Your newborn baby will sleep as much as his body needs, initially up to 17 hours pre day. Newborns can drop off to sleep in any situation. Since babies are not born with the ability to distinguish night and day, this is something you can teach your new baby.
While you may not get a newborn to sleep, you can make a sleepy baby more comfortable. At bedtime or naptime, be sure the baby has burped and has on a dry nappy. Put the baby in a cot or bassinet on his or her back or side. Remove the baby when he or she wakes up. If babies are always put into their cots when sleepy, they will soon learn that the cot is the place for sleep.
Help the baby learn the difference between night and day. Daytime is playtime. Your actions will demonstrate this to your baby. Pick the baby up and play during waking hours. When your newborn cries at night, go to the baby as quickly as possible. Do not allow for time to pass allowing the baby to get fully awake and become unhappy. Quietly soothe and feed an unhappy baby. Do not turn on lights, play games, or even change a nappy if you do not need to. The baby will learn that night time is not social time.
Babies vary enormously in their capacity to sleep through the night. We often read in books that babies sleep through the night from six to eight months of age. While some children can sleep through because they can last longer between feeds, and hunger does not wake them, many still wake once, or twice or sometimes several times overnight. Many babies wake in the lighter periods of sleep, just as we all wake (or almost wake). Then they turn over and go back to sleep. Remember that babies and children have more of these lighter periods of sleep than adults. Some babies have difficulty learning how to go back to sleep. Occasionally, something will be bothering them, so they are unable to settle back to sleep and they cry.
Some babies sleep through by age six weeks. Other babies wake once or twice a night until they are a year or more old. Having your sleep disturbed can leave you feeling very tired. Try waking the baby for a feeding at your bedtime if the baby has been asleep 2 to 3 hours. If your baby is waking frequently, share the responsibility of attending to him with your partner. Try not to feed the baby to sleep, as he needs to learn that his cot is for sleeping and how to settle himself off to sleep. A dozing baby should be placed into the cot. Do not get the baby used to being rocked or walked to sleep. The last thing the baby should remember before going to sleep is the cot or bassinet (not the breast, a bottle, or the mother's arms.)
Do not try to make the home 100 percent quiet. You may leave a radio or stereo on, or even vacuum. Your baby needs to become accustomed to normal household noise and may even sleep better with the comforting familiarity of his family close by.
Article #4809
Copyright (c) 2002 McKesson. All Rights Reserved.
