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How to Get the Sleep You Need
Three essential tips for weary parents

1. When the baby sleeps, you sleep. Turn off the ringer on your cell phone and landline. Log out of your computer. Hide the laundry. Ignore the dirty dishes.

2. Forget hospitality. When friends and family come to see the baby, forgo hostess duty. Ask them to watch the baby while you take a siesta.

3. Share the night shift. Make a plan with your partner to split wee-hour feedings and diaper changes, even if you’re breastfeeding. (Pump and store bottles of breast milk so dad can feed baby, too.)

Writer Nancy Gottesman says that being the mother of a teenage son doesn’t lend itself to sound sleep, either.