You’ve got Mommy Brain, huh?

Does this sound familiar?

Your new bundle of joy (or old bundle of joy if your 5-year-old hates sleep, your partner snores, or your dog dream-barks) keeps waking you up at night. You never get 3 solid, lovely hours of sleep, which is what your brain needs to help you remember stuff. Without this elusive, deep sleep, the next day you will look back fondly on the previous day’s activities and remember this:

That graphic is not a mistake. Mommy Brain is foggy nothingness.

And if you want to know why, in this previous post, you can learn all the fun science behind Mommy Brain.

But now what?

Your task is to GRAB HOLD OF uninterrupted SLEEP. This will be like searching for the holy grail. (Which your other kid probably hid under the couch or stashed inside the back of that firetruck you just gave to Goodwill.)

Sounds impossible, right? No worries, I’ve got some tips for you.

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Avoid alcohol

Like it’s the plague. As if your sleep wasn’t already disrupted, alcohol keeps your brain partying. all. night. long. As in, drink more = sleep poor.

Sleep when the baby sleeps

No joke. If baby sleeps a 3-hour stretch at any point in your life, DROP EVERYTHING and sleep, too. You can always fold laundry at 2am.

Better yet, don’t fold laundry at all – just pull everything out of the drier and dump it in the basket to rummage through later when you need it. Screw those wrinkles. Especially if you’ve got a new kid. You so don’t need to worry about whether the maternity jeans you’re still wearing look unloved.

In fact, crumpled jeans means YOU LOVE YOU (and sleep). Plus, no one cares. (I hope you have visitors who bring you treats, new momma, and that they love you for you, not your perfectly pressed clothes. If they have anything contrary to say: 1) Tell them to go fold your shit. 2) Kick their judgmental butts out the door – but only after they set those yummy casseroles down on your kitchen table.)

Now you may be wondering, does baby actually sleep a 3-hour stretch? You can’t remember, right?

Track your kid

Spend a couple days monitoring baby’s routine. Like write stuff down: date, time of nap, length of nap, blah, blah, blah.

And don’t just record naps, look at night schedules, too. You might be surprised to learn that baby actually sleeps more than you think she does.

Data is your friend. Believe me, you can find all kinds of pearls of wisdom in it. But tracking stuff might make you want to stab yourself in the eye. Do it this once. Save yourself! Seriously, say it with me now: Data is my friend.

Looking at these patterns can help you find that holy grail of uninterrupted sleep.

You might discover that, while you think baby takes a 3-hour nap in the afternoon, he mostly just sleeps for an hour and a half. Your brain will tell you to go punch yourself in the throat if you settle down for your own joyously long nap and the baby alarm goes off in, like, 45 minutes.

Why do I keep harping on 3+ hours of sleep? Because you need it. For memory consolidation. That’s a fancy way of saying: so you can remember shit.

For me, the data showed that my kids tended to do the longest stretches when I first put them down for the night, starting around 6:30pm. Basically, if I wanted to fight Mommy Brain, I also had to go to bed at 6:30pm. Who does that?! But, hey, when you’re desperate, you’ll try anything.

But, bless you, dear one, if baby is in the must-eat-every-1-to-2-hours stage. While Tip #1 definitely applies (especially if you’re nursing), Tip #2 is probably out of your league right now. Please know that someday BABY WILL SLEEP and so will you. When that happens, revisit this post and give this a try. In the meantime, reread my previous post on Mommy Brain. You’ll notice that Tip #3 here is pretty similar to the one where I suggest that you take notes during the day. To keep a grip on reality.

Now, get on with it. Go treat yourself to a fabulous pen and leather-bound journal. (You deserve it – consider it a postpartum momma gift!!) Or download one of those “baby schedule” apps if you’re into digital. And start tracking that baby!

You can even entertain your friends and write about it on Twitter or do a photo collage on Instagram or something.

Let me know what you learned. Let me know if you got any sleep (finally). And, while you’re at it, check out these 9 tips to help you remember anything.

Comment below or share your own Mommy Brain tips on Facebook at MothersRest.

Photo credit: Benjamin Combs from unsplash.com