Adorable baby sleeping
One of the most difficult transitions new parents have to make is
that of getting a good night’s sleep once their baby arrives. Many new
parents wonder if their infant will ever sleep through the night.
An infant’s sleep habit can turn a house upside down during those
first few weeks or months. But when you take the time to train your baby
to develop consistent sleep habits and learn to ‘read’ your baby, good
things happen. The following list of ‘sleep facts’ is sure to help get
you started on understanding your baby’s sleep habits better:
Hours of sleep
An infant needs 10 to 12 hours of sleep per day during the first year
of life. This sleep will likely happen every 3 to 4 hours during the
first 8 to 12 weeks of life due to the fact that an infant also needs to
eat every 2 to 4 hours during this same period of time.
Baby clues
Babies give
clues telling you they are ready to go to sleep. These clues come in two
stages. First stage clues: yawning, redness in the eye area (especially
under the eyebrows) and rubbing the eyes, ears or head with their hand.
Second stage clues: fussiness, clenching their hands into fists, holding their bodies stiffly and finally…crying and screaming.
Too tired
Babies can
get too tired to sleep. An infant who is sleep-deprived will have a
harder time going to sleep than one who slept two to three hours prior.
That’s
right, the more sleep an infant gets the better they will sleep. Parents
of infants need to develop a pattern of feed, play, sleep.
In the
beginning, this pattern will repeat itself every 2-3 hours. As your baby
gets older, the pattern will repeat itself every 4-6 hours.
And finally,
your baby will learn to get up each morning, take an afternoon nap and
be set until bedtime (7 to 9 pm) before starting over the next morning.
A baby getting some shut eye
No comments:
Post a Comment