Welcoming a child to this world means signing up for months of sleepless nights! It’s going to be taxing, exhausting, and severely distressing. At the same time, you’re in for one of the most beautiful rides of your life—full of compassion, selfless love, self-discovery, and joy!
While you enjoy parenthood to the fullest, here are a few tips to help you deal with the newborn’s sleeping problems:
The baby is not sleepy at bedtime.
Many a time, the baby’s internal clock doesn’t sync with the parents’ 24-hour day. This means that nighttime doesn’t work like a sleeping time for the baby. This is not necessarily a developmental issue. Most babies attune themselves to their sleeping schedule, and even a minor change could throw them off.
You can try and address the issue by changing the baby’s wake-up time. Work on waking them up at the same time every morning. Expose them to natural daylight early morning. Make sure they’re surrounded by the sounds of your everyday hustle and bustle at this time. Don’t expose the child to any artificial light like LEDs to wake them up.
If the baby takes their time to fall asleep, head to the bed sooner. Aim for a bedtime of 7:30 pm or 8:00 pm. Early bedtime means the child will wake up earlier, and they’ll head back to the sack sooner again the next night.
The baby is too excited at bedtime
In an attempt to make bedtime more interesting, more parents end up making the baby feel too excited—to the point that it’s harder for them to nod off. Try and limit any form of an energetic talk with the baby right before their bedtime. It’ll keep them on high-alert.
Most parents try to make the baby’s bedtime interesting by playing them some soft music on a smartphone. This is not a great time. The longer you expose your newborn to a screen at night, the longer they’ll take to sleep. In fact, for every additional hour that an infant spends looking at the screen, they’re likely to sleep twenty-six minutes less.
The baby’s last two to three hours before bedtime should be slow, calm, and quiet. You can help them wind down by limiting the distractions. Put down both the noises and the lights to help them fall in the sleeping mood. Try soothing methods like patting, humming a lullaby, and rocking.
The baby stays awake throughout the night
This is an everyday bedtime battle for most parents. However, you need to be clear on how you define a ‘through the night’ sleep. Ideally, eight hours of uninterrupted sleep is enough for the child. You can reasonably expect the child to sleep for five to six hours straight. However, the task could be harrowing for the parents if the baby repeatedly wakes up in the middle of the night every day.
You need to teach your baby to self-soothe. Many a time this happens because parents cuddle their babies to sleep. This is a cute and warm gesture but might end up becoming a bad habit. If a child wakes up in the middle of the night, they’ll keep on crying until you cuddle with them again. Put the child in a crib and get them to fall asleep on their own. Even if they wake up in the middle of the night, they’ll soothe themselves to sleep again. You don’t have to rock them or nurse them for another hour.
If you’re based in San Antonio, TX, A Thru Z Pediatrics would love to schedule a pediatrician appointment for your newborn. Ever since the COVID-19 crisis has surfaced, we have limited sick visits between the hours of 3 pm – 5 pm from Monday to Friday and 8 am – 12 pm on Saturdays. You can avail our best Pediatric care for new born in San Antonio and Medical center Stone Oak locations.