babies sleeping in their own beds.
Over time, as I researched normal infant sleep, I started found new accounts. Ones that resonated with my experience with sleep and validated my instincts. They presented research that made sense from a biological and attachment perspective. Most of them were certified through Isla Grace Sleep, which is what led me to enrolling in their certification program.
I no longer felt like I was doing it all wrong, and I no longer felt isolated. Like I was the only one doing things “this way.”
And eventually, I unfollowed the one I’d been following since my pregnancy. And it was so freeing! My daily scroll through instagram no longer causes me to stress about sleep. Instead it gave me confidence that my intuition was spot on and I enjoyed seeing other moms who felt similar as I did about sleep.
I know I am not the only one who feels this way. I talk to so many moms who have felt that their baby isn’t sleeping as they should be because of something they’ve seen on social media. Social media is fantastic, but we need to be mindful of how the content we consume makes us feel. There are so many posts showing ideal schedules for a certain age, and picture perfect posts of babies sleeping in their cribs. There is also lots of misinformation on there that go against moms instincts.
If something makes you feel like you’re doing it all wrong, get curious WHY you feel that way. And look into the person you are following. I encourage you to put whatever boundaries you need in place. Delete, block or mute any accounts that make you feel anxious about sleep. And find ones that align with your values.
5. Educate yourself on normal infant sleep
Of all the tips and shifts, this is the one that had the greatest impact for me. Learning all about normal infant sleep is what allowed me to finally ditch my anxiety around sleep. I spent hours during O’s first year of life reading all things baby sleep and once I realized that O was overall a pretty normal sleeper I was able to fully let go of my anxiety around her sleep.
I am so grateful that I had the time and passion for research to educate myself on what sleep really looks like for babies and toddlers. But so many moms don’t have time (or desire) to. Or they don’t realize that there are even other options out there aside from sleep training.
And this is why I started Intuitive Baby Sleep. My experience fueled my passion for educating parents on normal infant sleep, helping parents get more sleep without sleep training and empowering moms to trust their intuition. I want more moms to know what it really means to “sleep like a baby” (or toddler) and know there are so many options aside from “cry it out” or “wait it out.” My mission is to create a world where moms feel confident trusting their intuition and ultimately stress less about their baby’s sleep.
I truly believe that if more moms knew what was normal (and also just as importantly, what is a red flag) in their baby’s sleep they would feel more confident in their motherhood journey.
