Should I Be Concerned About My Baby’s Sleep?

This week someone asked me if families really need to be concerned about their babies’ sleep so early. For her, a natural skill should be developed over time and there’s no reason to teach a baby to sleep from 4 months old.

Probably this person has never spent days with a child crying from lack of sleep or night after night without even sleeping for 6 hours straight, or needing to start your day at 4 a.m. because the baby definitely decided he wouldn’t sleep anymore.

In those moments when desperate exhaustion hits, you realize the first reason to care about your child’s sleep early on – the rest of the family. For parents, not sleeping is synonymous (among many other things) with moodiness, lack of concentration, memory loss, irritability, and little or no patience.

A U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a study showing that more than 50% of the American population experiences sleep deprivation issues, even calling it an “epidemic.” Babies who don’t learn to sleep properly become children, teenagers, and adults who will suffer the consequences of lacking quality sleep¹.

Consequences of Lack of Sleep

For children, these consequences can be learning difficulties, hyperactivity, obesity, and trouble with relationships. For teenagers and especially adults, the consequences can be even worse, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and depression.

But this can be avoided. Before thinking that adults can easily turn to medication to sleep, it’s important to look at the cause of sleep problems in the first place. Where did it start? Certainly, many people who have trouble sleeping already had this difficulty before they were even a year old.

Knowing all the devastating consequences of lack of sleep, why not invest time and patience to give your child excellent sleep quality? Caring for sleep is as important as caring for nutrition. You wouldn’t feed your child only unhealthy foods just because they cry and demand it, would you? It’s the same with sleep.

The sooner you work on your baby’s sleep issues, the faster and with much less struggle they will learn². Before 4 months old, we end up doing the baby’s part when it comes to sleep, and many don’t develop the skill to self-soothe, that is, to fall back asleep alone at the end of each sleep cycle and need their parents to get back to sleep.

When to Teach Your Baby to Sleep Properly?

The good news is that healthy sleep habits are a learned skill, just as a child will learn to read when the time is right. The right moment to teach your baby to sleep is from the 4th month of life.

The consequences of lack of sleep are truly serious and with gentle techniques, where we avoid crying, we can teach your baby how to sleep and to enjoy bedtime. Teaching a skill to a baby requires patience, persistence, and plenty of love. If you’re struggling with your baby’s sleep, be sure to seek help.

Caring for a baby’s sleep is a sign of love.

Michele Melão is an infant sleep consultant and baby planner certified by the International Academy of Baby Planner Professionals (IABPP) and the International Maternity Institute (IMI), California. (maternitycoach.com.br) – a consultancy specializing in various services for pregnant women and babies.

Baby Sleep – Is Mine Sleeping Enough?

In the first few days of life, a newborn sleeps practically all day, interspersed with many feedings and hygiene time. This can be a cause for concern for those unaware, who may think the baby is sleeping too much.

That’s why we’ll describe a baby sleep routine and explain what’s normal and what’s not. That way, we can help parents who aren’t quite ready yet to face this new routine. Remember that every baby has a different body and adapts in different ways, so they shouldn’t be compared to others. The baby’s sleep routine serves as a guideline for the ideal amount of sleep at each age stage.

Do Girls Sleep More Than Boys?

And you know that old tale that girls are calmer than boys and so they sleep better?? From the oldest traditions, this story has existed. But we can affirm, based on several studies and research, that it’s not true!!

The routines of both have been observed and compared, as well as sleep duration and habits, and it was found that each baby reacts in his or her own way, regardless of gender. Babies need to sleep more than we adults do because it’s during sleep that growth hormones are released, essential for their appropriate and healthy development.

So you should not interrupt a baby’s sleep, after all, they are in their development process. Usually, a baby’s sleep cycle lasts on average 4 hours and it is extremely important that this period is respected.

Only in the first weeks is it recommended that at the end of each 4-hour cycle, if the baby doesn’t wake up on their own, they should be woken to feed. This way, their weight gain isn’t affected and their development keeps up as expected.

Sleep Time by Age

As we mentioned above, every baby has their own routine and a different body that will react differently from others. But there is an expected and adequate average sleep for babies, which is considered healthy for their development and growth.

• 1st month – The newborn baby sleeps around 16 to 20 hours per day, decreasing to 16 to 18 hours a day in the first month. During the day, naps are split at least 3 times, totaling 7 hours. At night, sleep should last an average of 8 hours.
• 3rd month – Sleep at this stage decreases a bit more, lasting about 15 to 16 hours per day. There are 3 naps totaling 5 hours and about 10 hours of sleep at night.
• 6th month – Sleep at this stage reaches 14 hours, split into 2 naps lasting an average of 2 to 3 hours and 11 hours at night.
• 9th month – At this stage, the baby sleeps about 13 hours total daily. Two naps lasting 1 to 2 hours and 11 hours of night sleep.
• 12 months – At one year old, the baby usually sleeps about 13 hours daily, split into two 2-hour naps on average and another 11 hours at night.
• 18 months – They sleep the same total of 13 hours, but the nap decreases to only once, typically lasting about 2 hours.
• 3 years – At this stage, the child sleeps about 12 hours daily, with one nap lasting 1 hour and 30 minutes and sleeping around 10 hours and 30 minutes at night.

The duration of nighttime sleep described for each age group includes the awakenings that also inevitably occur during the night. Waking up in the middle of the night is part of the sleep process for people in general, for both babies and adults.

However, for us adults, this process becomes automatic and we quickly fall back asleep, while babies tend to wake up, either to feed or simply because they really can’t get back to sleep on their own. Creating set routines and bedtime schedules for the baby is the best way to ensure healthy sleep times and less stress at bedtime.

Shantala and Baby Sleep

How do you perform Shantala? No one better than the girls from Maternity Coach to tell us, specialists in babies and children, they provide consultancy for every concern moms may have. See what Shantala specialist Marcia Benalia has to say about the benefits of Shantala, in an interview by Michele Melão. Welcome again, girls!

A common question among many moms who come to Maternity Coach is knowing how to promote quality sleep for their babies under 4 months old, since sleep learning, with techniques to help babies sleep through the night on their own, only work and are recommended from the 4th month of life. But what about before then?

Babies from 1 to 4 months have colic, moms are getting used to a new routine, they are tired and sleep little. Moms look for help to improve their babies’ rest, ease discomfort, and give more quality to this challenging period of the baby’s first months at home. Is that too much to ask?

To help these moms, I decided to switch my role as a sleep consultant and go back to being a journalist. I interviewed Maternity Coach partner – Marcia Benalia, who, besides being a breastfeeding consultant, doula, and aromatherapist, is also a Shantala instructor, a massage that works “miracles” for baby relaxation, relieving colic, and especially for strengthening the bond between mother and child³.

See also: Night Awakenings in Children – Why Do They Happen and How to Avoid Them?

Photo: rahego