Latest / Bright Star Kids Parenting Podcast / Episode 1: How to Actually Sleep When You Have a Newborn

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Episode 1: How to Actually Sleep When You Have a Newborn · Bright Star Kids Parenting Podcast

• 0:00
  Dimity: Welcome to the Bright Star Kids Parenting Podcast.
• 0:02
  Dimity: Hi, I'm Dimity and this is Susan and today we're going to be talking about our own sleep or the lack of it.
• 0:09
  Dimity: We're going to be talking about what a good sleep looks like, sleep disruptions, who's getting up to the kids and spoiler alert, it's probably you.
• 0:16
  Susan: So Dimity, how's your week been?
• 0:18
  Dimity: Good question, Sue.
• 0:21
  Dimity: I am sleep-deprived.
• 0:23
  Dimity: Very sleep deprived.
• 0:26
  Dimity: It's been a hard week at our house a hard couple of weeks really um sickness um...
• 0:30
  Susan: Snotty noses?
• 0:30
  Dimity: Snotty noses not getting a good night's sleep everything yeah everything.
• 0:37
  Susan: It's so tough isn't it?
• 0:38
  Dimity: Yeah, Louie's learning some new things so he's in like a bit of a developmental leap at the moment so his sleep is pretty shocking.
• 0:45
  Dimity: Poppy's sleep is shocking it's just been it's been a lot so...
• 0:49
  Susan: Well I've been there and I'm sure so many mums that are looking or listening to this they are so sleep-deprived too they are trying to get their coffee into them, some kind of caffeine.
• 1:00
  Dimity: Yeah I don't know how many coffees I've drank in the last, like I feel like my addiction has skyrocketed in the last couple of weeks, it's been crazy.
• 1:07
  Susan: But, you know, I'm a mum of a 13- year- old, and it does get better.
• 1:17
  Susan: There is light at the end of the tunnel.
• 1:19
  Susan: And I'm actually really lucky, and I don't want to be bragging, but I have had the nicest night's sleep last night.
• 1:27
  Susan: But, you know, these are the things that you just deal with.
• 1:32
  Susan: As a new mum of little kids, you've got just the whole waking up and they need you, especially when they're sick.
• 1:42
  Dimity: Yeah, sickness is a really big one.
• 1:44
  Dimity: It's really hard.
• 1:45
  Susan: It is.
• 1:46
  Susan: It really is.
• 1:47
  Susan: So I'm feeling you.
• 1:48
  Susan: Don't worry.
• 1:49
  Susan: And then you have to get up for work, which is the thing that, like, mums, they just have to get on with it.
• 1:56
  Susan: You know, you can't, not like when you're in your 20s or whenever.
• 2:00
  Susan: Before you had kids thinking, oh, it doesn't matter if I don't have a good night's sleep, but maybe I'll just have a lay- in.
• 2:06
  Susan: You can't do that.
• 2:07
  Dimity: You can't do that.
• 2:07
  Dimity: No, I don't remember the last time I had a decent night's sleep.
• 2:11
  Susan: Sleep for me is absolutely, I think, like the biggest thing that new parents, if you could gift them anything, it is sleep.
• 2:18
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 2:19
  Susan: I would just remember one time, I think Jamie was around two, and me and Nigel ended up being able to go to Japan for a week.
• 2:26
  Dimity: Oh, wow.
• 2:27
  Dimity: By yourselves.
• 2:28
  Susan: Yeah.
• 2:28
  Susan: So his parents minded Jamie.
• 2:30
  Susan: And do you know what we did?
• 2:32
  Dimity: Slept.
• 2:33
  Susan: We slept.
• 2:33
  Susan: We basically had the most beautiful hotel room with the most comfortable bed, and we spent most of the time sleeping.
• 2:42
  Dimity: Sounds like a dream.
• 2:42
  Susan: The weather was pretty crap outside too.
• 2:42
  Dimity: Okay well that that made it easier, then.
• 2:45
  Susan: So we also went down to the bar and had I sampled all the cocktails which was great cocktails and sleep perfect holiday when you have a toddler, and there's I'm sure there's many of you out there who will be dreaming of that thinking that will be amazing.
• 3:00
  Dimity: Me.
• 3:00
  Susan: I had a friend actually who in my mum's group years ago and for Mother's Day she said to her husband she just wants to get a hotel room for herself yeah that was her treat. So her husband stayed at home with the kids and she got her a hotel room by herself yeah and she just binged what whatever she wanted, she slept she had a whole good night's sleep, and I remember thinking that a bit strange but now I'm like I told you together I think you're actually genius I think more mums out there should say actually for Mother's Day that is what I want.
• 3:33
  Dimity: I did that for my birthday when Poppy was uh one just ...
• 3:38
  Susan: Okay.
• 3:38
  Dimity: And I said I want to spend two nights I said...
• 3:38
  Susan: Oh wow!
• 3:38
  Dimity: And I did I got two nights in Sydney by myself but...
• 3:44
  Susan: Just by yourself?
• 3:44
  Dimity: By myself.
• 3:44
  Susan: No, what did you do?
• 3:44
  Dimity: I like I slept I was I spent the whole time in bed, um, I ordered food I didn't like it was so good but the only thing was about a week prior I found out I was pregnant with Louie so really I wasn't alone I didn't get that time alone I was there was there's always someone with me.
• 4:03
  Susan: So that's probably your last time when you've had a really good night's sleep .
• 4:09
  Dimity: Probably.
• 4:09
  Susan: How long goes that two years ago?
• 4:09
  Dimity: Yeah, almost.
• 4:09
  Susan: You need to book another room.
• 4:14
  Dimity: I know I did go to Melbourne recently but that was ...
• 4:17
  Susan: By yourself or?
• 4:17
  Dimity: Yeah, I went to visit a friend by myself um but I wouldn't say I got the best night's sleep.
• 4:21
  Susan: Okay, you party too much.
• 4:21
  Dimity: No, absolutely not.
• 4:27
  Dimity: I don't do that.
• 4:27
  Dimity: No, just not being at home, not being in my own bed.
• 4:32
  Susan: Yeah, I do love my own bed.
• 4:34
  Susan: It's nice, isn't it?
• 4:35
  Susan: Pillow and everything is just smells right.
• 4:39
  Dimity: I know.
• 4:39
  Dimity: And I sit here and I complain, but then I think to myself.
• 4:41
  Dimity: You know, if I didn't have a little a little arm around me in the mornings, I probably would miss it.
• 4:48
  Susan: So I think that's the thing.
• 4:49
  Susan: Like, you know, we can complain all the time, but we always one of the ways to get through life is with gratitude.
• 4:56
  Susan: Yeah, I know it sounds a bit.
• 4:57
  Susan: But it is true.
• 4:59
  Susan: The research is there.
• 5:00
  Susan: So whenever you are feeling really kind of grumpy or you know it's just remember that the reason why you are tired is because you've got the most precious person or people, yeah, who are thinking that you are amazing.
• 5:10
  Dimity: Everything you're their world.
• 5:14
  Susan: Because once you've got a teenager like I do they start realising that you're not so amazing you're not such a super mum or yeah a cool person to want to hang out with all the time but your day will come so appreciate it while you have it yeah right?
• 5:30
  Susan: So Dimity, let's talk about babies, newborn babies. How many times do they wake us up?
• 5:34
  Dimity: Yeah, I mean it's obviously different for a lot of people but um you can't, I can't count on one hand.
• 5:38
  Susan: You have to at least be four times a night.
• 5:42
  Dimity: Yeah, definitely, definitely. In those early months.
• 5:46
  Susan: Sleep-deprived I was absolutely wrecked, yeah I've got wow.
• 5:52
  Dimity: Yeah, I've got pictures of me that I've taken where I'm like, you know, I've got Louie asleep and it's just like my eyes I'm so so um the bags under my eyes are just crazy, yeah, eyes not even open properly.
• 6:05
  Dimity: It's just...
• 6:05
  Susan: I remember well, I think we talked about this before, um, Jamie would not sleep and it was like the early days especially the first month he just wasn't getting enough milk that was the problem but I didn't really know it at that point yeah and, um, just yeah just lack of sleep he would just basically once the the kind of dusk would come he kind of like became a werewolf.
• 6:28
  Dimity: Yeah
• 6:28
  Susan: Um, and just, I was really anxious coming up to that time of day.
• 6:36
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 6:36
  Susan: Because during the day it was fine.
• 6:37
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 6:38
  Susan: But, oh, in the evening.
• 6:39
  Dimity: It's like the night time scaries.
• 6:40
  Susan: So bad.
• 6:41
  Susan: And, like, Nigel would drive out at, like, 4 a.
• 6:45
  Susan: m.
• 6:45
  Susan: just to get me to have a little bit of a sleep.
• 6:48
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Susan: But, yeah, like, we got through that first month.
• 6:51
  Susan: And, oh, I'm so grateful that I never had to do that again.
• 6:54
  Susan: Hence, I only had one kid.
• 6:55
  Dimity: Uh- huh.
• 6:58
  Susan: But I still remember it. I still remember like it was yesterday.
• 6:58
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 7:01
  Susan: And but yeah you get through, you know, the first while and they're kind of like four or more times they wake you up.
• 7:06
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 7:06
  Susan: You're just a zombie.
• 7:10
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 7:10
  Susan: Walking at night.
• 7:10
  Dimity: It's just about survival really.
• 7:14
  Dimity: The only way that I can put it yeah it's just survival.
• 7:14
  Susan: I think my sister she had four children and I think I have probably at least a decade that she didn't have a good night's sleep.
• 7:23
  Dimity: It's crazy.
• 7:23
  Susan: It's so hard, isn't it?
• 7:24
  Dimity: It's so hard, yeah.
• 7:25
  Susan: You get over the first few months, it gets a bit better.
• 7:28
  Dimity: Yeah, it does.
• 7:29
  Susan: They kind of start doing maybe two times a night.
• 7:31
  Susan: Then you kind of start going to like one time in the night.
• 7:35
  Susan: Then you start getting a bit like, optimist and thinking wow how exciting I might actually be close to getting a good night's sleep.
• 7:41
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 7:41
  Susan: Then eventually, they drop it. I can't even remember when that was when they just...
• 7:45
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 7:45
  Susan: Like could sleep all the way through.
• 7:49
  Dimity: I know.
• 7:49
  Susan: I actually think for the first five years, Jamie probably only did that like a handful of times.
• 7:56
  Dimity: Wow.
• 7:56
  Susan: Okay, yeah, he always and we'll talk about this in a little bit um but yeah he would always end up in our bed.
• 8:01
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 8:01
  Susan: And you're still going through this.
• 8:06
  Dimity: Yeah I am.
• 8:06
  Susan: So, like, tell us about the bed.
• 8:12
  Susan: Because there's so many mums and dads out there will be nodding, going, yeah.
• 8:16
  Susan: I know we shouldn't be doing it.
• 8:18
  Susan: We shouldn't be having our kids in the bed with us.
• 8:21
  Susan: But it's huge.
• 8:22
  Susan: I think, like way more than not, yeah, end up having kids in the bed.
• 8:24
  Dimity: Definitely, Poppy was um actually a great sleeper when she was a baby.
• 8:28
  Susan: Okay.
• 8:28
  Dimity: So I was pretty lucky in that regard she was sleeping through the night with no wakes in about eight weeks so I can't complain about the newborn stage with her too much but then that kind of set up a false sense of security for me. I was thinking, "Yes, I've won the the the jackpot here." She's a unicorn baby she's perfect and then Louie came along and I thought, "Great, it's going to be the exact same" and it just was not.
• 9:00
  Susan: Okay.
• 9:00
  Dimity: It was not the same he woke up multiple times a night, um, and I had a toddler to deal with in the morning plus a newborn and I just thought to myself I can't, I'm like for the safety of my children and myself I actually need to sleep so it got to the point where we were bringing Louie into our bed yeah because it was just that was the only one we were going to get.
• 9:22
  Susan: Same with me, 100%, like he was such as a one of the midwives called him a sucky baby. And he just wanted to be on me all the time.
• 9:33
  Susan: Even during the day, I could not put him down.
• 9:36
  Susan: He would cry.
• 9:37
  Susan: So I used to put him in a sling.
• 9:39
  Susan: And my house was so clean because I literally wasn't able to sit down with him.
• 9:42
  Susan: He would cry.
• 9:43
  Susan: So I would have to walk around constantly, especially for the first month.
• 9:47
  Susan: Constantly doing that.
• 9:48
  Susan: Every spot was clean I couldn't do anything else, yeah, so same with the night time then he basically like just um I would have a bassinet beside me, um, but he would just cry and it was just I couldn't um avoid really just having him with me and I was so tired so he would he would sleep in between me and Nigel. We had we had a king- size bed so there was lots of room and but I know a lot of people you know they recommend not doing it, and of course, you're always so scared yeah, I actually had I was so sleep-deprived I had a hallucination.
• 10:12
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 10:12
  Susan: Like literally, because I have a very overactive imagination anyway at the best of times.
• 10:28
  Susan: So I was dreaming that Jamie was like at the bottom of our bed, underneath the covers.
• 10:34
  Susan: And actually at that point he wasn't even in our bed, he was actually in the bassinet.
• 10:38
  Susan: Um, but yeah, the crazy dreams and just you can't get a good night's sleep because you're so over anxious and so worried about this little person that you are in you know fully in like protective mode of but at the same time you want to get some sleep because you're so sleep-deprived, um, and you're not thinking correctly.
• 10:55
  Dimity: No.
• 10:55
  Susan: You know like sleep deprivation is basically a torture technique that they use in the military.
• 11:06
  Susan: Exactly.
• 11:07
  Susan: And us parents are going through it like every year you know.
• 11:11
  Dimity: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 11:11
  Susan: Yeah, and so like you just do what you can exactly get a good night's sleep you do yeah you do whatever it takes.
• 11:18
  Dimity: Yeah, and there's a lot of people who will you know say it's a bad habit you get it if you bring them into your bed as a baby they're never gonna leave they're gonna be in your bed forever.
• 11:28
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 11:28
  Dimity: But you're not going to have a 13-year-old.
• 11:28
  Susan: And I am proof of that.
• 11:28
  Dimity: In your bed like it's exactly.
• 11:31
  Susan: That's the thing I think Jamie like he, we would always try and when he would um go to bed we'd put him in his cart or his toddler bed and do the whole sleep routine and that was another thing like,
• 11:44
  Dimity: Oh, god..
• 11:44
  Susan: You're so sleep-deprived. For me I like, I wish I could have just said okay you're going to bed, you know, give him a kiss bedtime story whatever and then we're going never worked.
• 11:57
  Dimity: No.
• 11:57
  Susan: I had to lie down with him so it was either me or Nigel would lie down with him and he would take forever to go to sleep and so by the time he went to sleep...
• 12:04
  Dimity: You were asleep.
• 12:04
  Susan: Yeah, we were asleep too and so you'd wake up with like a stiff neck yeah um but but eventually he would be and he you'd have to creep out because you know if he heard the creaky floor you'd, you'd have to go start the whole routine again.
• 12:20
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 12:20
  Susan: It's so that happened multiple times.
• 12:20
  Dimity: Yeah, I'm living that right now that's yeah right now yeah.
• 12:23
  Susan: Yeah, it's a joy isn't it? And I had a nanny for a little bit she helped like every like two or three times here and there she was like the super nanny and she would just be able to like say, "Jaime..."
• 12:35
  Dimity: Oh, yeah you've said that.
• 12:35
  Susan: Yeah "go to sleep" and off she'd go.
• 12:38
  Dimity: Of course.
• 12:38
  Susan: So it's not the child. It was me obviously I or me and Nigel. Anyway, so we would always put him to bed and we'd have a little bit of time ourselves, quality time to, you know, watch TV or whatever it was that we're doing.
• 12:55
  Susan: We'd go to bed and with it, I don't know when it would happen.
• 12:59
  Susan: It might be midnight.
• 13:00
  Susan: It might be 2 a.
• 13:02
  Susan: m.
• 13:02
  Susan: It might be whatever.
• 13:02
  Susan: He would always end up crying and then he would end up coming to bed with us.
• 13:08
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 13:08
  Susan: And it might have been a nappy that had to be changed or things like that but we could never get him back to sleep once he woke up.
• 13:13
  Susan: So every single morning, without fail, for at least the first five years of his life, he ended up being in bed with us and that is so common.
• 13:22
  Susan: I think there is way more people with that story than the ones who are like, "Oh no, I've never had my child sleeping in our bed."
• 13:27
  Dimity: Exactly.
• 13:27
  Susan: And great, if you are the one of those parents who have managed to figure out you absolutely there's no way, and there are some people who do have rules.
• 13:35
  Dimity: Yes, yes.
• 13:38
  Susan: There is no children allowed in this bed.
• 13:38
  Dimity: I would fight that with Poppy.
• 13:40
  Susan: Yeah.
• 13:40
  Dimity: Really even I think even if she was a bad sleeper I would have said no like she's not being in our bed safe sleep, you know.
• 13:45
  Susan: Yeah.
• 13:45
  Dimity: But it changed, it changed the second time around.
• 13:54
  Susan: But they're both okay.
• 13:55
  Susan: And of course, you know, safety is so important.
• 13:58
  Susan: We're just telling you our stories, our experiences.
• 14:03
  Susan: And around that kind of five, six mark is when we were able to kind of go to Jamie, "No.
• 14:09
  Susan: That's it."
• 14:09
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 14:09
  Susan: You're done.
• 14:10
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 14:10
  Susan: And yeah, he's never, never come into our bed ever again.
• 14:14
  Dimity: Exactly.
• 14:14
  Susan: So there is hope on the horizon for you.
• 14:14
  Dimity: Yeah well Poppy obviously we never co- slept with poppy um and she now comes into our bed yeah whereas Louis he as a baby we co- slept with him and he sleeps in his cot fine through the night. Just you know there's no rhyme or reason to it. There's no rhyme or reason.
• 14:30
  Susan: Yeah.
• 14:30
  Dimity: But yeah, so Poppy at the moment is coming into our bed she'll wake up about well any time in the night it can be just just when we finally put our heads down, gone to sleep, we'll hear the door open and we think, "Oh god, oh god!".
• 14:44
  Dimity: And we've also got a dog in our bed too.
• 14:46
  Dimity: So there's just, there's a lot of, there's a lot of bodies in one space and Poppy likes to hike a leg up on us and wrap herself around us which I mean it is...
• 14:53
  Susan: You're like her teddy bear.
• 14:57
  Dimity: It is sweet but sometimes I just think "Oh, my god".
• 14:57
  Susan: Especially when you're so tired.
• 15:01
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 15:01
  Susan: I've actually been really lucky I've had so many good night's sleeps. I am so sorry you're so jealous of me now.
• 15:09
  Dimity: Every time, every time you say it I just think, "Oh, my god, no."
• 15:12
  Susan: But anyway I will tell you a few nights ago I did have a terrible night's sleep because Tessie, my dog, um decided that she just wanted to have her wander around and we've got wooden floors so all you can hear is tick, tick, clip, clip, bum, bum and she'd go out and walk around the house and then she was going to the doggy door and going out for a middle wee in the middle of the night to come back in and then she ended up trying to hop up onto our bed. Now, we have an absolutely-no-dog rule on our bed so there was no way so I put her back down and she then was just kept wandering and she ended up sleeping on the couch. Random! But it was so annoying and then like you're constantly you're listening you're like you can't go back to sleep because you're thinking, "Oh, I wonder is she okay?" And you're and you get up and you're really looking at her like, "What are you doing?" Anyway, the next night I decided maybe she was cold.
• 16:08
  Susan: So I have this cute cute little like I don't know where I bought it from.
• 16:14
  Susan: It's like a construction outfit, you know, the construction workers that have the high- vis vest?
• 16:18
  Susan: I don't know where I bought it, but anyway, it has a little fleece lining.
• 16:22
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 16:22
  Susan: And so I put that on her, so it looks like she's going to work every night.
• 16:26
  Susan: And it's really cute.
• 16:28
  Susan: And that has solved it.
• 16:29
  Dimity: Wow.
• 16:30
  Susan: So and I put a little bit of a, I give her my old dressing gown too, so she likes the smell of me.
• 16:36
  Susan: So she sleeps on that too, and then I put it over her bum.
• 16:41
  Susan: She had a fantastic night's sleep ever since she did that.
• 16:45
  Dimity: She sounds like a baby.
• 16:47
  Susan: She is.
• 16:47
  Dimity: Those are things that you can do.
• 16:48
  Dimity: You know, check your baby's not too cold.
• 16:51
  Dimity: Give them something that smells like you.
• 16:53
  Dimity: Sounds like an actual baby.
• 16:54
  Susan: She does.
• 16:55
  Susan: So that's been my sleep disrupter um and nothing in comparison to what you're going through and I'm sorry but you are but there's so many mums out there who are going to be like, "Yeah that's me and I'm even worse than you."
• 17:07
  Dimity: Yeah, exactly. I'm sure I'm lucky.
• 17:07
  Susan: Yeah, well like you're also at the moment going through some colds so there snotty nose...
• 17:15
  Dimity: Snotty nose, it's been constant through winter. There's just I'm pretty sure daycare, yeah, I'm pretty sure they've had snotty noses for weeks. I don't remember the last time any of us were healthy.
• 17:23
  Susan: It feels like forever like it'll never end and then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh yeah, I've been feeling pretty good, actually."
• 17:32
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 17:32
  Susan: And teething any teething issues?
• 17:37
  Dimity: Uh, Louie, Louie's teething so Poppy's got all of her teeth because she's obviously yeah three um but but Louie it does affect him sometimes. For Poppy, it never affected her. I would just look in her mouth and there'd be a tooth and I was like okay great but Louis, no Louie um it really affects him and he'll cry in the middle of the night.
• 17:54
  Susan: Yeah.
• 17:54
  Dimity: Um, he was really affected by his snotty nose as well.
• 17:58
  Susan: Okay.
• 17:58
  Dimity: And he'll sometimes just sit up and all of a sudden he's screaming and you've got to run in there and wipe his nose we actually have a trick where we have to flick the light on to calm him down first thing which is very strange because you don't want to do that you don't want to stimulate them but if he's not coming down we'll flick the light on his stops instantly, flip the light back off, and he's back to sleep.
• 18:19
  Dimity: It's so strange.
• 18:20
  Susan: That's amazing, isn't it?
• 18:21
  Susan: So, Dimity, another question I think is, you know, who gets up in the middle of the night in your house?
• 18:27
  Susan: Because I know a huge amount of people will say me as in the mum.
• 18:33
  Susan: And I guess, like, when you are a new mum and you're breastfeeding, it's kind of tricky to have anybody else get up, apart from the mum.
• 18:42
  Susan: But when you are bottle feeding, that's definitely a thing where you can do maybe half and half.
• 18:48
  Susan: I know, obviously, if your husband or partner is working and you're, you know, fortunate enough to have be able to stay at home and not have to go out to work. I feel like that's kind of like for me when I was doing it I was like well I've got the rest of the day to try and get some naps so I used to definitely be like I would always do the nighttime stuff and Nigel would do it, um, more the feeding and things like that like later on maybe into like midnight or something.
• 19:18
  Dimity: Yeah, okay.
• 19:18
  Susan: And then I would do like from midnight on, yeah, um so that will kind of happen for me what about you?
• 19:26
  Dimity: Yeah, so I was the same I, I didn't like Daniel having to get up and feed the kids when he had to get up in the mornings.
• 19:35
  Susan: And you're always staying at home?
• 19:35
  Dimity: And I was staying at home yeah so I would, we came that through the week I was doing overnight and then on the weekends Daniel would get up and feed overnight so that I could at least have some rest on the weekends.
• 19:48
  Susan: Yeah.
• 19:48
  Dimity: Um, if there was a day through the week where I was just absolutely exhausted and I had no energy and I needed help Daniel would step in obviously and if I had have said I actually really, really need to take a couple of days to sleep, he would have done it without question which is great. It's a privilege to have a partner like that and now obviously that neither of my kids wake up for a feed three nights one of us will have the monitor on our side if any kid makes a noise wakes up we'll go in.
• 20:18
  Susan: Do you have two monitors for two kids?
• 20:21
  Dimity: No, we've got one and it's like a jewel yeah it's really fancy.
• 20:24
  Susan: That's another topic like sleep gadgets yeah.
• 20:24
  Dimity: Yeah, three nights on, three nights off so that we get a nice chunk of time. I would say when they're sick that changes if, um, you know we kind of tag team when they're sick except when they're vomiting because that's not ...
• 20:44
  Susan: You've got that thing, don't you?
• 20:45
  Susan: You've got the actual, like, a phobia.
• 20:47
  Dimity: Yeah, emetophobia.
• 20:49
  Susan: Wow.
• 20:49
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 20:49
  Dimity: So Daniel does take the lead there.
• 20:52
  Susan: It's a toughie, isn't it?
• 20:53
  Susan: Especially if that's happening in the middle of the night. It's so hard and you have to deal with like blankets like, you know, bed sheets.
• 20:58
  Dimity: Yeah, putting it in the wash you don't want to have them sitting there.
• 21:02
  Susan: And even like when kids wet the bed you know they're all the sleep disruptors that really, are really tough, yeah you had a pretty good, uh, with Poppy like with her, um, night time yeah but so many people and I think it's something that I ended up just like procrastinating about because I just didn't want to deal with this sleep disruption and having to do changing the bed sheet so we definitely left a bit too long but so many people that is a major thing.
• 21:34
  Dimity: Yeah, for sure.
• 21:34
  Susan: Do it summertime when it's easier to wash your sheets and get them back exactly on the thing yeah and it's funny another thing that so many people complain about is their husbands or partners like just sleeping through everything like they're saying I sleep like a baby and sleeping like a husband. But you know what? For me actually like I'm so lucky Nigel hears everything.
• 21:53
  Dimity: Yeah, so does Daniel.
• 21:58
  Susan: It's amazing like pin drop and he will be up there. He hears Jamie, um, like anything he will be up yeah and so and then I wake up going, "What's going on, what's happening?" and I feel like such a bad mum yeah because I literally like would sleep through everything until Nigel like has the lights on, he's dealing with it.
• 22:16
  Dimity: Daniel's the same, he'll, he'll hear everything and I'm asleep, I'm dead to the world. I don't hear anything and then Daniel has to nudge me. Like if I if for example if I'm, you know, on that three nights of the monitor a lot of the time poor Daniel he is the one that hears things and he nudges me and says, "Oh you know Louie's crying," and I'm like, "Oh yeah, okay no worries," and I get up and I'll do it but, yeah, I'm really lucky in that regard too.
• 22:43
  Dimity: Daniel, he is everything.
• 22:44
  Susan: Yeah.
• 22:45
  Dimity: I think another thing that I struggle with the most when it comes to sleep is actually going to sleep.
• 22:51
  Susan: Oh, yeah.
• 22:52
  Dimity: Because I crave my time to myself.
• 22:56
  Susan: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:57
  Dimity: Um and I am quite lucky my kids go to bed at seven.
• 22:57
  Susan: Yeah, that is amazing because that won't happen for very long.
• 23:01
  Dimity: At 7, 7:30.
• 23:01
  Susan: That's still amazing.
• 23:05
  Dimity: Not that half an hour changes but yeah so I, I crave that time yeah to myself so I will just spend hours on end, watching you know watching my tv shows reading reading a book um playing doing puzzles anything that you know I can.
• 23:21
  Susan: Your alone time.
• 23:25
  Dimity: My alone time it's like the one time where no one is calling my name, no one's touching me, no one needs anything I'm finally just, "Ah!"
• 23:32
  Susan: What time do you get to bed eventually? Honest?
• 23:32
  Dimity: Honest? Probably most of the time about 11:30, 12 o'clock.
• 23:38
  Susan: And so when you go to bed like do you go to sleep pretty instantly?
• 23:43
  Dimity: No, I, a lot of the time will sit there and my brain will go over everything all of the things I said today all of the things that I've got to do tomorrow.
• 23:51
  Susan: Yeah.
• 23:51
  Dimity: Um, the things that my kids need, like it's just constant, constant.
• 23:59
  Dimity: Last night, for example, I stayed up very late watching a TV show until about 12: 30.
• 24:05
  Susan: Oh, naughty!
• 24:05
  Dimity: Naughty, naughty.
• 24:06
  Dimity: And then I laid down and I thought, okay, time to go to sleep.
• 24:10
  Susan: Yeah.
• 24:10
  Dimity: And I just laid there.
• 24:11
  Dimity: And I'm laying there and laying there and I'm thinking the time's ticking by.
• 24:14
  Dimity: I'm thinking about everything.
• 24:15
  Dimity: I'm thinking about work.
• 24:16
  Dimity: I'm thinking about the things I've got to do on the weekend, the birthday presents I've got to buy, blah, blah, blah.
• 24:21
  Dimity: And then it was definitely like 1: 30 by the time I actually went to sleep.
• 24:25
  Susan: Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it?
• 24:26
  Susan: That's why you're so tired.
• 24:27
  Dimity: I'm so tired all the time.
• 24:28
  Susan: So, yeah, for me, like.
• 24:29
  Dimity: You have a different experience.
• 24:31
  Susan: Yeah, so I think I might have mentioned before, like I do.
• 24:35
  Susan: I try and do meditation so I did meditation for at least a year, every at least 10 minutes every day. That was amazing.
• 24:39
  Dimity: Wow.
• 24:43
  Susan: And it actually really transformed my brain um so I'm able to switch off and that's what meditation does now I know that sounds a bit like...
• 24:51
  Dimity: It sounds foreign to me.
• 24:51
  Susan: Yeah, I but the thing is it's just it is not that difficult to do but when you start you basically what you're saying is chattering monkeys that's what the Buddhists call it, and it is, it's like you're because your first time to just lie there and to be able to switch off and then that's when your subconscious starts going, "Oh, it's my turn now."
• 25:10
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 25:10
  Susan: And it starts telling you all the things that it, you know, wants you to think about and that's because it's, it sounds a bit like, you know, if you go into a gym, okay, your physical body would look at these big weights.
• 25:26
  Susan: And you think, "Oh, I'd love to be able to do that." But you can never do it.
• 25:30
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 25:31
  Susan: Yeah.
• 25:31
  Susan: Because they're just too heavy.
• 25:32
  Susan: You're going to break your back.
• 25:33
  Susan: But if you went to the gym every single day and started off with little weights and eventually progressed, you may not get to the gigantic weights, but you'll get to pretty decent weights.
• 25:44
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 25:44
  Susan: So your brain's the same thing.
• 25:46
  Susan: So basically, like it is, literally is, you're training your muscles.
• 25:50
  Susan: So by sitting there, even if it's only for 10 minutes, and you can do guided meditation.
• 25:55
  Susan: So I love Headspace.
• 25:56
  Susan: Absolutely brilliant.
• 25:58
  Susan: The English one.
• 25:59
  Susan: So he's got this really lovely English accent.
• 26:02
  Susan: He has actually, like, lots of different accents now.
• 26:04
  Susan: But he started off just him.
• 26:06
  Susan: But he guides you through.
• 26:08
  Susan: And there's all these cute little, like, um, kind of like rewards for when you do two days in a row.
• 26:13
  Susan: So it's kind of like motivational.
• 26:15
  Dimity: It's an app, is it?
• 26:16
  Susan: It's an app, yeah.
• 26:16
  Susan: Not that expensive really considering how good it is.
• 26:20
  Susan: And so basically you can do 10 minutes a day from the beginning and then you can progress.
• 26:25
  Susan: So I do like around 20 minutes.
• 26:26
  Susan: And he talks you through what kind of goes on in your mind and he breaks it all down.
• 26:32
  Susan: So it really helps you to, to understand how to deal with it so for me and at night time I well, first of all, I try to go to bed by like 10:30 is so late for me, 11 is wild like I'm just like worrying about my sleep and I'm like I've got a 13-year-old now who sleeps through yeah so I'm not like I'm not a sleep-deprived anymore but for me like, like pretty much 9:30 is when we're, like I say to Jamie, "Right, you're off to bed, go to bed." He sometimes still manages to be up, like awake by 10.
• 27:04
  Susan: But yeah, 9: 30 is kind of off you go.
• 27:06
  Susan: 10:30 is maybe like normal, but sometimes I'll be a bit just tired.
• 27:11
  Susan: I want to go to bed.
• 27:12
  Susan: So I'll go to bed.
• 27:14
  Susan: I definitely avoid doing anything that stimulates my brain before I go to bed.
• 27:20
  Susan: So I cannot do any work, like no work for at least two or three hours before.
• 27:24
  Susan: No laptop screens, and no, nothing problem-solving kind of stuff.
• 27:30
  Susan: Like nothing that I'm like challenging myself.
• 27:32
  Dimity: Okay.
• 27:32
  Susan: Usually we'll watch things like grand designs or home renovation shows probably very boring for some people but that's the stuff that me and Nigel like to watch.
• 27:40
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 27:40
  Susan: So it's very also very like calming.
• 27:43
  Dimity: Yeah, okay.
• 27:43
  Susan: And so by the time I go to bed and sometimes I will have the the chattering monkeys, you know like we all have them, but what I can do if I'm really like need to remember, I get my phone out and I'll just like jot down the notes and get rid of them from my brain and put them down onto something and that takes it from the subconscious mind into going right the your conscious mind then it said okay that's dealt with we'll look at that in the morning and it just stops it from being in your head.
• 28:13
  Dimity: Yeah, okay.
• 28:17
  Dimity: Silences it a little bit.
• 28:13
  Susan: It does, it massively does because you're not now having to try and remember because you've already written it down so you should try that next time.
• 28:22
  Dimity: Maybe I will.
• 28:22
  Susan: But then what I do is because from the meditation practice I've done is the breathing in and out so everybody breathes you can't be alive if you don't breathe so that's always something that's with you so when you breathe in, it's a 'one' when you breathe out it's a 'two' and so you go on to one to ten and you start again.
• 28:42
  Susan: And so and as your mind goes off on its tangents and you realize that, you just kindly say to yourself, "Okay go back to my breath." You don't chastise yourself, you don't give out to yourself, you just calmly say, "Okay, back to one to ten one to ten," and eventually yeah you keep doing that one to ten you will get to sleep.
• 29:03
  Dimity: Okay, I'm gonna try it.
• 29:03
  Susan: Meditation music is also a really good one so just but that's hard when you've got a partner and they might be like oh they don't want to listen to it so maybe having like bluetooth things can work. Another thing that's really important is having your bedroom as your bedroom, like, like we do have a tv in our bedroom but honestly we very rarely use it. I did when I was sick that was very handy but I try not to watch tv too much in it and try not to do anything else but sleep like so no working in it, no doing the laundry in it, no, none of that stuff. Your bedroom should be you're, you're triggering your brain when you go into bed, I am here for sleeping and that is it.
• 29:43
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 29:43
  Susan: That's definitely like a research thing there.
• 29:43
  Dimity: Yeah, okay.
• 29:43
  Susan: Um, so they're all the things that I've kind of done that have helped me so I'm like notoriously good at falling asleep.
• 29:51
  Dimity: Yeah, so how long do you reckon it would take you to fall asleep?
• 29:55
  Susan: Nigel says I can be asleep in like a minute.
• 29:57
  Dimity: No that ...
• 30:00
  Susan: Like one or two minutes yeah.
• 30:00
  Dimity: That is... Daniel's the exact same we'll just be talking and then he'll say "Okay, good night" and then literally 30 seconds later he's snoring and I'm thinking to myself, "Are you actually joking? How have you done that?"
• 30:13
  Susan: That's another one snoring is a sleep disruptor.
• 30:13
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 30:13
  Susan: That can be really hard when you've got yeah a partner who goes to sleep really fast and then that.
• 30:20
  Dimity: And then I'm left laying there listening to it.
• 30:24
  Susan: Yeah and that is hard and that's where maybe putting on your music yeah will help because if he's already asleep then he won't, and then you can have a timer so it can go off after 30.
• 30:35
  Susan: So at least you're listening to that and not listening to that but that's why a lot of people do have separate bedrooms.
• 30:37
  Dimity: Yeah.
• 30:37
  Susan: Well it's a real thing if you have the space and and a lot of parents I know a lot of mums who end up sleeping with their kids...
• 30:47
  Dimity: Yep.
• 30:47
  Susan: The, the the husband is back in the bedroom, the main bedroom but the the mum is actually yeah and that's why having sometimes double beds works out quite well with the kids.
• 30:57
  Susan: Don't get them a single bed, just get a double bed because you up sleeping with them anyway.
• 31:01
  Dimity: Yeah, exactly.
• 31:01
  Susan: And I know people say oh that's bad habits but look you just do whatever you can to survive.
• 31:07
  Dimity: Exactly.
• 31:07
  Susan: And it might be just a temporary thing. It might be just for a few years and then you can be back in your own bedrooms again, but it's a real thing.
• 31:12
  Dimity: It really is.
• 31:12
  Susan: Yeah, sleep deprivation.
• 31:16
  Dimity: Oh it, it's wild.
• 31:16
  Susan: And that's about it for most, isn't it?
• 31:21
  Dimity: It is yeah.
• 31:21
  Susan: I think we've covered all this sleep deprivation that you can talk about without boring everybody . Get your caffeine in it definitely helps and get your nap in where you can too like if you are lucky enough to be able to be able to stay-at-home mum. I certainly took those naps during the day.
• 31:42
  Susan: The housework can wait.
• 31:42
  Dimity: Yeah, try not to feel guilty about it yeah the sleep when you...
• 31:45
  Susan: Take the sleep because you'll be a much happier person and the housework will always, it will always be there for you and you can do it later.
• 31:55
  Dimity: Thank you so much for listening to us today, listening to our stories about sleep, the ways to get good sleep, sleep disruptions, everything.
• 32:03
  Dimity: If you're a mum out there, you know, in the lack of sleep phase, we're right there.
• 32:09
  Dimity: Well, I'm right there with you.