2/12/2024 0 Comments 4.5 hours deep sleepBut nothing could be further from the truth. I can’t tell you how many parents tell me their kid hates the swaddle. And as they get older, awake time can stretch to as long as 90 minutes. In a nutshell, the younger they are, the less time they’ll be able to stay comfortably awake (ie. Ideal wake times range depending on the age of your newborn and time of day. A great routine: swaddle baby, take them to their room with darkness and white noise, and actively try to get them down for a nap. Keep those newborns awake for about 50 to 60 minutes (including feeding and changing time if they’re awake during the feeding), and then start to get them ready for a nap. Wake times matter much less after the age of about 4 to 5 months, but they mean everything to a newborn. Help Your Baby Sleep Better #4: Keep wake times to a minimum. But, as soon as you see that you’re able to wake them up a bit, do so! Take off their clothes, expose them to cooler air, take them outside/expose them to sunlight, put them in a baby tub filled with lukewarm water… Simply put, do anything you can to wake them up if they’ve been asleep for longer than 2 hours. When those new newborns want to sleep, try as you might, they will not wake up. Granted, this will literally be impossible to accomplish for most babies before 4 to 6 weeks. This has got to be the single most effective thing you can do encourage your newborn to have longer stretches of sleep at night. This is a post about how to get your kiddo to sleep better, after all… #3: Do not let your baby sleep longer than 2 hours at a time from 7 am to 7 pm. Most (not necessarily all) babies sleep better with loud white noise, and as-dark-as-possible darkness. You can also just not use white noise or darkness, and then see how that goes. Many adults swear they sleep just fine through any errant noise, but studies show that constant pink (what we think of as white) noise helps the brain go into more stable levels of sleep. I prefer sleeping in my bed, with my pillow, etc. Newsflash: adults have sleep preferences too! I don’t like to sleep on planes, trains, or automobiles. People always worry their baby will become addicted to or dependent on darkness and white noise, and then won’t be able to sleep without it. The sooner your baby starts to associate darkness and loud white noise with sleep, the easier his or her life will be. Set up a room for your baby to sleep for naps and bedtime. The proper sleep environment will matter more and more as baby gets past the 6-week mark. Help Your Baby Sleep Better #2: Set up a proper sleeping environment. I don’t blame them! Being a baby sucks sometimes.) Anyway, do your best (which I know you are since you’re here right now!), and then just let the rest go. (This is just a personal theory here, but I SWEAR some children just hate being helpless newborns. And many are just unhappy being newborns. Others lack the gut bacteria to properly digest many of the trace amounts of common foods found in breast milk, and thus have excruciating gas. Over half of all newborns suffer from painful reflux. Even if you’re doing everything you’re supposed to there are a myriad of other factors at play. If your newborn isn’t sleeping well DO NOT SWEAT IT! Please. If she wasn’t doing C, it was because I was doing something wrong. So give them, and yourself, a little break when it comes to expectations.īefore I gave birth, I read a certain popular baby sleep book that made me feel like if I did A + B, then my 8-week-old should definitely be doing C. Let’s remember, newborns are busy learning how to keep their bodies at the right temperature and HOW TO BREATHE.
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