Would that I could sleep when he slept.

Oh hi, sweet baby.  Mind if I lay down with you? Oh. I see.  Well, sorry then... 

Hey! No need to get nasty about it. I'll show myself out.

Very, very common and very, very well-meaning advice for moms with newborns: sleep when they sleep.  It is, however, time to DEBUNK this mess. Newborns sleep a lot.  But this is a fact insufficient in and of itself to suggest that it is possible to rest up along side them. Why? For starters, tiny babies sleep for completely unpredictable lengths of time.  You can roll the dice and try to lay down after they fall asleep, but it is a gamble at best.  Furthermore, there is no sound louder to an infant than the sound of his mother laying down.  A two year old may scream in his ear, dogs may announce the UPS guy, and thunder may crack, and the babe will sleep.  But the seemingly imperceptible sound of a mom's head touching her pillow is almost certain to jar the child awake in a most angry state.  And, though it is doable for a few days, eventually your mental state will require you to participate in the land of the living.  Though your offspring may not have a circadian rhythm, you do.  And you'll want to be able to acknowledge this by putting your feet on the ground and a cup o' joe to your lips.  Also, do you know where newborns like to sleep?  In your lap while you are eating? Yes!  In your arms during a visit from friends? Absolutely!  In some strange arm position that is binding your trapezius muscle into a monkey fist? Oh boy, yeah. On your nipple for any amount of time but off your nipple for zero minutes? Mmm-hmmm.  On their own? Eh. Occasionally.  So, unless your friends and family are cool with you up and chloroforming yourself in the middle of everyday activities, and, of course, presuming your nipples are completely numb, then - congratulations - you will get some rest.  Lastly, a woman can only take so much disappointment.  When a baby wakes up after fifteen minutes and you've been emptying the dishwasher or reading blogs, you sigh, get going, and get baby.  When baby wakes up after fifteen minutes and you had *just* drifted to sleep, you die just a little.  It is a crushing defeat, and one that sometimes particularly on my most exhausted days, I cannot face.

So when you see a mom with a newborn, and you note the circles under her eyes, her skirt tucked into her underwear, and a burp cloth stuffed into her bra (just for example.  I perpetually look fresh as a daisy, of course.), don't reprimand her as if she's not getting enough sleep out of stubbornness.  Maybe your babies slept like rocks for two hour naps from the day they were born.  And that's great.  But also know that no one likes you.  But anyways. Just buy her a latte and say that sounds rough.  And lie about her looking good in spite of it all.   Lie, lie, lie.