Parenting Hack #1: The System

I’m not talking about negging, but the solution to your baby-induced sleep woes

When it comes to parenting, my sister-in-law is a machine. On top of a demanding, full-time job, she always has energy to play with my two year old nephew, conjure up new meal ideas, work on Pinterest projects that always turn out amazing, and keep her house in impeccable condition. I know she is sleep deprived — she’s admitted so herself — but somehow that doesn’t stop her from being “on” all the time.

My wife and I are not like that. We need sleep to function.

From a sleep perspective, the first few months are the hardest because the baby needs to be fed every 2–3 hours. Very early on, we realized a few things:

• Newborn babies make a lot of weird noises while they sleep — moaning, wheezing, grunting, groaning, snorting
• As a new parent, we’re hypersensitive to these noises, which makes it difficult to sleep around the baby
• There’s no need for both parents to suffer; if the baby wakes up, you only need one person to tend to her
• Sleep is only valuable if you can get it in a continuous block of time (e.g., five hours in a row is better than five separate one-hour sessions)

Based on these realizations, my wife and I created “The System”. It really helped us get through this period and I highly recommend it if your situation allows.

In a nutshell, The System is essentially a shift-based approach whose objective is to give each parent at least one quiet, uninterrupted 6 hour block of sleep at night (assuming 3 hour intervals). It is optimized for sleep and sleep only, so if you care about anything else (e.g., antiquated beliefs that spouses need to sleep next to each other every day), this might not be for you.

Here’s what you need:

• Multiple rooms (Room 1: “on duty” parent and baby; Room 2: “off duty” parent)
• Pumped breastmilk (or formula if you are doing that)
• If pumping, mom may need to do extra pumps during the day to offset the lost night session
• Nightlight (more important than it sounds)
• iPhone flashlight (clutch in those moments when you need it)
• All the supplies you need for the baby at arms reach in your room — bottle warmer, changing pad, extra diapers, diaper wipes, hand sanitizer (this is critical to minimizing commotion and inadvertently startling the baby and/or “off duty” parent)

Here’s an example of how it works:

• 8 PM: Mom breastfeeds and immediately goes to sleep in separate room.
• 8 PM — 11 PM: Dad “on duty” with sleeping baby (tries to sleep if possible). When baby wakes up, dad springs into action like a pouncing tiger and feeds, changes, and soothes baby back to sleep.
• 11 PM — 2 AM: Dad completes shift. Whenever baby wakes up, Mom and Dad swap. Mom comes in to feed baby and clocks in. Dad clocks out and retires for the night.

When Maya started sleeping in a different room, we still maintained a version of The System by extending it across three bedrooms (we’re lucky enough to have this flexibility): Maya in her room, “on duty” parent in adjacent room closest to Maya with door wide open ready to hear the faintest cry and jump in, and “off duty” parent in the farthest room away — door shut and hopefully passed out.

My approach to parenting echoes George Washington’s Revolutionary War quote, “Live to fight another day.” It might be overly pragmatic, but I do believe it helped us maintain our sanity and some level of daytime normalcy during those early days. The System may sound extremely obvious, but it does require concerted effort and there is some nuance given every situation is unique. But trust me, it really works.

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