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By Hannah Dylan Pasternak
In our Sleeping With … series, we communicate with other people from other careers, origins and stages of life to notice how they do the magic of sleep.
All parents know that the first year of a baby is full of unexpected ups and downs. But when pretty Little Liars actor Shay Mitchell, You and Dollface gave birth to his daughter, Atlas, last October (with his wife Matte Babel), he had no idea he would look like Array. It. “[Matte and I] will be informed of being co-parents and balancing,” Mitchell tells SELF. “He will make a Zoom call while I see [Atlas], and we are rearranging our schedules to satisfy the other user and our needs. We take turns.”
Between running out of the house and being a mother, Mitchell has also partnered with Pampers to offer loose online education courses on childbirth and the pandemic. It’s a cause close to her, which just went through the prenatal phase of what I do. “You’ll never feel 100 percent in a position to [birth], however, what you can do is learn enough to make you feel better. I was able to attend in-person delivery categories and prenatal categories last year. And now, of course, it’s not something women can do,” she says, so word spreads about The Pampers categories. “You can do this in protecting your own home while asking all your questions.”
While Mitchell navigates our new general fatherhood and our new fatherhood, he takes things day by day, and does it very well, spending his forties at home with Atlas, Matte and his dog, Angel. Read on for Mitchell’s tips on sleep training, her fears about motherhood and how she takes time for herself with a key.
Have an hour for herself:
[Atlas’ nap schedule] is actually my time to adapt to everything I want to do. I take an hour during your 10-hour nap; I’m not taking anything right now, unless it’s for exercise if I decide to exercise that day, or if I just want to stay in bed an hour longer and do nothing, then it’s time to do it: meditate, take a bath, walk with Angel, watch a show, do a FaceTime with my friends, make a mask. I know I have an hour every day to be with myself, think and think about what I’m going to do for the rest of the day. Actually, that helped me.
About what happens after Atlas goes to bed:
Atlas goes to bed pretty early, and after that, I have a lot of time or time. So it’s great to have that constant schedule.
Preparing dinner after sleep Atlas was our routine. We leave it at 8 p.m., and after that we’re in the kitchen to make dinner. I wasn’t used to late dinner, but now that your schedule is as it is, it’s the new culture here: put it to bed, make dinner for us and reconnect. In the morning, Atlas wakes up at 7.30am or 8am, which is also very nice. Now you have a schedule where you sleep for 11 to 12 hours, then wake up with a full bottle and now we start with the solids.
About your child’s sleep formation:
[Atlas] is a smart sleeper. In fact, I’m lucky he allowed us to sleep well. In fact, we were able to exercise it at the time.
[If you exercise to sleep,] I would just say it’s consistent with everything that suits you… with everything you’re looking to do, or any format, or elegance you’re doing, or any kind of program that comes about how to sleep-exercise. Maintaining consistency is my most productive advice.
About Mom’s guilt:
Anything someone does to your child is more than enough, even if they don’t. I think all [mothers] have to inspire each other, let them know we’re doing a wonderful job. FaceTime is going a long way, dreaming of each other, look how we all pass … Tell a mother she’s doing a wonderful job. It can go that far.
On the importance of having mothers:
Support is definitely very important, either during this era and not even during this era. New mothers may feel that we don’t know if we’re doing enough, we’re exaggerating, okay, is it wrong? And all the recommendations you can get from your friends are great.
Troian [Bellisario] is definitely someone I spend a lot of time on to get other recommendations on a multitude of things, but who are actually afraid of Atlas. She has reaffirmed that I deserve to do what I think is right. She says, “Listen, we all have other experiences. Mine may not be the same as yours, and you actually have to do what you think is right. And that’s actually what I just tried to do.”
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