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How to teach your child to sleep all the time. How to teach your baby to sleep through the night

Mothers try to think through everything even before the birth of their child. important issues, among which - where he will sleep. After birth, another question arises: what should be done to ensure that the baby sleeps all night? What is the reason that babies have restless sleep, and how to deal with it? Depends on sleep general condition organism and its development.

Establishing a daily routine from birth is an important task. Not only the child, but the whole family will have a rest.

How long should you sleep? infant in the first month? A newborn baby sleeps about 17-18 hours a day. Children at this age never sleep more than 3-4 hours - neither day nor night.

Close observation of your baby will help you establish a rest routine. What matters is how long he stays awake. The waking time is no more than 2 hours. If you don't keep track of time and put your child to bed later, he will become overtired. Signs of drowsiness include yawning and touching your face. At this time, you need to put the baby in the crib. You can sing a lullaby, or just talk quietly, monotonously. Such attentiveness will help teach the baby to sleep in its place.

IN daytime You need to communicate with the newborn more often, carry him in your arms. If a child wakes up at night, you should not play with him or talk for a long time. No need to turn on the light. These actions will help establish a routine, and it will be easy to teach the child to distinguish between day and night.

How long does a 2-3 month old baby sleep? By 3 months, sleep duration decreases to 15 hours.

The baby sleeps twice a day. Children's daily routine should be supplemented with rituals of waking up and going to bed.

How long should a one year old baby sleep? By the end of the 12th month, your baby should sleep about 12 hours a day. At this time, the transition to one-day sleep occurs.

If you have managed to establish a sleep-wake routine, the child eats well, walks a lot, but still has difficulty falling asleep and sleeps little (less than 40 minutes), you should consult a doctor for advice.

What problems might you encounter?

In order to teach your baby to sleep through the night, you need to understand the reasons for waking up.

  1. During the first month, the baby wakes up from hunger. If parents want to solve the problem with a large portion of food before bed, then this will not save the situation. Sleeping on a full stomach is even worse. Children who are breastfeeding, and sleep with mom, can wake up every 40 minutes.
  2. Too strong emotions during the day lead to the fact that the baby sleeps only 30-40 minutes. Children's nervous system is very weak, they can see bad dreams and wake up.
  3. Sleep disturbance can occur due to poor health: colic, teething, colds. In this case, the baby sleeps for only 30-40 minutes.
  4. The day and night routine in children is disrupted.
  5. Uncomfortable clothing can cause short sleep - 30-40 minutes. Clothes should be made from natural and high-quality material, there should be no rough seams or unnecessary details.

During healthy sleep The child should not breathe through his mouth. Breathing through the nose allows the air to warm up and clear dust particles. The lungs work actively and saturate the blood with oxygen. In the case when the baby sleeps with open mouth, the air enters the lungs cold, and there is a risk of colds.

It is important to understand why a child sleeps with his mouth open. This can lead to problems such as sleep disturbance, anemia and hypoxia. The older the child gets, the more difficult it will be to wean him from this habit.

  • The child sleeps with his mouth open due to an uncomfortable position.
  • Perhaps the nose is clogged with mucus or crusts have formed, and the child is forced to breathe through the mouth.

If everything possible reasons eliminated, and the baby still sleeps with his mouth open not only at night, but also during the day, then we can talk about a habit. Parents will have to make efforts to teach their baby to sleep with his mouth closed.

Falling asleep with mom until one year of age is normal occurrence. If the baby falls asleep during breastfeeding, you can try to wean him off.

In the evening, before going to bed, you just need to put him in the crib and leave the room. He will cry for 20-30 minutes and fall asleep. You can sit next to the crib, but not respond to crying, or use a pacifier.

It happens that the baby sleeps only in his arms. As soon as he is placed in his crib, he opens his eyes. In the arms of the child he feels the warmth and protection of his mother. To wean him off this without injuring the nervous system, you need to hold the baby in your arms more often during the day when he is not sleeping. Or you can replace the desire to sleep in your arms by sleeping together with your mother.

It is worth being patient to teach your baby to sleep in his own crib. How long it will take depends on the baby’s temperament, his health characteristics and the atmosphere in the house.

Helper for a long and healthy rest

When children wake up every 30-40 minutes, a sleeping bag can help solve the problem. A child in a dream, moving his legs and arms, wakes himself up and opens up.

How a sleeping bag can be useful:

  • you will feel warm and cozy all night long;
  • while feeding in your arms, the baby will also feel comfortable;
  • the bag will not be able to fall;
  • The sleeping bag is convenient to take with you on a trip.

The sleeping bag should be used immediately after discharge from maternity hospital. If this is done later, it will be more difficult to teach the child to sleep in new conditions.

The only disadvantage of a sleeping bag is the inconvenience of changing a diaper or changing a diaper.

How to choose the right sleeping bag? It must match the size of the baby. The neckline should not fit too tightly around the neck. A sleeping bag can have sleeves. It would be better if it had a zipper. When choosing a sleeping bag, you need to take into account the air temperature in the room.

The sleeping bag has become a popular product for newborns. You can buy it at any specialized store, or sew it yourself.

Basic rules for putting your baby to bed

If you properly establish a daily routine, this will help parents put their child to sleep quickly and throughout the night. Otherwise it will wake up every 30 minutes. Consistency and consistency will help improve the process of going to bed.

  1. You need to decide what time you plan to go to bed each day.
  2. A few hours before bedtime, active games should be avoided. loud sounds, vivid impressions.
  3. Bathing in a warm bath will help you tune in night sleep.
  4. A massage will help relax your muscles and calm your nervous system.
  5. After putting the baby in the crib, you need to sit next to him for some time. You can read a book, sing a lullaby.

By doing several similar sequential actions every day, you can teach your baby to fall asleep quickly.

Most babies can sleep through the night by six months. Some parental mistakes lead to the newborn waking up every 30–40 minutes. To change the routine and teach him to sleep through the night, parents need to make every effort and patience.

  • Night feeding (many children have only a habit by this time).
  • Wrong mode: sleeps a lot during the day, little activity.
  • There is no ritual before bed.
  • You should not hold your baby in your arms for a long time before going to bed.

If your baby is 7 months old and continues to fall asleep in your arms day and night, you can begin to patiently explain to him that he needs to sleep in a crib. At this age, children are already able to understand the speech of an adult.

It is easy to train your baby to sleep next to his mother. This way he calms down and falls asleep faster, especially if he is breastfed. If the mother allowed the child to sleep with her for the first few days, she will have to face the problem of how to wean the child from similar dream. It doesn’t matter how many months the baby will be at this moment. You need to choose the right moment when it is better to teach your child to sleep separately.

  • The most best time– when the baby stops breastfeeding or eating breast milk only during the day.
  • It is easier to teach children who have established deep and long sleep.
  • During the day he can play on his own for a long time without requiring attention.

Experts advise not to leave your child to play in the crib during the day. To do this, you need to allocate special places: a corner for games, a playpen. The crib is designed for relaxation.

It is this idea that needs to be formed in the baby.

Rest too short. What to do

Healthy sleep consists of a slow and rapid sleep cycle. During the fast (superficial) phase, a person has vivid, emotional dreams. Deep (slow) sleep is characterized by relaxation of the body. In adults, sleep begins with a rapid phase, and then the slow phase begins. In infants the opposite may be true.

Children have a short sleep cycle, and the baby can sleep through one phase. How long does the fast phase last in infants? The fast phase lasts 20-30 minutes. It is better to rock your baby in your arms before deep sleep appears. Otherwise, when changing the place of laying, the baby will immediately wake up.

During REM sleep, you experience what happened during the day. In phase slow sleep physical development occurs. This is why sleep is so important for children.

Healthy sleep for children depends on their internal state. External factors(light, sound) have little effect on the quality of sleep. It is important to establish emotional contact with your baby in the first month.

If a baby's sleep lasts only 30–40 minutes, it is considered short. During this time it is impossible to regain strength. The child will wake up cranky and look overtired during the day.

Many parents believe that teaching a newborn to sleep through the night is impossible. This is wrong. It is necessary to find an approach to the child, take into account his mood and temperament in order to understand how to teach the baby to sleep through the night. Let's talk in more detail about the nuances of sleep little man, about techniques that help bring it back to normal night rest.

At what month does a baby start sleeping through the night?

Not always what is said medical workers, coincides with reality. Each organism is special, and even infants are absolutely different from each other. Therefore, there is no single answer to the question of what time children start sleeping through the night. You can only divide the babies into the following groups, based on their behavior during the night's rest:

  • The baby sleeps soundly all night. When, from the moment of birth, the baby sleeps at night without interruption, this does not happen often. If the little one does not wake up on his own, then experts recommend waking him up for feeding, or feeding him in a sleepy state;
  • the newborn wakes up and asks to eat (1 to 2 times during the night). This is a more common category of babies who ask for their mother's breast at night and need hugs for a restful sleep;
  • The baby wakes up more than 2 times. For such children, sleep may be interrupted due to extraneous sounds that frighten them. Or the child wakes up due to his arms suddenly thrown up. It is recommended to swaddle such children during the night's rest;
  • the baby hardly sleeps and behaves restlessly. It is difficult for a child to fall asleep in a row, even for several hours, and he exhausts his parents with his behavior. In such a situation, it is important to find the reason that prevents the baby from resting.

For some mothers, the child sleeps all night starting from the first months, while for others, as a result of disturbances in night rest, the entire day and night routine is disrupted.

But, in any case, do not despair. There are various techniques developed by pediatricians to help teach infants to sleep through the night. Let's talk about them in more detail.

Causes of a restless night's rest

To normalize your baby's sleep at night, it is necessary to understand the causes of interrupted sleep. The following are the main reasons why a baby wakes up at night:

  • I'm hungry. But, this reason applies to children under 3 months. The older the baby gets, the less night feedings he needs;
  • overfeeding Digestive system cannot cope with large amounts of food, and the baby has a tummy ache at night;
  • overfilled diaper;
  • in the children's or parent's bedroom it is very stuffy, or, on the contrary, cold;
  • overwork;
  • overstimulation from too much active games before bed;
  • the child feels unwell;
  • extraneous sounds (music from neighbors, the sound of an elevator, conversations).

Any of the above reasons can disrupt your baby's nighttime rest. Therefore, before teaching your baby to sleep through the night, first eliminate any irritating factors, which can affect the quality of rest.

Use the tips pediatrician Komarovsky to teach your child to sleep through the night. You must adhere to the following 9 rules:

  1. decide what comes first for you. Parents don't need to pretend to be heroes, and abandon his personal life in order to devote himself entirely to the child. Such sacrifices are not needed by anyone, and will not lead to positive results. If the parents are unhappy, the baby will not be happy either. It’s better to think about how to quickly teach your child to sleep through the night and get enough sleep yourself;
  2. create a daily routine. It is important that the baby’s routine coincides with the parents’ routine. It is advisable to prepare for the night's rest at the same time, this will make it easier to teach the baby to sleep all night;
  3. Next you need to decide where is sleeping place newborn, and with whom he sleeps (alone, with his parents). The following options are possible: until the child is one year old, place his crib next to your sleeping place. After a year, you need to teach your baby to sleep alone in the nursery. Sleeping in your parents' bed is possible, but not recommended;
  4. control your sleep during the day. At a certain age, a newborn should sleep a specific number of hours. Based on these indicators, do not allow the baby to rest during the day for more than the prescribed time, and wake him up to eat and during active activities. It happens that the baby sleeps during the day most of the time needed for rest, then it will be difficult to teach the child to sleep all night;
  5. When the baby is six months old, he wakes up less often at night, feeling hungry. Reason interrupted sleep May be desire to communicate with mom, or the baby wants to be rocked. There is no need to immediately feed him every time the baby jumps up. It is possible that overeating is the cause restless sleep. Also, you should not indulge all the baby’s nightly whims, otherwise he will wake up and demand communication;
  6. make active use of daytime. Play, walk, communicate. Try to get the baby to move more and experience only positive emotions. Before bed, on the contrary, games and conversations become calmer. Teach your baby to listen to your lullabies while falling asleep;
  7. will help teach your baby to sleep through the night and properly prepared sleeping place. The child’s bed and bedding should be chosen so that they feel comfortable and cosy. Until the age of two, do not place a pillow on your baby, but choose a mattress so that it is smooth and without wrinkles. Buy sleeping accessories for your baby only from fabrics of natural origin;
  8. ventilate the nursery, preparing the baby for sleep. Try to do daily wet cleaning of the children's bedroom, while ventilating and humidifying the room. Best temperature for quality baby sleep from 18 to 20 degrees;
  9. important for a good night's rest high-quality and correctly selected diapers.

Komarovsky’s main advice boils down to the following points:

  • it is important to ensure that the baby is fed, good air in the nursery, a comfortable crib and atmosphere, bathing before a night's rest;
  • to teach your baby to sleep through the night, you don’t need to wait for some of a certain age. After the little man appears, you need to immediately decide when everyone will go to bed;
  • Komarovsky does not welcome putting the baby into the parent's bed. It is better to temporarily place a crib nearby;
  • adhere to a certain feeding regimen. Only up to three months the baby needs three nightly feedings. Then it is enough for the baby to eat once during the night's rest. Once the baby reaches six months, he should not be fed at night;
  • The more active the day is, the more sound your night's sleep will be.

Activities such as an evening bath, a relaxing light massage before bed, and a well-chosen diaper will help make your baby sleep through the night.

Book

In addition to the advice and recommendations of specialists, the book How to Teach a Baby to Sleep Through the Night from the authors G. Ezzo and R. Bouknam will help you cope with disturbances in nighttime rest.

The authors have developed their own system to help parents regulate their nighttime rest. Read an excerpt from the work (a greeting from the authors) on how to teach a child to sleep through the night: “Our book is not about fortune telling on coffee grounds, but about specific principles. A calm child is not an accident, but the fruit of reasonable upbringing. Your actions in the first days, weeks, months of a baby’s life will determine your attitude towards him for all subsequent years. Let me make a reservation right away: this book is not only about newborns’ nighttime sleep. Getting your baby to sleep from evening to morning by the sixth or eighth week of life is the easy part. educational work. It is much more difficult to raise a child to be a responsible person.”

Habits before bed

When the baby turns one year old, you can already talk to him, explaining why he needs to rest at night without interruptions. With babies up to this age it is a little more difficult. But by following simple rules, you can normalize their night's sleep without any problems.

The following recommendations regarding food and daytime routine will help you train your newborn to sleep at night:

  1. create a comfortable atmosphere for the baby, show more affection and patience;
  2. when the baby wakes up at night at 4 months and is capricious, then try feeding him more generously before bed;
  3. Plan your main meal for the first half of the day;
  4. try to stick to your daily routine. Feed your baby at the same time and follow the schedule nap;
  5. if at night the baby is capricious and asks for milk, then gradually replace the milk with juices, or give plain water;
  6. try to get your baby to fall asleep without a bottle on your own;
  7. If the baby is used to falling asleep only in your arms, then rock him until he falls asleep. Then be sure to put him in his crib.

Use little parenting tricks to help your baby sleep through the night without interruptions:

  1. You should not be happy when the baby sleeps for a long time during the day. Many mothers enjoy using this time for household chores. But, having slept during the day, the child will not want to sleep at night, or his sleep will be intermittent;
  2. Parents themselves are often to blame for a child’s restless night’s rest. So, dad, who came home late from work, brings the child a new toy. As a result, the baby gets excited before going to bed, he is overwhelmed with emotions, and a restless night is guaranteed. There are many such examples, and therefore parents should monitor their behavior;
  3. Do not teach your baby to go to bed late. To do this, pay more attention to him during the day. When resting during the day, do not cover the windows with curtains. So the baby will learn to distinguish between rest during the day and at night;
  4. exclude high activity baby in the evenings;
  5. For overly active children, you can add infusions of soothing herbs (chamomile, string) to the bathing water;
  6. sing lullabies to the baby in the crib, tell fairy tales;
  7. If a baby under 3 months is too active, you can swaddle him during the night. This way he himself will be calmer and more comfortable;
  8. When a baby starts teething, it is difficult for him to fall asleep. Before going to bed, use a special gel that soothes aching gums;
  9. if the baby is bothered painful sensations and colic in the tummy, consult your doctor about medications that soothe the intestines.

It happens that despite all the recommendations listed, parents are unable to normalize their child’s sleep. The baby still wakes during the night's rest and then fusses during the day. In this case, you need to contact medical assistance. It is possible that consultation with specialized specialists (neurologist, child psychologist) will be required.

The main thing is to be patient and not despair if the first attempts to teach your child to sleep at night do not bring results.

In the first months of his life, the child mostly sleeps, waking up only to eat. New mothers are mentally prepared for the fact that they will have to get up at night. However, it often happens that a child, having overcome it, still does not allow his parents to get enough sleep and requires attention several times a night. How to teach a child to sleep through the night? First of all, I would like to note that you will not solve this issue at once. We'll have to be patient.

It's best to start from the very beginning early age. Very often we hear such an expression as “the child confused day and night.” This phrase means that the baby sleeps soundly during the day and is awake at night. This situation is typical for children in the first and second months of life. Parents often wonder “how to teach a newborn to sleep at night.” The whole point is that the baby doesn’t care what time of day it is. Such concepts as night and day do not yet exist for him. In such a situation, we can advise the following. During the day, even if the child is sleeping, do not create perfect silence. Let the room be light. The child will not be disturbed by the sound of the TV or your conversations. At night, on the contrary, it should be dark and quiet. In this way, the newborn will learn to distinguish the times of day.

It may also happen that your treasure has already learned to sit, the first tooth is about to appear, and you are still forced to get up to him several times a night. How to teach a baby to sleep at night?

Children at this age do not sleep as deeply as adults. In addition, they need to eat much more often. First of all, we can advise co-sleeping. Next to the mother, the baby feels protected and sleeps more soundly, therefore waking up less often. Try to adjust his diet; he should go to bed well-fed, then the likelihood that he will wake up soon is small.

For many parents, the question of how to teach a child to sleep through the night remains painful. for a long time. There are a number of standard tips that help many. Try to walk before bed and be sure to ventilate the room in which the child sleeps. Do not arrange active games in the evening. Set them aside for the morning or afternoon. A bath is an excellent relaxing remedy. You can add it to water various herbs, this will help the baby calm down and get ready for sleep. After the bath, feed him and put him to bed. If your child likes to listen to fairy tales or lullabies, be sure to perform them for him.

Such simple tips Parents often get help on how to teach a child to sleep through the night. But it is worth considering that all children are different, and what suits one may not necessarily please another. What should you do if, despite all your efforts, your baby wakes up and screams at night? Make sure your baby is not sick, has a clean diaper, and is not hungry. Only after this can we say with confidence that he is simply being capricious. Don't approach him at the first cry. Try to ignore it. Usually by the third or fourth night the child learns to fall asleep on his own.

How to teach a child to sleep through the night? Everyone chooses their own method. The main thing that everyone without exception will need is

Teach your child to distinguish day from night. Newborns sleep (and eat and pee/poop) on a 24-hour cycle. Unfortunately, they do not know that there is day and night in the world! About every two hours, the baby will require your attention to feed and calm down. After all, his main task now is to promptly fill his tiny stomach with enough food and learn to regulate activity internal organs and systems that were previously controlled by the mother’s body. This period will last about three months. But there is also a plus: now there is no need to worry about the baby’s daily routine and the duration of his naps or to ensure that he sleeps all night without waking up.

Help your child adjust his internal clock. Let him be surrounded throughout the day bright light, various sounds and activities, and at night they are replaced by darkness, silence and peace.

Sleep in the same room as your baby at night. When a newborn baby sleeps next to his parents, it helps him regulate his breathing rhythm, body temperature and stress levels. It also makes breastfeeding easier because mom and baby have the same sleep and wakefulness rhythms. Finally, at first you will every now and then check whether everything is okay with the baby, which is much easier if you just need to open your eyes slightly without getting out of bed.

Probably the easiest way to co-sleep with your baby is to place the crib close to yours, so that both mattresses are approximately at the same level. This is easier than putting a newborn in your bed, since for a Western person such a dream is unusual and a lot needs to be changed to ensure it is safe.

In the USA the following requirements apply. You need to place a firm mattress on the floor that is not in contact with walls or furniture where the child could get stuck. To prevent the baby from suffocating, the edges of the sheet should be pressed tightly to the mattress; the use of pillows is not allowed. Only a mother can sleep in the same bed with a newborn - of course, sober and a non-smoker. Both mother and child will wake up more often, but it is possible that this method will suit you best. Or maybe your child simply won’t be able to sleep any other way. Young mothers fall asleep instantly, even if they had to wake up: hormones help. But do not forget that after a few months the baby will need to be moved to her own crib. According to research, when sleeping together with the mother, the infant's deep sleep phases are more often interrupted and have a shorter duration.

There are other options for arranging infant sleep, based on the fact that a newborn, accustomed to the cozy closeness of the womb, is uncomfortable in the open space of a large flat mattress. Some parents use a bassinet. Legendary Seattle birthing specialist Penny Simkin prefers the Fisher-Price Rock'n Play. Both bassinets and bouncers have a reclining back and angled sides that create a cozy, enclosed area for your baby. The reclining back is especially helpful if your baby is burping. The Rock"n Play chaise lounge is compact and lightweight. It can be placed next to your bed, or you can carry it back and forth so that the baby is always in sight, say, when you shower or eat. But remember: before the baby reaches six months, he needs to be moved to his own crib.

Whatever way you prefer to put your baby to sleep, one recommendation will be common to everyone: for the first three months, sleep with your baby in the same room. During this period - the "fourth trimester" - the baby needs special care and closeness. Of course, you and your partner will have to partly sacrifice the opportunity for privacy, but this problem can be solved one way or another.

To help your baby sleep better, swaddle him. When swaddling, the baby's arms are pressed tightly against his sides, and this prolongs his sleep. Otherwise, he may wake himself up by involuntarily throwing up his arms in his sleep. In addition, a swaddled baby feels better when we place him on his back. And newborns should be placed to sleep on their back to reduce the risk of sudden death.

At first, many babies express dissatisfaction when they are swaddled, because in the womb they are used to having their hands near their mouths. But don’t rush to tell yourself “The baby hates the diaper, off with it.” Having finished swaddling, immediately calm the baby: put him to your chest or walk around, holding him in your arms, patting him and rhythmically making the sound: “Sh-sh-sh...”. (The same thing was advised to me by a childbirth specialist in order to accustom the baby to a sling or kangaroo carrier.)

Some babies (or parents) hate some swaddling methods but love others. Therefore, it is useful to become familiar with the options.

  • Specially shaped Velcro swaddles, such as SwaddleMe and Halo SleepSack, are easy to use, but some babies get out of them just as easily.
  • A traditional diaper is a large square of thin fabric: a universal option. The baby can be swaddled with bent or straightened arms. You can build a “spacer” between the legs to make it convenient to fasten the baby in the chair. And the most reliable way swaddling is double (find a video to understand what we're talking about). In this case, a second diaper or changing tape is used, with the help of which the baby’s arms are additionally secured under the regular diaper.
  • The Miracle Blanket is a ready-made model for double swaddling. Nevertheless, even from this thing a baby can wriggle out.
    Regardless of the diaper and swaddling method, nothing should prevent the child from moving his hips to avoid the development of dysplasia hip joint, and take a deep breath. Only your hands need to be fixed. Practice on a doll - or on a sleeping baby, if you dare.
  • Create a bedtime ritual. When your baby has developed a certain sleep-wake routine - this happens around four months of age - do the same actions in the usual sequence every evening before bed. same time. Predictability calms your baby and prepares him for bedtime. Moms participating in one study noticed that after three weeks of this practice, children began to fall asleep faster, slept longer and woke up less often in the middle of the night. At the same time, mothers also felt better.

Night is daddy's duty time. After six months, the baby no longer requires night feedings. To regulate his internal clock, encourage him to eat more during the day, gradually reducing the length of breastfeeding or the amount of formula at night. If the baby wakes up, the father may well interrupt his sleep for a minute to rock him to sleep. You need to rock your baby to sleep at night slowly, calmly and in the dark. By the way, it takes a father much less time than a mother to help the child fall asleep again in the middle of the night: after all, he does not have “titi”...

At six months of age, you should shift your baby's sleep time. When your baby refuses his third nap, move his bedtime at night, otherwise he won't get enough sleep. My husband and I had to look the right time by the “scientific poke” method. Every evening we put the baby to bed 15-30 minutes earlier and made sure that she still woke up at six in the morning. If she jumped up earlier than usual or took too long to fall asleep, we concluded that we had put her to bed too early. In the end we settled on the time period from 18.30 to 19.00. The result exceeded all expectations, because now we had the whole evening at our disposal!

Take a walk with your child. As it turned out, children who slept better at night received significantly more light from the blue part of the spectrum in the interval from noon to 16.00.

A time-lapse study found that by four months, 85% of babies are sleeping at least five hours at a time, but 15% are not covered by this law. Upon reaching one year, 73% of children sleep from 22.00 to 6.00, and 27% do not want to. Finally, every child has growth spurts during which his previous (comfortable or not so, but at least predictable) sleep patterns are disrupted.

So, your breath should last for a long time. Whether you find parenthood a burden depends largely on your expectations for your baby's sleep.

Search useful tips - of course, in trusted sources. But you shouldn’t bury your head in all the books and blogs, so as not to get confused in conflicting information. And if you are deeply convinced of something, follow your intuition.

Lyudmila Sergeevna Sokolova

Reading time: 6 minutes

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Article last updated: 05/25/2019

There is no consensus on this issue. Unfortunately, medicine is not an exact science; its conclusions are often corrected by life itself. Man is an extremely complex system, and each individual differs significantly from the average statistical norm. This fully applies to children in the first year of life. After the arrival of a baby in the house, troublesome things begin. troubled time. And although these are pleasant chores, still a mother, like any person, needs rest and good sleep. Therefore, she is concerned with the question - when will the child start sleeping through the night? Is it possible to train him to do this? How to teach a baby to sleep through the night? And when should the training process begin?

How long do newborns sleep at night without interruption?

Children are different and they sleep, accordingly, differently, and from the first days. Some lucky women gave birth to babies who sleep peacefully for 5-6 hours at night and let their mother rest; other babies confused day with night and “tugged” their mother every hour. In this regard, we can roughly distinguish 4 groups of children:

  1. The child sleeps consistently almost all night.
  2. The baby wakes up 1-2 times at night to feed.
  3. The child wakes up several times during the night.
  4. The little one hardly sleeps at night.

  • Group I includes children who sleep most of the night almost from the first days of their birth. Some pediatricians recommend waking your baby to feed or feeding him when he's sleepy. Others believe that nothing needs to be done; the little person’s stomach rests at night, as it should. And that's okay. Here the questions about when he will sleep most of the night and how to accustom him to this are resolved by themselves. This group is not the most common.
  • Group II includes children who wake up 1-2 times a night to suck their mother’s milk. This is due to the fact that a newborn’s stomach, like a kitten’s, is very small, and milk is absorbed quickly. In addition, many children need not only and not so much food, but contact with their mother and satisfaction of the sucking reflex.
  • Group III includes children with a pronounced Moro reflex. Such babies wake up not only to suck milk or cuddle with their mother. A loud, sharp sound or flash can frighten your baby. Their fear is expressed in a fairly strong shudder, throwing up their arms and unclenching their hands. This wakes some babies up. In this case, he should not be taught to sleep, but sleep should be prolonged. To do this, the mother can swaddle the newborn at night.
  • And the last, IV group, are children who do not allow their mother to rest almost all night. Usually newborns sleep 5-6 hours consistently, but these babies don't do that. Baby owl doesn't sleep various reasons. The first three months it may be colic, then teeth begin to cut, etc. It is the parents of such babies who are very interested in the question of what to do and how to teach the baby to sleep through the night.

When can you stop night feedings?

A child can wake up several times a night from 0 to 1.5 years. In rare cases, this lasts until the 3-year mark is reached. And this will not be considered a deviation.

However, infants should still be taught nighttime sleep habits. This will make his life easier in the future, when he goes to kindergarten, then to school, etc.

You should start by identifying the reason for the formation of incorrect associations between your baby and sleep and eliminating it as such. In some cases this is very easy to do:

  1. If the baby is hungry and does not eat enough at each feeding, you need to feed him a little more;
  2. If it is hot or stuffy, dress lighter and ventilate the room;
  3. If the child is tormented by gas, give the carminatives recommended by the pediatrician and place him on his tummy for more long period time;
  4. If neurological abnormalities are suspected, the pediatrician will send you for a consultation with a neurologist.

If the cause is eliminated, but the baby continues to show “owl-like” habits, this means that incorrect stereotypes have formed and will have to be changed.

IN general case You can reduce night feedings with the start of introducing complementary foods with “adult” food, replacing one of the night feedings with water. Perhaps the child wakes up out of habit and is not hungry at all - in this case, water will be enough.

The age of 9 months is considered the milestone at which you can begin to wean your child off night feeding. When breastfeeding, doctors recommend continuing to feed your baby at night until the baby is one year old.

This does not mean that the child has become independent and will simply refuse to eat at night when he reaches the specified age. Children cannot tolerate hunger. The baby can do without food only when it is mentally and physically ready for it.

How to instill in your child the skills of a good night's sleep?

By following a number of rules, you can teach your baby to sleep through the night.

How peacefully a child sleeps largely depends on the psychological atmosphere in the family. If parents show care, warmth, and give their baby affection, then, as a rule, no special efforts are required to improve sleep. When a child reaches 9-12 months, he sleeps peacefully throughout the night.

What to do if your child still asks to eat at night:

  1. Follow the daily routine;
  2. Feed the baby before bedtime in sufficient quantities so that he is not tormented by hunger and sleeps well and for a long time;
  3. Distribute most of the amount of food calculated for the day into the daytime and evening;
  4. Gradually reduce the portion of milk or formula at night, replacing them with water, juice, baby tea (give a drink if the baby starts to whine);
  5. Teach your child to fall asleep on his own (without a bottle) by rocking him to a half-asleep state in your arms, and when he begins to fall asleep, transfer him to a crib.

Little tricks

People have different biorhythms. It may turn out that a particular baby will indeed be suited to a nocturnal lifestyle over time, i.e. he will be a typical night owl.

But most often, the parents themselves are to blame for the “owl” behavior of the baby, if his behavior is not caused by illness, namely their inexperience. Often this behavior of the baby is promoted by the mother, who tries to redo all the household chores and is happy when the child sleeps a lot during the day, or by the father who came home late from work and decided to cuddle his beloved first-born and give him a new toy before bed. All these moments lead to overstimulation of the sensitive nervous system baby and a decrease in the quality of his night sleep.

The next thing that is best avoided is falling asleep during feeding. Of course, it’s convenient for a tired mommy if the baby falls asleep while sucking on a nipple or bottle - there’s no need to rock him to sleep, sing songs, or carry him in your arms. You can just put it in the crib. However, over time, this convenience will turn into difficulties. If the child wakes up for some reason, putting him to sleep without food will be problematic.

That is why the regime is very important. The regime is a “beast” that, despite all the benefits it brings, is not popular with most adults. How can a newborn be taught this if the parents themselves do not want to follow the daily routine? And yet it should be done.

If a child is breastfed and pediatricians advise feeding “on demand,” how can this be combined with the concept of “daily routine”? There is no catch in this case.

  • Firstly, the regime is not only feeding. This is the time for sleep, games, bathing;
  • Secondly, if the child eats fully, the mother devotes enough time to him to communicate, play, sits with him, holds him in her arms, then he will not demand the breast endlessly. The baby will have enough mother's attention and will calmly withstand the time between feedings. Naturally a daily routine will be established, it will be close to the regime established for bottle-fed children.

How to teach your baby to sleep at night

11 rules on how not to turn your child into an “owl” and teach him to sleep properly at night. To do this you need:

  1. Maximum possible time spend the day playing with him;
  2. Do not close the curtains during the day, even if the baby is sleeping;
  3. Do not play active games with him at night;
  4. Do not give new toys before bedtime (this overloads the nervous system);
  5. Bathing a child in warm water 36.6-37 degrees for newborns when the house is warm (in summer and winter, during the heating season) and up to 38 degrees - if the house is cool (usually in spring and autumn, when the heating is turned off);
  6. If your baby is not allergic to herbs, you can add chamomile and string to the bath;
  7. When your baby starts to fall asleep, you can sing him his favorite lullaby. Such a ritual will form an instinct and make it easier to fall asleep, help put the child to bed without a bottle;
  8. If the baby is hyperactive or suffers from the Moro reflex, he can be swaddled for up to 3 months;
  9. Comfortable conditions in terms of temperature and humidity also contribute to restful sleep;
  10. If your baby’s gums are very sore and itchy when teething, you can use special gels or homeopathic drops;
  11. Use for colic and bloating carminatives, give dill water or special tea.

Swaddling is a controversial issue; some experts do not recommend swaddling children at all. But, nevertheless, if the quality of the baby’s sleep is low due to a strong and violent reaction to physical stimuli (light, sound), swaddling is allowed. This will prevent him from waking up due to a startle and will help him get used to sleeping longer.

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