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Katie Brown |
Katie Brown is a mom of three and a journalist specialising in parenting and health issues. She is also a pre- and post-natal yoga teacher and baby yoga specialist (ITYA), as well as a massage therapist (ITEC), infant massage practitioner (IMA), and the NSW State Representative for Infant Massage Australia .
Katie has released two relaxation CDs for mothers and a ‘Yoga for Pregnancy and Birth' DVD. She runs Yoga Babes in Sydney and over the years has helped thousands of mothers-to-be and mothers to adapt to their new lives.
Katie has just published the book ‘Mother Me', a companion that offers a new way for moms to navigate their own personal journey. It combines practical advice, creative exercises and stories from real moms and how they've achieved – and overcome – aspects of motherhood.
Visit her websites www.motherme.com.au and www.yogababes.com.au |
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Make sleep a number one priority
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Getting a deep, restful sleep is always essential to your health and wellbeing, but this is often harder to achieve after the birth of your first baby.
There aren't many guarantees with parenthood, but one is you will suffer your fair share of sleep deprivation. Newborns are not programmed to sleep through the night. You'll have constant waking, feeding and settling your baby, followed by anxiety-ridden parental tossing and turning.
If your mind is churning in this way, you could wake feeling more tired than when you went to bed. And after a few weeks of this you'll be the one screaming at 3am instead of your baby!
That's why it's so important to make sleep and rest your number one priority from the start. And don't worry – a better night's sleep will come as your baby loses those night feeds. Some take longer than others, but eventually your baby will start sleeping through.
Making melatonin
Many of us are so concerned about creating sleep routines for our babies that we forget about making one for ourselves. Create your own routine aimed at promoting the production of melatonin.
Melatonin is a hormone governed by the pineal gland in our brain and by light/dark exposure. This helps to control our circadian rhythm, which regulates our sleep cycle. It is only produced at night. And bright artificial light can rob us of melatonin. It is secreted as darkness falls and coincides with a drop in our core body temperature. Melatonin typically begins to kick in between 6 and 8pm and stops being produced from around 6am, which is the body's natural waking time.
It's not just an old wives' tale; sleep before midnight is more beneficial, as this is when your temperature and metabolic rate are falling and your body is naturally shutting down for the night. So sometime along that steady fall you should be aiming to crash out.
Replay your day – backwards!
A really lovely way to get to sleep is to take yourself through your day – backwards! Replay in your mind getting into bed, what you did before going to bed, what you did in the evening, during the day.
This method will keep your mind from wandering and before you reach breakfast you should be happily ensconced in dreamland. Avoid any negatives and focus on simple things you did, such as eating a meal or taking your baby out. Of course if you had a bad day then you may wish to try another method!
Daytime naps
Also, make use of those daytime naps while you can. Our circadian rhythm gives us another window of sleep between midday and 4pm – this is when our body temperature drops slightly and we are likely to get a better quality of sleep than in periods during the day.
If you have a sleep debt this is likely to be the time that it catches up with you, so if you find yourself slumping at this time you probably need to sleep and should try to take advantage of the opportunity.
If this is your first baby, indulge yourself, because it's much harder to squeeze in a daytime snooze when you have another child. |
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