Sleep and Your Newborn

“Does your baby sleep through the night? Is one of the question new parents face the most. And the bleary eyed moms and dads of newborns almost always answer: “No.”

Newborn babies don’t know the difference between day and night yet and their tiny stomachs don’t hold enough breast milk or formula to keep them satisfied for very long. They need food every few hours, no matter what time of day or night it is.

How Long Will My Baby Sleep?

A newborn may sleep as much as 16 hours  a day (or even more), often in stretches of there to four hours at a time. And like the sleep all of us experience, babies have different phases of sleep: drowsiness, REM (rapid eye movement ) sleep, light sleep, deep sleep, and very deep sleep. As babies grow, their periods of wakefulness increase.

At first, these short stretches of three to four hours of sleep may be frustrating for you as they interfere with your sleep pattern. Have patience – this will change as your baby grows and begins to adapt to the rhythms of life outside the womb. At first, though, the need to feed will outweigh the need to sleep. Many pediatricians recommend that a parent shouldn’t let a newborn sleep too long without feeding. In practical terms, that means offering a feeding to your baby every three to four hours or so, and possibly more often for smaller or premature babies.

Where and How Should My Baby Sleep?

For the first weeks of life, most parents place their child’s crib or bassinet in their own bedroom. A separate room seems just too far away at this early point. Pediatricians absolutely recommend against bringing your infant to sleep in the bed with you for safety reasons.

Some parents favor different locations for daytime and nighttime sleeping. For instance, if you let baby nap in a stroller or baby carrier during the day and only put him into the crib or bassinet at night, he may get the day- versus-night message from the change of scenery.

Always keep sleep safety in mind. Do not place anything in the crib or bassinet that may interfere with baby’s breathing; this includes plush toys. Avoid objects with cords or ties and objects with any kind of sharp edge or corner. Make sure the crib you are using is up to today’s safety standards.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, as part of its ‘’back – to –sleep’’ standard, recommends that healthy infants be placed on their back to sleep, not on their backs to sleep, not on their stomachs or on their sides. The incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has decreased by 50% since that recommendation was introduced in 1992, It is now also recommended that even premature infants sleep on their backs only, not on their sides. It is thought that some babies sleeping on their stomachs may have a greater tendency toward sleep obstruction and recreating their backs only, not on their sides. It is thought that some babies sleeping on their stomachs may have a greater tendency toward sleep obstruction and rebreeding their own carbon dioxide   because they are less likely to arouse themselves to change head positions. Another possibility is that may suffocated on softer bedding if they are lying face down. The only exceptions to the back sleeping rule for infants include those with certain deformities of the head that make them blockage likely to develop airway blockage when lying on their backs, or others as defined by a pediatric specialist. Your baby’s pediatrician can best advise you on the right sleep position for your new baby.

What Should I Do?

You can help adjust your baby’s body clock toward sleeping at night by avoiding stimulation during nighttime feedings and diaper changes. Try to keep the lights low, and resist the urge to play or talk with your baby. This will reinforce the message that nighttime is for sleeping .

You can begin to establish some sort of bedtime routine (bathing, reading, singing) that should help get your baby to relax when he’s a bit older.  Even though your newborn may be too young to get the signals yet, setting up the bedtime drill now can keep you on the right track later. What if you baby is fussy? It’s Ok to rock, cuddle, and sing to your baby as he is settling down. For the first months of your baby’s life, “spoiling” is definitely not a problem. In fact, studies have shown that babies who are carried around during the day have less colic and fussiness.

Fussiness, of course, can be caused by a wide range of conditions : hunger, illness, being overly tried, colic, and even the pressure from an overly restrictive garment, among other things.