Sleep when the baby sleeps.
Yes. People will say that.
Smile politely.
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You will check if your baby is breathing.
You will do this more than once.
You will not trust your eyes.
Or your ears.
This is normal.
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Learn to appreciate the strange mathematics of night.
If the baby sleeps until 4:10
and you fall asleep by 2:57,
you might get
one hour and thirteen minutes.
This will feel like a win.
---
You may Google things at 3:24 AM
that you would never Google during the day.
Do not believe everything you read.
Close the phone.
Look at your baby instead.
He is probably fine.
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You will buy things online while waiting for a burp.
This is how many mothers acquire
extra swaddles,
three varieties of pacifiers,
and a white-noise machine shaped like a cloud.
Forgive yourself.
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You will try more than once
to quietly transfer your baby to the crib.
The floor will creak.
It always does.
You will start all over again.
Be patient.
Night is long, but so is motherhood.
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Sometimes you will worry.
Sometimes you will worry about worrying.
Also normal.
Love and fear share the same apartment
in early motherhood.
They rarely sleep.
---
Some nights you will feel
like the only person awake in the world.
You are not.
Somewhere, another mother
is sitting in a dim room,
holding a warm, sleepy baby
and doing the exact same math.
---
Be gentle with yourself.
Night feeding is exhausting.
But one day,
long after these nights are over,
you may find yourself remembering
that quiet closeness,
wired by nature.
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And sometimes, a small impulse purchase—
like a nursing top that actually works—
makes the nights
just a little more manageable.
Which, frankly,
is reason enough.