Overnight Newborn Care in Maine | Sunny Side Postpartum Care
If you're pregnant, and especially if you're already home with a newborn, you're probably thinking about overnight newborn care. What do you do if baby won't sleep? Are there any tricks to get newborns to sleep at night? Here's the truth about newborn nights.
For the purposes of this post, we're using the terms postpartum doula, night nanny, overnight doula, and night nurse interchangeably.
What to expect at night with a newborn baby
If you're pregnant, this is the stuff I want you to know before the baby gets here.
If your baby is already here and you're reading this one handed at 3 AM, hi. I see you. I was you. Keep reading, because I've got you covered too.
So here's the scene. It's 3:14 AM. The baby finally went down twenty minutes ago and you are this close to being asleep. Then you hear it. A tiny grunt from the bassinet.
Now you're lying there totally still, like if you don't move maybe you won’t hear it again. Is that a real wake up? Is it just a weird newborn noise? (They make so many quirky noises.) By the time you figure it out, you're wide awake anyway.
Pregnant friends, somebody has probably told you to "sleep now while you can." I love the intention, but hate the message. The truth is, you can't bank sleep. And new parents, if you're already in it and wondering why this feels so impossibly hard, it's because it is hard, for actual real reasons. Good news: you're allowed to get help with it. To us, rest is essential for
Why are nights with a newborn so rough?
Newborns eat a lot. Like, I'm talking 8 to 12 times in 24 hours. And they do not care that it's dark out. Their tummies are tiny, so every two to three hours they're up and hungry again.
They also have zero idea what nighttime is. Most babies come out with their days and nights confused, hence the midnight kicks you experienced for the last few months of your pregnancy. Their little body's circadian rhythms take a few months to kick in, so until then, 2 AM feels like a great time to hang out.
And the feeding is only part of it. You've got diaper changes, burping, the spit up, the holding them upright so they don't spit up again, the swaddle they somehow Houdinied out of, and then that stretch where they're fed and dry and still wide awake. One wake up can easily take 45 minutes to an hour. Then you do it again.
And let's talk about the support parent for a second, because after they’ve cared for the household chores or other kiddos all day, they're up too. They're the one changing the diaper while the feeding parent gets a few extra minutes of rest. They're refilling water bottles, warming bottles, and pacing the hallway with a fussy baby at 4 AM. They want so badly to help, and sometimes they feel like nothing they do is quite enough because you’re both still exhausted.. The alarm goes off and they try to show up to work like they slept eight hours. Two exhausted parents trying to take turns is really hard, and it can wear on even the strongest partnership.
A couple weeks of that and it catches up with everyone. Sleep matters so much in these early weeks, for your mental and physical recovery and for how you feel as a brand new parent.
What is it actually like to have a newborn at home?
If you're in week one right now, I bet some of this sounds familiar. If you're pregnant, this is what's coming, and I'd rather you hear it from me than be caught off guard.
You hear every single sound, even when it's your partner's turn. You feel guilty handing the baby over, then guilty for being so tired. You and your partner start secretly keeping score of who slept more. (Everyone does this. Nobody admits it. And, it’s okay.) Being equally tired isn’t a game I want you to play. And, the reality is, when your partner goes back to work, the nights get long, followed by an even longer day.
A lot of parents think they're supposed to just tough it out. "This is what we signed up for!" Please don't. You don't get an award for being the most tired parents in Maine.
Stick with me. Let's talk about how we're designed to parent as humans.
Okay, time to get a little nerdy. Anthropologists actually call humans "cooperative breeders." That means our species evolved to raise babies with lots of helpers, not just two parents. Researchers even have a name for those extra caregivers: alloparents. Grandparents, aunties, older siblings, neighbors, all taking turns holding the baby so the parents could eat, sleep, and heal.
And that village showed up in some really specific ways after a baby arrived. In many Latin American cultures, families still honor la cuarentena, a 40 day stretch where the new parent rests while relatives take over the cooking and cleaning. In China, zuo yuezi, or "sitting the month," is a similar tradition of about a month of rest and nourishing food. Even in early America, women from the neighborhood would come stay with a new mother for weeks during what was called her "lying in" period.
So families have always had help at night, from grandmas and aunties and the neighbor down the street. The modern idea of two parents doing it all alone is actually the new and unusual part. Needing help is normal, whether you're planning ahead or you're already exhausted and realizing you can't do this alone. Good news- you don’t have to!
So what does an overnight doula do?
Our overnight shifts usually run from about 8-10 hours, and are typically scheduled from 10pm-6am. We've got the baby. You go sleep.
Your doula takes care of diapers, soothing, and getting baby back down. If you're bottle feeding or using pumped milk, we do the feeds and you don't have to wake up at all. If you're nursing, we bring the baby to you, teach you to feed your baby in a restorative position, and then we handle the burping, changing, and settling so you can crawl back into bed in a few minutes. Your partner? They’re sleeping like a baby the whole time so they can show up for you the next day.
We keep a log of feeds, diapers, and sleep so you don't have to remember a thing. We also wash bottles and pump parts, fold the baby laundry, and tidy the nursery so the morning feels a little less chaotic.
When you wake up, we'll share our notes from the night and any tips or tricks we had success with! Ask us anything. Feeding stuff, sleep stuff, that noise the baby keeps making. And we follow safe sleep practices every single night, like putting baby down on their back on a flat, clear surface.
How does a postpartum doula takes care of YOU?
Sunny Side is a small team, and I like it that way. It means you'll see the same faces each night and your doula gets to really know your family. You're never just another name on a schedule. Before your first shift, you'll get to meet your doulas in person. So the person walking into your home at 10 PM isn't a stranger. It's someone you've already sat down with, gotten to know, and shown your curated nursery to! I spent about twenty years as a Newborn Care Specialist before I started Sunny Side, and I'm also a Birth Doula, Certified Lactation Counselor, and an Infant Sleep Coach. Our team brings all of that experience into your home.
And we take care of your whole family, not only the baby. At night, that might mean letting your partner get a full night's sleep before a workday, or making sure an older sibling's lunch box is washed and ready for the morning. When everyone in the house is a little more rested, the whole house feels different.
Support starts before we arrive- you get to shut down after dinner and wake up with a bunch of chores already scratched off your to do list. Overnight, we'll do the laundry, clear the sink, and run the dishwasher (and unload it too, if time allows). We wash every pump part and bottle, prepare formula following World Health Organization guidelines, and store breastmilk safely so none of it goes to waste. You wake up to a calmer house and a baby who was cared for all night long.
How often does a night nanny come to your house?
There's no one right way to do overnight support, so we build your schedule around your family. Maybe you want us for the first two weeks, until the grandparents come to town. Maybe you'd rather wait and start once your partner goes back to work and the nights suddenly feel a lot longer. Or maybe you want steady support from the very first night home. All of those work, and we can mix and match, too.
If you're pregnant, we'll map it out together before the baby comes. If the baby's already here, we'll work on getting support in place as soon as we can. And life with a newborn changes fast, so we can adjust your schedule whenever you need to. I'm also a backup doula, so if your doula ever can't make it, you're still covered.
Let's figure it out together.
Let's plan your nights
Pregnant? Overnight spots go fast, so the earlier you reach out, the better. Send me your due date and we'll start building a plan that feels good to you.
Already home with your baby? It's not too late. Not even close. Send me a message tonight (yes, even at 3 AM) and let's talk about getting you some sleep.
We serve families across Maine and the NH Seacoast. And we cannot wait to meet you!
P.S. Have you emailed your HR department yet? Some employers offer fertility and family building benefits through companies like Carrot, Maven, and Progyny. Depending on your plan, you may have an allowance you can put toward overnight care. It's worth a quick email to find out! And whatever your benefits look like, we'll give you detailed receipts to make reimbursement easy.
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