New Mom Exhaustion? Try These Sleep Tips

When you have a new baby you know how sleep-deprived you can get. It begins in the last few months of your pregnancy; the tossing, the turning and the trying to get comfortable. Unfortunately, just when you think the condition will get better after you give birth, you bring home your new bundle of joy and realize that a good night's sleep is still a long way away.

However, there are some things you can do to ensure that you don't spend all day wandering your house like a zombie. It's astounding on how little sleep a mother can function, but that doesn't mean you want to function on just a little sleep. Be sneaky and fit sleep in as much as you can during the day. Here are some ways that you can cope with little sleep in those first few months of motherhood.

It's a cliché that all new moms hear everywhere; at their baby showers, in the hospital, even from strangers. Sleep when the baby sleeps! It's easier said than done. When the baby finally goes for a nap, you're probably consumed with all of the things that need to get done; the laundry needs to be washed, dried, and put away; dinner needs to be started; e-mail needs to be checked and written. But remember to take at least one nap with the baby for the day.

Wait for your significant other to come home and help with laundry, or enlist a friend to make you a few dinners so that you can get some rest. And remember that all of those things can wait until both you and the baby are awake and you can pop him into his baby sling to do them. He'll love the movement from the baby sling while you do chores, and you'll be more rested, happy and have more energy to tackle those tasks if you take a nap first.

Condone a healthy night's sleep by making sure that you have the right environment for it. When you put your baby down for the night, grab a book to read in bed. Make sure that you have time to relax before hitting the sack. Keep the television off or you may find yourself staying up later than you intended. And finally, turn the volume on the baby monitor down so that you can hear crying and whimpering, but not every breath and grunt. These little noises can keep you up and worried all night.