Well, according to my mother, insomnia magically disappears when you are
tending to an infant! Actually, I suspect this will be true since I can
sleep (usually) when truly exhausted. The problem normally is turning my
thoughts off enough to get to sleep *before* I'm exhausted. That's my
primary hope, since I already do all the "sleep hygiene" things you are
supposed to.

Sadly not true, I've never been the worlds best sleeper, but other than
very briefly about 8 years ago had never used a sleep aid, either
antihistamine or tranquilliser or stronger, but insomnia from about 4
weeks after the birth of my 1st was the first sign of postnatal
depression, which now 8 weeks after the birth of my 2nd, makes me panic
that it's coming it back if ever I take more than half an hour to go to
sleep.

My experiences with Benadryl is that it only works if you actually put
yourself in a position to go to sleep, which meant if labour started
slowly and it was bed time it should work, but if things suddenly
kicked off it wouldn't be a problem. But medically I've no idea whether
it would be safe, so you really should talk things over with a doctor
and if your care providers do not take on board what you feel your
needs are it might be worth a one of discussion with a psychiatrist or
psychotherapist.

Sidheag, as far as I know benadryl is ok for breastfeeding, my
psychiatrist suggested it and he knew I was breastfeeding and I've
consumed reasonable amounts of it whilst continuing to breastfeed. From
what I can tell from the Hales website, most sleep drugs and
tranquillisers are ok as they have such short half lives, though the
BNF will say you shouldn't take them.

What Ilse says about pethidine is a common reaction, which is why I
would definitely not react postively to the use of other types of sleep
inducing drugs, even if a doctor says they were safe. For my first I
didn't want to use pethidine in labour because I didn't know what
effect it would have on me and it didn't seem sensible to try a drug
I'd never had before at such an intense time when I needed to be
functioning. I've now had pethidine both IM and IV and neither way
would cause me to doze of between contractions, for some reason though
I get woozy as most people do with opiates, they seem to have the
opposite effect and keep me awake.

If I still have insomnia, hopefully it will only be during the time I have
off from work? Actually, as it is I only take meds 1-2X/wk (pre-preg) and
just suffer the rest of the time, so once we start using EBM I can put DH on
baby duty on the weekends so I can sleep.

Could cause supply difficulties, it's best to keep up the regular
pattern of feeding, but if you really need to sleep DH still goes on
baby duty for all except the feeds, which you do lieing down,
supervised by DH, so he can take the baby away and stop you from
rolling on to it or anything, even if you cosleep, it's just not safe
when you have drugs in your system. We had to do this last night (my
current insomnia is due to a back injury), so I fed Ada, then took
painkillers and a sleeping pill and bathed and went to bed, DH brought
her to me in the middle of the night, kept an eye on us and took her
away again (I'd gone to bed with lieing on my side with my top hitched
up to make things as easy as possible!), by the time she next woke up
it was 10 hours since I'd taken anything.

So you see anyone? I've been told that bad sleep is a high risk factor
for postnatal depression and it's definititely better to spot it sooner
rather than later.

Anne