Aid baby sleep
As a new mother, you probably will wonder whether your baby is sleeping enough, or sleeping too much. There are guidelines of what to expect, but of course these can vary from baby to baby. Even if you’ve had children before, each baby will be different. Newborn babies usually sleep about 16-17 hours in a 24-hour period. Most babies will not sleep through the night until they’re at least 3 months old. There are several reasons why. First of all, their stomachs are very small and they’ll get hungry faster, especially if you’re breastfeeding your baby. Breast milk is much more easily digested than formula, and your baby will need to feed more often, especially in the beginning.
Babies also have shorter sleep cycles than adults do and have shorter dream cycles. In general, though, a newborn baby should sleep about 8 or nine hours during the day and 8 hours or so at night. These won’t be in 8-hour cycles, of course. In the beginning, those sleep times will be very short. As the baby gets older, up to about 2 years of age, she’ll still be sleeping 13-14 hours, but the amount of daytime sleep will diminish month-by-month. By age 2, your baby should be sleeping through the night with a 2-hour nap during the day. Again, this will vary by child. Your baby might need a slightly longer nap or two short naps. At this age though, try to discourage naps too late in the afternoon, as this can make it harder to get them to sleep a few hours later at bed time. Once a baby begins to regularly sleep through the night, parents are often dismayed when he/she begins to awaken in the night again. This typically happens at about 6 months of age and is often a normal part of development called separation anxiety, when a baby does not understand that separations are temporary.
There are many different methods from the “experts” on dealing with sleep problems to Aid baby sleep in your developing baby and child. Again, do what works best for you and what you feel comfortable with. The Ferber method involves letting the baby cry herself to sleep, on the theory that if you’re firm about bed time, she’ll learn to comfort herself to sleep. This doesn’t mean just plunking the baby down in her crib and walking away. It differs from what you may already be doing in that it encourages you to put the baby in her crib while she’s still awake, so she gets used to falling asleep without you. But this might also mean letting her cry it out for a few weeks. This can be stressful for everyone in the household. Another method is the controlled crying method. Again, this involves your usual bedtime rituals of a bath, perhaps a snack and a story, rocking and cuddling. Put your baby in her crib and kiss her goodnight. If she starts to cry, wait 10 to 15 minutes before going in to comfort her. Try to resist picking her up, just shush her quietly and pat her on the back. Some experts suggest not talking, as this can reinforce the waking and crying behavior. You want to reassure your baby that you’re there, but you still want to encourage sleeping. After the first half hour of crying, increase the intervals before you check on the baby by a few minutes each time, up to about 15 to 20 minutes between checking. This can take some time, and can be trying on your nerves, but in time, your baby will learn that you’re not going away and that you’re nearby. This teaches your baby self-comforting, but also gives her the confidence and security that you’re there for her.
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