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Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
1 - . Your newborn may snooze a lot, but only for short stints.That's because her internal clock isn't up and running yet, so she doesn't know the difference between night and day. Besides, her tiny tummy can't hold much, so she'll be hungry every few hours, explains Jodi Mindell, Ph.D, author of Sleep Deprived No More. At about 6 to 10 weeks, she'll start to sleep for much longer stretches.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
2. Good sleep habits are all about routine. By 6 to 8 weeks, Baby can have a sleep schedule linked to feedings, with an official bedtime somewhere between 7 and 8 p.m., even though he isn't sleeping through the night. Newborns can benefit from an evening ritual: "Parents don't realize how aware babies are, but when you nurse him, zip up his pajamas, and put on music, it sends a signal," Dr. Mindell says. By 3 to 4 months, your newbie should be snoozing about six hours straight (yay!), so you'll be able to drop one middle-of-the-night feeding, says pediatrician Jennifer Trachtenberg, M.D., of New York City. As Baby sleeps longer, move bedtime up.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
3. Sleepy but awake is the ideal bed state. Let a child nod off on his own and he'll learn to put himself back to sleep if he wakes. Erika Riley, of Minneapolis, learned this the hard way: "I would lie in bed with my son until he fell asleep. Thirty minutes later, he'd wake up and need me next to him to drift off again!" Another common oops: feeding Baby right before bedtime. He'll come to rely on that to doze off. Make feeding the first part of the bedtime routine.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
4. Comfort with caution. Experts agree: For the first three months, cater to your baby's every need. After that, if you resist the urge to pick her up at every wail, she'll probably fall back asleep on her own, without much coaxing. Sometimes, all you need to do is gently place a hand on her belly or softly sing in her ear.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
5. Flexibility is key. When you have more than one child, there will be compromises. "I'd have to wake up the baby so I could take my older son to activities," says Jamie Gallovich, of Keller, Texas. If this is you, cut yourself some slack! "With your first kid, it's possible to follow a consistent schedule," Dr. Mindell says. "When you get to a second child, if you hit 50 percent consistency, that's good."
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
6. A too-tired baby won't sleep well. Learn the signals of sleepiness. Once a baby is rubbing his eyes or yawning, he's overtired, says Elizabeth Pantley, author of The No-Cry Nap Solution. "I call it the volcano effect: If he doesn't get the nap, he erupts." Watch out, too, for the "micro-nap," that five-minute snooze Baby takes in your arms or while in the swing or car seat. "The first five minutes of a nap reduce feelings of sleepiness, but they don't rejuvenate your baby," Pantley says. "After this brief snooze, Baby is tired, but he can't fall asleep." And if he doesn't nap during the day, he won't sleep well at night.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
7. There's no right way to nap. Your baby might end up taking two naps by the time she hits 3 to 4 months, or she could do three to four 45-minute naps until she's 9 or 10 months. Follow her lead or "you'll pay the price," says Marc Weissbluth, M.D., a Chicago pediatrician and author of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Don't expect a younger child to follow a big sib's previous patterns.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
8. Colicky babies find it hard to wind down. All babies cry; how can you tell if it's a colic thing? Listen for crying that is loud and higher-pitched, and that follows the Rule of Three: It goes on for three hours a day, three days a week, for three consecutive weeks. On the bright side, colic usually goes away at 3 months. Until then, soothe Baby with swaddling, singing, and shushing.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
9. It's good to surrender to Baby's schedule. Kate Clow's second daughter, Nora, was a great sleeper, but she woke up each day at 5 A.M. The mom from Chatham, New Jersey, tried putting her to bed later and changing nap times, but Nora remained an early bird. "What finally made it work was adjusting my own sleep schedule," she says. That meant no more staying up late doing laundry or checking email— and, thankfully, no more bleary-eyed mornings, either.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
10. Even stellar sleepers run into snags. Your baby may sleep like a dream now, but don't be alarmed if that's no longer the case when he reaches developmental milestones such as pulling up to standing. Whatever you do, don't change the bedtime rules! Let your tot practice his new skills during the day so he's less apt to lie awake at night, trying them in his crib.
Important 10 Truths About your Baby Sleep
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