Hello dear prospective mothers and fathers and current mothers and fathers as well,
Our children are our most treasured possessions. This program has been prepared for you to make your newborn baby’s life easier.
SLEEP PATTERNS OF A NEWBORN BABY
Hello dear prospective mothers and fathers and current mothers and fathers as well,
Our children are our most treasured possessions. This program has been prepared for you to make your newborn baby’s life easier. In today’s program we will be discussing the sleep patterns of our babies. Although you might dream of your baby sleeping like an angel, in reality the situation is completely different. The sleep cycles of us adults and babies differ from each other. We wake up from a deep sleep every 90 minutes but nevertheless manage to fall asleep again by turning and shuffling around in bed. The deep sleep cycle of babies on the other hand lasts 45 minutes. And babies unfortunately cannot go back to sleep after waking up from their deep sleep in 45 minutes. They start crying and moving around. This is the reason for long and sleepless nights. During the first few weeks you would be required to breastfeed your baby every time he/she wakes up. He needs this to adapt to the world he/she was born into as well as to gain expertise where his/her sucking is concerned. This might continue for 40 days but after 40 days the baby’s tummy would expand, the amount of your milk would increase and whenever your baby wakes up after 45 minutes you will not think that he woke up for a feed and needs to be put to the breast. This is due to the fact that babies can go back to sleep after the 45-minute process. But they will need your help to do so. In what form should this help be? You lay down your baby on his/her back in his/her cot, which has probably been placed close to your bed. The reason is that when babies sleep face down, they sometimes stop breathing thinking that they are still in their mother’s tummy. For a period close to a decade babies have been placed on their backs in the bed. After you place your baby in his/her bed you can sing him/her a short lullaby or make sounds like “shhhh” or “eee eee” or apply rhythmic strokes as you massage between his/her two eyebrows moving up to his/her forehead. We call this hypnosis massage. This would make the eyelids of the baby close and ease him/her into a deep sleep. Your baby could easily go back to sleep if you implement the measures stated here.
See you in the next program, goodbye for now.