The birth of a baby brings in lots of responsibilities for the parents. Though the only thing that parents want after taking care of the baby’s needs the whole day, is to have a peaceful sleep at night. Nonetheless, it does not take parents to realize that they have to say good bye to their sleep for at least a couple of months. Newborn babies, in contrast to adults cannot recognize day and night and will take time to adjust to the the 24 hour clock. Hence, the very first couple of weeks of the baby’s life goes in sleeping for the most of the time inside the day and as well as at night. It is said that a new born infant sleeps for an average of 16 hours in a day. However, this surely varies from person to person, as some babies need only 10 to 11 hours of sleep, while there are others who need more than 20 hours of sleep. Though infant sleep patterns will be various for each baby, there can be a common pattern that one can observe in the sleeping pattern of small children. Let us take a look how infant sleep patterns work initially and what are the changes that could possibly be seen during the baby’s growth.
Normal Sleep Patterns for Infants
The greatest way to understand infant sleep patterns is to compare it with adult sleep patterns. When an adult falls asleep, he passes through several stages of sleep, mainly the non-REM and the REM. Non REM (non rapid eye movement) will be the stage when the person is in a deep state, while the REM stage is where though the body is at rest, the brain is highly active and it is at this stage that we see dreams. This cycle of active and passive sleep goes around throughout the night and it’s usually during the non-REM stage that people wake up.
In the same way, the infant sleeping patterns can also be divided into active sleep and deep sleep. When the baby is put to sleep, she remains within the active sleep mode for a long time where you can see her closed eyelids fluttering, frequent body movements, irregular breathing as well as brief cries and grunts. At this stage, the baby can easily wake up as she is not fully asleep. Even so, if she is not disturbed at this stage, she will quickly pass into quite sleep mode. Nonetheless, the difference here is that the REM stage for adults doesn’t last for a long time i.e. they quickly pass into the non REM stage. On the other hand, in case of infants, they spend far more time inside the active stage than on the quite stage and it is because of this that they wake up within a short time after going to sleep.
The most common reason for babies to wake up during the active stage is hunger. Infants have little tummies and the milk that they drink gets digested very quickly and hence, they start feeling hungry within a short period of time. So, if they really feel hunger pangs during the active stage of sleep, they wake up and try to pass the message to the parents by crying. Apart from huger, other stimulus that leads an infant to wake up inside the sleep include need for warmth or may be due to not receiving sufficient air to breathe. This normal infant sleep patterns goes through a gradual process of change till they adapt to the day and night situation and have a sleep pattern that is similar to that of adults. Read a lot more on baby sleeping.
Changing Infant Sleep Patterns
There are lot of debates surrounding the thought of when and how to bring change in infant sleep patterns. According to modern sleep trainers, babies should be taught to go to sleep on their own, at an early stage. Even so, as per the studies conducted by sleep researchers, the infant sleep pattern is arranged in this way due to some very essential reasons. One can associate night waking using the infant’s survival instincts. A baby who has learned to sleep in the quite stage for a long time, may not be able to wake up if she is hungry or even when she is getting suffocated. This can be dangerous for the infant’s life and hence, it can be stated that active sleep stage actually protects the baby from causing any harm to her own properly becoming. Know more about breathing problems in infants.
Apart from survival instinct, it has also been found that the baby’s brain develops rapidly during the active stage. Research has found that the blood flow to the brain actually doubles up during the stage and the brain is within the act of processing the information that it received during the time when the baby was awake. Therefore, it can be stated that active sleep is important for accelerating the baby’s brain development.
The irregular infant sleep patterns may go on for several months, nevertheless, this depends on the infant’s temperament too. While some babies adjust to the normal sleeping patterns soon, may be in 3 to four months time, there are other children who wake up at night frequently for 6 – 9 months. Night waking may also occur whilst going through diverse development milestones. For instance, when the child starts crawling or walking, she may try to do it during sleeping time, disturbing her sleep. Read far more on getting baby to sleep through the night.
You may like to know more about:Getting Baby to Sleep in CribToddler not Sleeping Through the NightPositional Asphyxia in InfantsI hope you have understood the importance of infant sleep patterns with this article. However, there are certain issues that parents have to do to help their babies adapt to the normal sleeping patterns of human beings. They can start by introducing a bedtime routine within the second or third month like bathing the child, singing or rocking her to sleep, etc. Though the baby may not understand this initially, with time, she will begin to take this as a cue to go to sleep. However, during this time, you should not let the child learn to go back to sleep on her own, if she wakes up at night. Rather, you should put her back to sleep by feeding or rocking her. In six months, most children will begin to sleep for long hours and the occurrences of night waking begins to decrease, until she starts sleeping for six to eight hours continuously.
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