Please don’t watch the clock

The health of the circadian rhythm is not defined by waking at 6 am, working from 9 am to 5 pm, and going to bed at 10 pm

Clock time marches; solar time flows.

Mamas, please don’t watch the clock postpartum.

The clock helps us meet other humans.

It’s a communication tool.

When it comes to sleep and motherhood—especially in the early days (like the first 6 weeks)—the clock doesn’t really have a strong place imo.

The manmade clock is definitely not going to help you communicate more effectively with your baby in this stage.

Many women instantly understand this when I talk about circadian polyphasic sleep through the early postpartum.

You are naturally going to drift in and out of “clock time”, and if you are intuitive and have a natural light environment, your body clock will naturally take over and give you all the rest you need when caring for your baby around the clock.

However, if you resist your body clock and try to keep your sleep consolidated to the manmade clock, sure—your sleep may look more “perfect” and consolidated like you are used to.

But.

If you continue to live by clock time instead of body clock time postpartum, your circadian health is going to suffer.

In fact, studies of traditional societies reveal modern humans have relatively poor circadian function, in spite of the fact we sleep in longer chunks.

I wrote about one of these sleep vs polyphasic sleep studies earlier this year:

Sleeping in long stretches is often thought of as a good thing, but it’s really not.

The “need” to sleep for 8 hours all at once is the consequence of over-prioritizing daylight biology by keeping ourselves under artificial light for 16 hours each day.

One of the studies that opened my eyes to the true mysteries of circadian sleep is quoted in my summer nap post below (highly recommend a read for all my Southern hemisphere friends heading into summer now):

The “need” to sleep for 8 hours all at once is actually not good for circadian health, or for postpartum mental health, as mothers with fewer night wakings may actually be at a higher risk of postpartum mood disorders.

Or in other words, “higher activity during rest at night at 1–3 weeks and 6–12 weeks postpartum was linked to lower depressive symptoms” as reported in a 2022 postpartum sleep and circadian health study by a team of Canadian researchers published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry¹.

Circadian health is about flowing through biological processes in time with the daylight, warmth, feeding and darkness, coolness, fasting.

In reality, having a strong circadian rhythm often looks like polyphasic sleep patterns, waking and flowing with the moon, napping through the heat of summer, and so on.

The circadian rhythm is not about waking at 6 am, working from 9 am to 5 pm, and going to bed at 10 pm.

Thus, motherhood and the postpartum or maternity leave for mothers who are used to living by clock time offers a unique opportunity to connect with circadian biology at a more primal level.

Postpartum offers a grace period when you can feel into what your body really wants to do sleep-wise if you give it natural (instead of artificial) cues and actually start trusting your body to know when to sleep and when to wake… even when it doesn’t look at all like what you are used to as someone who grew up thinking 8-10 hours is normal and healthy.

Keep your environment synced to solar time, and within that, you can sleep or wake as you like.

---

Thank you for reading! Please share with a mama heading toward her postpartum lie-in so she can relax about her sleep schedule and protect herself from artificial-light and the 8-hour sleep myth!

1. Slyepchenko, A., Minuzzi, L., Reilly, J. P., & Frey, B. N. (2022). Longitudinal Changes in Sleep, Biological Rhythms, and Light Exposure From Late Pregnancy to Postpartum and Their Impact on Peripartum Mood and Anxiety. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 83(2). https://doi.org/10.4088/jcp.21m13991