Have you ever looked at your child when they have woken up in the morning and feel they have grown just overnight? Well you might just be right. Studies have shown that the growth hormone is primarily released during the night-time stretch in deep sleep. This wont happen if your child is waking up frequently and only getting fragmented sleep.
Your baby’s sleep phase is broken up into 2 parts. You have Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and then you have the final phase call Non-REM.
In REM your baby is in a light sleep, you may see eyes moving, muscle movement and they are more prone to be started awake by noises in this phase. In order to prevent this, it is encouraged to use a white or pink noise machine to promote longer sleep.
In Non-REM there are four stages your baby will go through. You have stage 1: eyes may open as they doze off, stage 2: your baby moves and startles to outside noises, stage 3: deep sleep where muscle and eye movement cease to exist and then finally you have stage 4: very deep sleep, it is very hard to wake your baby when they are in this stage. This is where your baby will benefit the most.
Innately, your baby’s system is biologically made to spend 50% of their sleep in deep sleep so that adequate growth occurs.
An entire sleep cycle for your baby lasts about 45-60min. As your babies sleep patterns change you will find that they wake up during this cycle transition from deep sleep to light. This can also happen when outside noises startle them as they go from light to deep sleep, about 30min in. This is common around the 12-16wk mark and without proper guidance can create long term sleep problems and short naps.
Though your baby might look peaceful and sound asleep, their brain is working all night teaching him/her more than what can be taught when they are awake, they practice many skills in their sleep. This can also create sleep disturbances and frequent wake-ups in the night. You might see this to be more common in a leap or what parents refer to as a “regression”. Simply practicing these skills they are working on during their playtime will help ween off the wake-ups and go back to solids sleep stretches at night.
The growing brain of your infant greatly depends on adequate amount of sleep in a 24hrs. The most sleep should be in the night as longer stretches are developed and less wake-ups occur.
Very few babies are born with a natural ability to put themselves back to sleep after they wake up in the middle of the night or during a nap. A majority of babies need to be taught to use those internal tools to sleep. Promoting positive sleep props and positive sleep associations gives your baby a feeling of security internally and externally causing less fuss at night when you are not there. During their awake time in the day help internalize this feeling of security by giving cuddles and responding to your child’s needs.
Creating a daily routine (EAT, PLAY, SLEEP) and staying consistent with it is key to helping your baby recognize the events laid out for the day while they learn to connect those patterns and cue their body for sleep. This will also help organize your baby’s time while he or she is awake. Providing a designated and consistent sleep space for your baby helps their brain become more familiar with the environment. It is encouraged to try to use this same sleep area for the majority of day naps to help strengthen this familiarity. Avoid using props such as a swing, rocker, carrier or car seat as these are not safe sleep areas for your baby nor are they a good long term solution. We want them to connect their bed with sleep.
During daytime your baby’s brain is doing work constantly and does get tired needing to release the sleep pressure built up. This is about when your baby’s awake window is coming to a close and it is time for nap.
Your child’s awake window depends on their age. This is about the max amount of time your child can sustain being awake for a period in their day. Healthy sleep patterns are vital in a sleep plan. Watching your child the first couple of weeks will help you start to notice a pattern of behavior as they go from happy and rested to tired and needing a nap. As new parents it can be easy to miss these subtle tired signs your child gestures, this is his/her way of modulating to wind down and prepare for sleep. It is important to not miss this window. As your baby’s body starts to signal it needs rest, the necessary sleep hormone, melatonin, is released. If your child stays up then the body signals the stress hormone, adrenaline, instead causing a very fussy and now overtired baby. An overtired infant does not sleep as well as a rested baby. Sometimes your baby’s body doesn’t always connect to their designated awake time and needs help to cue when it is time to sleep. This is when it is advised to still take your baby in their room about 10-15min before their window closes, dim the lights and start the simple nap routine with maybe adding in an extra book or two to help generate those sleep signals.
As the day comes to an end it is important to create a different routine for bedtime. A bedtime routine has proven benefits in promoting a goodnights sleep and helps decrease any day/night confusion your child maybe experiencing. This can be a very simple 30-45min routine but do be sure to keep feeds in a separate room and about 30min before bed to prevent any feed to sleep associations from forming. This is a great time to bond with your child and install that sense of internal security before parting for the hours of the night.
Being new parents can be overwhelming trying to know the logistics of your baby’s certain behavior. One of the foremost ways to promote optimum sleep in your baby is to know the requirements for a good sleep plan. As a parent you can do a lot to enable a good nights rest and proper daytime sleep. Babies are unable to create their own sleeping and waking patterns on their own. They need you to create that routine, establish those boundaries and build that sleep foundation.
A good thing to remember is that determination and focus are key factors in order to achieve your wanted sleep goals for your child. Fostering a happy, developing, thriving baby is no easy simple task. It takes time, energy, love, understanding and care.
Creating the right sleep and waking schedule for your child, providing proper nutrition and feeding volume in the day, and enabling proper sleep amounts are critical to your baby. They cannot do this on their own as they do not have the ability to lead their way to sleep, they need you and are trusting you to give the proper tools to learn this skill and install it.
Your child’s sleep is correlated to his/her brain development and I cannot stress enough how important this is to a rapidly changing and growing infant. Do right by your child and build this sleep foundation from day one or help recondition them when they start showing sleep changes immediately to keep them on the right path. It is very easy for your child to regress their sleep and slip back into over-tiredness, frequent wake-ups and lots of fragmented sleep. Always stay the course and keep moving forward to prevent this from happening. Remember they are looking to you for the guidance to optimal sleep. They will do what you allow, enable and promote so make sure to always keep it positive and thriving. Reach out for help when you feel lost and stuck, ask questions when you are unsure and remember professionals like myself have dedicated our career to studying these correlations, pattern and know what sleep method plus sleep conditioning treatment is needed to get everyone back to sleeping.
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