Safe Sleep Practices For Infants
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Practice the ABCs of safe sleep: Babies should always sleep Alone, on their Backs, in a Crib. Place your baby on his or her back for every sleep, night time and nap time.
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Do not put your baby to sleep on his side or tummy.
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Once your baby can roll from his back to tummy and tummy to back, your baby can stay in the sleep position that he assumes. But always place your baby to sleep on his back.
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Place your baby on a firm mattress in a safety-approved crib with slats no greater than 2-3/8 inches apart.
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Make sure your babys face and head stay uncovered and clear of blankets and other coverings during sleep. If a blanket is used make sure your baby is placed feet-to-foot in the crib. Remove all pillows from the crib.
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Create a smoke-free-zone around your baby.
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Avoid overheating during sleep and maintain your babys bedroom at a temperature comfortable for an average adult.
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Remove all mobiles and hanging crib toys by about the age of 5 months, when your baby begins to pull up in the crib.
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Remove crib bumpers by about 12 months, when your baby can begin to climb
For additional safe sleep practices for infants including information and video on choking, making a safe home environment, resources, swaddling and tummy time, click here.
Change Your Babys Diaper Strategically
Changing the diaper before a middle of the night feeding prevents the baby from waking up too much after a feeding is finished. When the baby wakes up change the diaper and re-swaddle to prepare him for sleep immediately following a night feeding. If you change the diaper after the night feeding, the baby may become too awake, making it more challenging for him to fall asleep.
Now, Ive also heard from parents of very young newborn babies sharing that the baby poops right after a night feeding. This is very common during the early newborn phase when babies are still working out the flow of their digestive tracts.
If your baby is consistently stooling after a night feeding, then certainly, just wait to change the diaper until after the feed. Once your babys gut matures and he or she stops stooling immediately after a night feed, you can go back to changing the diaper before the feed.
Start Weaning The Night Feedings
Once you get the okay from your doctor to stop night feedings, you should slowly start to reduce them. In many cases, feeding becomes a sleep association because you fed your baby every time they woke up. Just because thats no longer necessary, doesnt mean your baby wont want it anymore. Slowly wean them off the night feedings , feeding them less and not as frequently over a few days or a week to get them used to not feeding every time they wake.
Read Also: Why Does My Newborn Keep Throwing Up
Sleep Baby Sleep: Tips On Getting Your Baby To Sleep Easily
We all hear horror stories of parents who are so sleep deprived that it affects their health, work performance and even the ability to complete simple daily tasks. To minimise the effect that a baby’s sleep pattern has on the parents, here are some tips…
All new parents should understand that in the initial first two months, your bundle of joy would have no concept of day or night. And even though newborns require nothing more than milk and sleep for the first few weeks, their intermittent sleep can cause agony to parents who would have to wake every three to four hours every night to feed the baby.
While there is little that can be done regarding the babyâs instinctive needs, parents can help illustrate the difference of day and night by interacting with the baby more during the day and limiting stimulation at night. This simple habit aids babies in understanding that day is the time for noisy stimulating activities, while the night is for resting and quiet time.
Set An Early Bedtime And Age
Can you imagine going to bed at midnight and getting up for work at 6 a.m. every single day? Or, can you imagine going to bed at 7 p.m. every night? Both have their problems.
The time you put your baby down for naps and bedtime can make a huge difference to how they fall asleep and stay asleep!
We need to set up babies for success in sleeping before we can expect them to sleep through the night and take long naps. No matter what you do, if your babys sleep schedule is off, your baby may wake up at night, take short naps, and/or cry a lot. Overtired babies tend to cry a lot, wake frequently, and take short naps. Our bodies release hormones to fight fatigue and this process makes babies restless.
Most babies up through 12 months old will go to sleep for the night between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m. and sleep 11-12 hours. Set your baby up for success with an appropriate sleep schedule.
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Getting Your Baby To Sleep
7-minute read
Some babies sleep much more than others. Some sleep for long periods, others in short bursts. Some soon sleep through the night and some dont for a long time. Your baby will have their own pattern of waking and sleeping, and its unlikely to be the same as other babies you know.
It’s also unlikely to fit in with your need for sleep. Try to sleep when your baby sleeps. If you’re breastfeeding, in the early weeks your baby is likely to doze off for short periods during a feed. Carry on feeding until you think your baby has finished or until they’re fully asleep. This is a good opportunity to try to get a bit of rest yourself.
If you’re not sleeping at the same time as your baby, don’t worry about keeping the house silent while they sleep. It’s good to get your baby used to sleeping through a certain amount of noise.
How To Get Your Baby To Sleep Tip : Developing A Consistent Routine
Inconsistency is the number one cause of short naps and an erratic sleep routine. So now that you have learnt their signs of sleepiness, lets see how we can develop a consistent routine.
I say a consistent routine, rather than a schedule, because “schedule” suggests having a set time, while “routine” suggests having consistent activities that lead to nap time which then develops a more predictable schedule.
Until about 6 weeks, your baby wont have a set bedtime or schedule. The fact is, they sleep so frequently that its almost obsolete. However, by as early as 4 to 6 weeks, youll notice a level of consistency emerge in his or her sleep pattern. Your baby’s naps will consolidate into fewer but longer naps instead of the short bursts that your newborn would take. Regardless, its never too early to begin implementing some form of a routine whether its swaddling, rocking, or shushing. Anything that can become your babys cue that its time to sleep.
Also Check: How To Boost A Newborn’s Immune System
Learn The Art Of Stress
Its hard to soothe a baby who is very irritable or distressed. This Parenting Science article about opens in a new windowstress in babies offers insights into what stresses out babies. It also provides evidence-based tips for keeping babies calm and emotionally healthy.
But what if you are feeling too stressed-out to project reassurance and calm? Or too depressed?
If so, you arent alone. Caring for a baby can be very stressful and exhausting, especially when you are sleep-deprived, coping with opens in a new windowchildbirth trauma, or struggling with a baby that opens in a new windowcries excessively .
If youre emotional state is poor, opens in a new windowscreen yourself for postpartum depression, and make your psychological health a priority. Postpartum depression and opens in a new windowpostpartum stress are very common, yet many parents continue to suffer privately. Talk to your doctor about your options.
For more information, see my article about the opens in a new windowpersonal costs of parenting stress and these opens in a new windowParenting Science tips for coping.
How To Make A Baby Go To Sleep Fast Real Quick Baby Sleep
Making a baby sleep fast is one of the major challenges for all the parents. No matter if you have one baby or more at home, how to make a baby go to sleep fast is a common question. You always want to look for the answer to this question.
Every time you want to try different tricks that can help to make your baby sleep fast. Here are some tips that can help your baby to sleep quickly.
You do not have to wait or put efforts for long. It will give you the instant and fair results. Adopting these tips in your daily routine can help a lot.
Try massage therapy Just like adults, babies do face issues with muscular stiffness and tension. Although they do not have any apparent exertion but their activities leave an impact on their body.
In answer to how to make a baby go to sleep fast, it is necessary to give them message therapy. It lets them feel free and get into quick sleep as expected. You do not have to put much effort in making the baby sleep when you give them a nice oil massage at bedtime.
Use soothing fragrances Your answer for the famous question, how to make a baby go to sleep fast is in the fragrances. Commonly we use fragrances in perfumes, deodorants and air fresheners. It is rare that one can hear about the soothing fragrances that boost sleep.
It is not only recommended for the adults but kids as well. You can use the sweet and low intensity fragrances that help to boost sleep and make babies feel relaxing.
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Importance Of Sleep For Infants
Sleep plays an essential role in anyones mental and physical health, but this sentiment is particularly true for babies as it is crucial for both their cognitive and physical development. Sleep deprivation in these crucial early stages of life can lead to problems down the road like hyperactivity, negative or aggressive behavior, mood swings, and or anxiety.
There are two stages of sleep REM and non-REM. Babies spend half their time in each stage, but at about six months, they spend about 30% of the time in REM. For infants, REM sleep helps prepare their brains for retaining new information, which is critical for effective learning. During non-REM sleep, on the other hand, their body builds muscle tissue and releases a hormone pertinent to their growth and development.
Here is a helpful table to help you determine whether or not your baby is getting enough sleep.
Newborns: 16 hours 1 month: 15.5 hours 3 months: 15 hours 6 months: 14 hours 9 months: 14 hours 1 year: 14 hours 1.5 years: 13.5 hours 2 years: 13 hours
Bio: Gwen Thompson is a Certified Sleep Science Coach that writes for The Slumber Yard. Besides helping people improve the quality of their sleep, she also likes playing the piano, making homemade jewelry, and taking her dog for walks.
Start Early And Enlist Help
- Teaching your baby to sleep can be stressful for many new parents – long days of cleaning blowouts, listening to inconsolable cries, and keeping up with insatiable hunger followed by interrupted nights takes its toll on the whole family. The best advice is:
- Start laying the foundation for healthy sleep as soon as you return home from the hospital, by adopting these tips.
- Get your partner on board from the start. Even simply having help with those dreaded middle of the night feedings can give you the couple extra hours of shut-eye you need to function during the day
- Tip: Be aware that sleep deprivation is directly linked to postpartum depression – enlisting help from your partner, friends, neighbors, or relatives can make all the difference.
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Have A Soothing Routine
This is very important especially at night. Most parents like to sing lullabies to their babies while others love to read stories for them. You can choose the most suitable way of making your child sleep very fast. It is importantly required to be done at night such that the baby can always tell its sleeping time.
Through these activities, babies relax and sleep off very fast. In addition, before putting your baby in its crib for a story or lullabies you can choose to wash it or not. These ways have always worked for most parents.
Don’t Rely On Soothing Methods
“If you put your baby in the crib when they’re already asleep and they wake up in the night, which all humans do, they won’t recognize their surroundings and will need your help getting back to sleep,” notes Dr. Givan. “Try to put your baby down drowsy but awake.” This will help them learn to self-soothe and fall asleepand, more importantly, fall back to sleepon their own, which is the main goal of sleep training.
Adrienne Porzio of Centerport, New York, can attest to this. She began driving her newborn around at night to get her to fall asleepand she was still relying on that crutch when her daughter was 5 months old. “The issue we get the most calls about is parents automatically repeating soothing habits to the point that the baby is hooked,” says Los Angeles sleep consultant Heather Turgeon, coauthor of The Happy Sleeper. Newborns benefit from rocking, bouncing, and soothing to sleep, but babies develop quickly and don’t need those things forever.
“By about 5 months, most babies have the capability to fall asleep on their own, and if we’re still doing it for them, we’re getting in their way,” says Turgeon. “Start practicing in the early months to put Baby down awake, at least once a dayusually the first nap is the most successful.” Keep your cuddle time, but gradually stop the patting and shushing and rocking to sleep.
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If Your Baby Seems To Cry Inconsolably Dont Blame Yourself Learn About Infantile Colic And Consult With Your Pediatrician
All babies cry, but some babies cry excessively for no apparent reason, and that can make nighttime especially stressful.
Whats going on?
Although these babies are often diagnosed as colicky, that term is little more than a label for we dont know why your baby cries so much. To figure out what might be bothering your baby, see my overview about the possible causes of infantile colic, and discuss your concerns with your pediatrician.