Everyone talks about how tired you’ll be after you bring your brand-new baby home from the hospital. And yes, those first few days (and weeks, and months) are exhausting. But there’s another time in those early days of new parenthood that are also really tiring: your time in the hospital. Think about it. You have just given birth, likely after many hours of labor. You’ve closed your eyes and are just drifting off to sleep when all of a sudden there’s a knock at the door. And then another. You never get a break!
If you’re expecting or planned to be and you’ve wondered how you’ll actually be able to get some good hospital sleep after giving birth, nurse Jamie O’Day has a solution you probably never would have thought of.
O’Day, cofounder of the parenting support website Newborn & Parenting Support, or NAPS, is a former labor and delivery nurse in the Boston area. During her years in the field, she’s helped new parents survive their time in the hospital. It feels impossible when there are nurses coming to check your vitals, doctors in and out, lactation consults, and of course, feedings. Plus, you can often hear other laboring and birthing mothers and their babies through the walls. Getting even an hour of sleep is so hard.
Her solution? Place a “Do not disturb” sign on your door. “Unless we completely change how postpartum care is being offered in the hospital, you’re being interrupted a lot,” she told Today in an interview.
She went on to share an example of how she coached a couple in New York to go about it. After a long labor and a C-section, the new mom was depleted.
“She was having tons of anxiety trying to get to sleep knowing that her sleep was going to be really limited because somebody was going to be coming in to check her vital signs, or the baby was going to need to feed,” O’Day shared.
The new dad, following O’Day’s instructions, was the one to ask the nurses for a sign. “Before he could get the full sentence out of his mouth, the nurse is like, ‘No problem. I got you,’” she explained.
In fact, O’Day said some nurses will even offer it before you can ask. “They’ll just be like, ‘Hey, I’ll just put a sign on the door for you, and everybody will have to come through me,’” she told Today.
Your nurse can “bundle your care,” according to O’Day. That means they will look at when the doctor is expected to visit your room and try to schedule all of your other testing and checkups to happen in a 30- to 40-minute window of that visit.
She even created a script for new parents to ask for their most optimal hospital sleep. “I’ve heard that a lot of people can knock on your door when you’re here. Is there a way that we can coordinate the care to limit the number of interruptions?” she suggests asking.
Something she’s noticed is that new parents are often asking for this help “from a place of desperation.” They are exhausted, overwhelmed, and don’t know how they’re going to rest. But O’Day said it’s better to ask before you get to that point.
NAPS shared this suggestion on its Instagram page recently, encouraging parents to ask for the hospital sleep they need.
“Yes!!! I used to do this for my patients in the hospital all the time! Quick huddle with nurse to coordinate care times and leave em alone!!!” one person commented.
“I did this on the day before I was discharged. Asked nurse if we could please get quiet time to get rest. I was literally sleep deprived & felt so horrible from feeling exhausted,” a mom wrote. “Sleep as a new Mom is so crucial for our mental health, healing & literally everything else.”
