My Baby Review Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Sleep’

You have had your baby. Now the real fun begins! Bringing your baby home from the hospital is a big event. Your life will never be the same again. Hopefully, you have prepared for the baby’s arrival during your pregnancy. Now is the big day. What kinds of things can you do to make your transition go more smoothly?

Rule number one is sleep when baby sleeps. New parents often think to themselves that they will do the laundry or make dinner while the baby naps. For the first two weeks after you come home from the hospital, you need to sleep when baby does. There is no two ways about it. To be a good parent, you need to feel well rested.

If you cannot stand a slightly messy house, you have two choices. You can either hire a housekeeper or get used to things not being perfectly cleaned like they were before baby. It is extremely tempting to try and do all of your chores when the baby is asleep. If you find yourself doing this, please remember that you need to sleep as much as you can. Your main purpose in life at this moment is to care for your newborn.

Stock up on diapers before the baby is due. Diaper services, if you are using cloth diapers, deliver ahead of time you just need to let them know when you want a delivery. Make sure to have at least one bag of disposable diapers even if you are using cloth. If your baby is going to wear disposable diapers, having four bags at home will make life easier in the long run.

New mother’s milk does not come in for a day or two after birth. Your baby will still be hungry. To avoid frustration about not being able to fully feed her, have a can of baby formula on hand. You can supplement your nursing with formula until you can feed her 100% on your own.

During the night, in order to increase the amount of sleep you get, it is easy to bring the baby into your bed to nurse. Some families with sleep with the baby in the parents’ bed, others are not comfortable with this. If this is the case for you, purchasing a small crib or basinette and letting the baby sleep right next to you will make night nursing easier. Just reach over and bring the baby into your bed. When you are finished, put the baby back in his basinette.

A new parent often worries about the baby’s safety. Purchasing a new dect baby monitor prior to bringing the baby home will enable you to hear the baby sleeping or when she wakes up. Another way to make sure she is safe is to purchase a baby bath that fits easily into the sink instead of trying to bathe her in a large bathtub. You will be able to keep her slippery little body safely in your hands with a small baby bathtub.

Make sure you spend time with your baby. Even though having a newborn is difficult, you will look back fondly to the time you spent with your baby at the beginning of her life. Babies grow up very fast. Your chores will always be there.

Some children even though they know that they are tired, do not want to miss out on any of the action or excitement. They want to spend as much time with mom and dad as possible. I even heard one particular day the children discussing how unfair it is that they have to go to be before me and their mother – rather crazy some might say lol. These types of children will want to disrupt and even avoid going to bed at all cost.

When I was a child I had a speech impediment known as stuttering. I was desperate to find out how to stop stammering and was aware that I would stutter more if I had had a lack of sleep the night before.

I myself have two young children and have been through this experience myself. The step-daughter is a person who requires a certain amount of sleep to ensure that she performs to her optimum on the next day – she can also become rather fractious if she has had a lack of sleep. As a parent it can become very frustrating as well as upsetting when you see your child crying because they do not want to go to bed. Comments like, please dad just one more program on the television, were far too regular, and at times I felt like backing down.

After reading numerous books on the subject of being a parent I now have the solutions to deal with this situation. The children each have a specific time when they have to get into bed. This is a time that they have both agreed to!

They get changed into their pyjamas around half an hour before this time, and then can either spend that period of time playing with their toys or watching the television. If they want to play, we ensure that the games are relaxing ones and not too energetic.

You may well be wondering why I am so eager to get my kids to bed. Well it is because I need my own rest other wise I am a moody person at work the next day where I sell external doors as well as cheap hotel deals on a part time basis.

If there is a program that is on later than their agreed bedtimes, I agree to video it for them, this way they know that they are not missing out etc.

Both myself and the wife have stated that we are more than happy to read the kids a book when they are safely tucked in their beds. This is something they both love and helps them to wind down and relax. They are also given a drink to go to bed with, therefore there is no need for them to keep coming downstairs. This drink must however not be fizzy as this can do far more damage than good.

Babies have shorter sleep cycles than you do. Most adult sleep cycles last around 90 minutes going from light sleep to deep sleep, and then back to light sleep. An infants’ sleep cycle is shorter than an adults, lasting around 50 to 60 minutes, so they experience a vulnerable period for night time waking around every hour or even less.

In their first few months babies enter sleep through an initial stage of light sleep which usually lasts for around twenty minutes or more, then they will gradually enter deep sleep. After about an hour, your baby will re enter the phase of light sleep. They may wriggle around a bit, their eyelids may flutter, and you could notice that their breathing pattern changes. This is the time many babies will wake up.

What you need to keep in mind is that when babies are very young they need you to tend to them in the night. They need you to feed them, change them (I know I wouldn’t like to sleep in cold wet underwear!)tuck them back in, and maybe they just need a bit of comforting and reassurance from mum or dad.

I think sometimes new parents can get a little overwhelmed with all the advice on what their baby should be doing. And often you feel like you are in some competition of “who’s the better parent.” I can tell you now that some parents often exaggerate how long their baby sleeps. And if they tell you something like… their baby has been sleeping through the night since they were 6 weeks old, you know they are either very lucky, or they are lying!

In the first three months, babies seldom sleep for more than four hours without needing to be fed. Little babies have little tummies and as a result need to be fed often. Yet, they usually sleep a total of 14-18 hours a day.

From three to six months, most babies are awake for longer and have more active periods during the day and some may sleep for around five hours at a time during the night. You can expect your baby to wake one or two times during the night. Around three to six months of age you should also see the period of deep sleep lengthen. The lighter sleep and night time waking will start to decrease and babies are able to enter deep sleep more quickly. This is called sleep maturity.

Remember that your baby’s sleep habits are more to do with your baby’s temperament rather than your parenting skills.