I'm writing this at 8 months postpartum with my second. So let's just say I'm not writing this from theory.
Some nights my youngest sleeps in four hour stretches. Some nights it's forty minutes. There's no pattern I can plan around, no hack that fixes it. That's just where we're at.
But here's what I do know, both as a clinician and as someone in it - chronic sleep deprivation isn't just "feeling tired." It's a physiological state, and it has consequences worth understanding.
What's actually happening
When sleep is consistently disrupted, cortisol regulation gets affected. Your body's stress response system doesn't get the downtime it needs to reset. That's part of why sleep deprivation and that "wired but exhausted" feeling go hand in hand, your nervous system is stuck partway between "on" and "off."
Magnesium status is also commonly affected during periods of chronic stress and disrupted sleep. It's one of the nutrients your body draws on more heavily when you're under sustained pressure.
This isn't about fear-mongering you into thinking one bad night is doing damage. It's about the cumulative, sustained pattern - the kind that new parents, shift workers, and anyone in a genuinely demanding season of life know intimately.
What I'm not going to tell you
I'm not going to tell you to "just sleep when the baby sleeps" (impossible, and makes me eyes roll when I hear it). I'm not going to tell you this is a phase you should just push through on willpower.
What I am going to tell you
Support your nervous system where you actually can. For me right now, that's non-negotiable magnesium, because I know what happens to my mood and my patience when I let it lapse. It's not a fix for the disrupted sleep itself as nothing replaces the sleep.
But it's one lever I have some control over, in a season where a lot of things feel out of my control.
If you're in a season like this too, new baby, high stress job, study, caring for someone else, whatever your version is - you're not imagining how hard it is. And you don't need to just push through it.
Katherine x