Help Parents Get Sleep

Written by Afton Mower

Preemie parents need to get good sleep. The biggest reason for this is to keep their immune systems strong so that they don’t get sick and are then unable to visit and care for their preemie baby. It is a terrible thing to not be able to visit your baby because you’re sick.

How can you, as family and friends, help preemie parents get the sleep they need? Well, by encouraging them to come home at a decent hour, by doing chores and errands for them so they don’t have to squeeze them in after hospital visits, and by not keeping them up way late every night talking or watching movies. Of course talking and entertainment are important to keep up their moral, but be sure that late nights are not too frequent and that you respect their need for rest. I know it helped me when people reminded me that I needed to guard my own health for the sake of my baby. I appreciated their concern and also the freedom I was given to cope in my own way.

Other things that will help them get good rest is to have an established routine, and to put them in a room that does not have a duel purpose. No one likes to sleep in an office where people have to go in and out all the time to get things.

Remember, too, that it’s important for them to have privacy and personal time. They will have highly emotional days when they may not want to interact with anyone, and they will have days when they really need to talk.

Do you have any additional thoughts on the subject? Please share in the comments! Thanks.

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