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Newborn Babies and Sleep
By Elizabeth Pantley,
author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution
Congratulations on the birth of your new baby. This is a glorious
time in your life – and a sleepless time too. Newborns
have very different sleep needs than older babies. This article
will help you understand your baby’s developing sleep
patterns, and will help you have reasonable expectations for
sleep.
Read, Learn, and Beware of Bad Advice
Absolutely everyone has an opinion about how you should handle
sleep issues with your new baby. The danger to a new parent
is that these tidbits of misguided advice (no matter how well-intentioned)
can truly have a negative effect on our parenting skills and,
by extension, our babies’ development…if we are
not aware of the facts. The more knowledge you have the less
likely that other people will make you doubt your parenting
decisions.
When you have your facts straight, and when you have a parenting
plan, you will be able to respond with confidence to those
who are well-meaning but offering contrary or incorrect advice.
So, your first step is to get smart! Know what you are doing,
and know why you are doing it. Read books and magazines, attend
classes or support groups – it all helps.
The Biology of Newborn Sleep
During the early months of your baby's life, he sleeps when
he is tired, it’s that simple. You can do little to
force a new baby to sleep when he doesn’t want to sleep,
and conversely, you can do little to wake him up when he is
sleeping soundly.
Newborn babies have very tiny tummies. They grow rapidly,
their diet is liquid, and it digests quickly. Although it
would be nice to lay your little bundle down at bedtime and
not hear from him until morning, this is not a realistic goal
for a tiny baby. Newborns need to be fed every two to four
hours — and sometimes more.
Sleeping “through the night”
You may believe that babies should start "sleeping through
the night" soon after birth. For a new baby, a five-hour
stretch is a full night. Many (but not all) babies can sleep
uninterrupted from midnight to 5 a.m. (Not that they always
do.) This may be a far cry from what you may have thought
"sleeping through the night" meant!
What's more, some sleep-through-the-nighters will suddenly
begin waking more frequently, and it’s often a full
year or even two until your baby will settle into an all-night,
every night sleep pattern.
Falling Asleep at the Breast or Bottle
It is natural for a newborn to fall asleep while sucking
at the breast, a bottle, or a pacifier. When a baby always
falls asleep this way, he learns to associate sucking with
falling asleep; over time, he cannot fall asleep any other
way. This is probably the most natural, pleasant sleep association
a baby can have. However, a large percentage of parents who
are struggling with older babies who cannot fall asleep or
stay asleep are fighting this powerful association.
Therefore, if you want your baby to be able to fall asleep
without your help, it is essential that you sometimes let
your newborn baby suck until he is sleepy, but not totally
asleep. When you can, remove the breast, bottle, or pacifier
from his mouth, and let him finish falling asleep without
it. If you do this often enough, he will learn how to fall
asleep without sucking.
Waking for Night Feedings
Many pediatricians recommend that parents shouldn't let a
newborn sleep longer than four hours without feeding, and
the majority of babies wake far more frequently than that.
No matter what, your baby will wake up during the night. The
key is to learn when you should pick her up for a feeding
and when you can let her go back to sleep on her own.
Here’s a tip that is important for you to know. Babies
make many sleeping sounds, from grunts to whimpers to outright
cries, and these noises don’t always signal awakening.
These are what I call sleeping noises, and your baby is asleep
during these episodes.
Learn to differentiate between sleeping sounds and awake
sounds. If she is awake and hungry, you’ll want to feed
her as quickly as possible so she’ll go back to sleep
easily. But if she’s asleep – let her sleep!
Help Your Baby Distinguish Day from Night
A newborn sleeps sixteen to eighteen hours per day, and this
sleep is distributed evenly over six to seven sleep periods.
You can help your baby distinguish between night sleep and
day sleep, and thus help him sleep longer periods at night.
Have your baby take his daytime naps in a lit room where
he can hear the noises of the day. Make nighttime sleep dark
and quiet, except for white noise (a background hum). You
can also help your baby differentiate day from night by using
a nightly bath and a change into pajamas to signal the difference
between the two.
Watch for Signs of Tiredness
Get familiar with your baby's sleepy signals and put her
down to sleep as soon as she seems tired. A baby who is encouraged
to stay awake when her body is craving sleep is an unhappy
baby. Over time, this pattern develops into sleep deprivation,
which complicates developing sleep maturity. Learn to read
your baby’s sleepy signs -- such as quieting down, losing
interest in people and toys, and fussing -- and put her to
bed when that window of opportunity presents itself.
Make Yourself Comfortable
It’s a fact that your baby will be waking you up, so
you may as well make yourself as comfortable as possible.
Relax about night wakings right now. Being frustrated about
having to get up won’t change a thing. The situation
will improve day by day; and before you know it, your newborn
won’t be so little anymore — she’ll be walking
and talking and getting into everything in sight…during
the day, and sleeping peacefully all night long.
Excerpted with permission by McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Publishing
from The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby
Sleep Through the Night by Elizabeth Pantley, copyright 2002
Website www.pantley.com/elizabeth
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