The first year nobody prepared you forStep 1 of 9

Before you read on

If you have not slept at all and do not feel tired, if you are confused or things feel unreal, if you believe something about the baby that people around you say is not true, if you are seeing or hearing things others do not, or if you have thoughts of ending your life or of harming the baby, do not wait and do not finish this course. This can be postpartum psychosis. It is rare, it is not depression, it usually begins in the first two weeks, and it is a medical emergency. Someone should stay with you and the baby. Contact emergency services or your local crisis line now. The standard is assessment by a mental health service straight away, and in the UK the guidance names four hours.

Lesson 4 of 6

The one with the most leverage

There is a long list of things that are supposed to help. Most of them are fine and almost none of them move the needle by much.

One does. A single protected stretch of unbroken sleep, arranged in advance with another adult, on as many nights as you can get it.

The reason is lesson two. The damage is coming from the breaking rather than from the total, so the thing to buy back is not hours in bed, it is one stretch that nobody interrupts. That is a different purchase and it usually needs another person to make it possible.