Baby’s sleep pattern
Babies vary a great deal in their sleeping patterns; some sleep much more than others. While some generous ones sleep through the night, others seems to enjoy keeping their mothers awake the night. Your baby will develop his own distinct pattern of walking and sleeping, which may be quite different from that of your neighbour’s baby. For peaceful coexistence you would need to adjust to your own baby’s sleep pattern.
The newborn baby may sleep for a total of 17 to 18 hours in a day, distributed in patches of varying duration. The amount of time spent in sleep goes down to about 14 to 16 hours by about 4 months of age. By 12 to 18 months, they sleep for about 10 hours at night with additional daytime naps of 1 to 2 hours. All babies do not follow this pattern; many healthy babies sleep less.
By six weeks many babies have one long stretch of sleep- about six hours—which, if parents are lucky, falls roughly between midnight and ‘six’in the morning. Between six weeks and three months, sleep is generally tied to feeding schedules. Thus a baby wakes when it is becoming hungry.
When a very young baby wakes, it may spend some time alert but not hungry. The longer the baby has been asleep and/or the less it had to eat at last feeding, the sooner the baby will be hungry after waking. The baby may also spend a varying amount of time alert and awake after a feeding.
As the baby grows, its sleep patterns become less reflexive and more amenable to scheduling. Without even realizing it, the parents modify the baby’s innate sleeping habits by the habits of their household. The more attention and stimulation the baby gets during the day, the more likely the baby is to stay awake, and perhaps the more likely the baby is to sleep at night. The more quickly parents attend to slight cries and movement in sleep the more the baby will become accustomed to short sleeps and frequent rousings.
How to put him to bed
After watching your baby for some time, you will begin to recognize when your baby is ready for sleep. Try the following to help him to go sleep and to form a night sleep pattern.
1. When he is trying to sleep in the evening , darken the room and arrange for extra comfort and a quiet environment.
2. When he wakes up for feeds at night, just feed him and try to get him back to sleep. Do not play with him or distract him. Some babies may, however, be most alert at this time. You would have to adjust till things improve.
3. Your baby may sleep better after a feed.
4. There is no need to impose a total curfew on all sounds in the house, when your baby has gone off to sleep. Let him get used to the routine household noises. Loud, sudden noises may however wake him up.