Sleeping pattern of your baby

Feb 26, 2009 in Parenting

Sleeping pattern of your baby

Q: HOW MANY HOURS A DAY SHOULD MY BABY SLEEP ?

This is the question uppermost in most of the parents mind after birth. Remember that
your little one spends maximum of her time sleeping after birth for the first month of life.
Though there is a period of wakefulness immediately after birth which lasts for about 45 minutes where the child is wide awake and looks around after which she has spells of sleep.
This period of wakefulness is the time of maximum awareness in your baby in her entire life. So take her, cuddle her, and breast feed her and the bond between you two is formed!

A neonate (0 to 28 days of life) sleeps for almost 16 to 17 hours a day out of which she sleeps at a stretch at night for about 8 to 9 hours and rest is divided into naps of 40-45 minutes in the daytime.
The amount of sleep the baby wants to take should be left to the baby herself as long as she is taking proper feeds, is comfortable and is active between the naps. It is even acceptable if the baby has immediate drifting to deep dozing. The baby may be wide-awake and ravenous a moment and may go off to sleep the other moment.
Generally the amount of time that a baby can sleep decreases with age and is less than 12 hours by the time she is 3 years of age.
There are a few babies who are light sleepers though and wake up frequently at night. Most of these babies are very active by mind and there is nothing much you can do other than bearing with this.
TIPS FOR A GOOD SLEEP PATTERN

Establish a regular sleep time and nap times

Once your child starts forming a regular sleep pattern, you too set a time for her to sleep. Let it depend on the time patterns of your house and also the sleep pattern of your child. It is also a good idea to set a pattern for her nap times in the daytime which will vary from 2-3 naps in the daytime.
Sometimes when your baby seems to be very energetic in the night, it may be sign of extreme tiredness and paradoxically she will find it more difficult to sleep at night. Even the continuous sleep at night may be disturbed on that day.

Set up a bed time routine/ritual

Setting up a routine like giving your child a short massage and warm sponging with lavender wash, or even singing a lullaby, bedtime stories, playing soft music etc can set the mind of your baby towards sleeping.
Let the ritual be something that both of you enjoy.

Make him sleep independently

It is always in the best interest of all of us to make your child sleep independently without the need of rocking or being carried around. Any such habit may not be easy to erase later on and the best advantage is that the child will be able to snooze off again at night time too if he gets up.

Decipher your child

By tour maternal sixth sense, you will know when your child wants to sleep and there will be tell tale signs like rubbing of eyes and ears, bags under the eyes, extreme irritability etc. These are the times when you must put your child off to sleep and then maintain schedule the same if it fits into your household schedule too.

Tackle disturbed sleep

At six months, most of the babies drop their night feeds and sleep continuously but few of the naughty ones may get up more frequently. do not rush to their side to pacify or play. Just give him some time to do what he wants and get back to sleep. He may have learnt a new skill which he wants to try. If he is crying too much, wait for sometime and then go and pacify. Still try not to bring him to a complete wakeful state. Put him back to sleep slowly. Once he realizes that whatever happens, he has to sleep back, the habit will break slowly.