A must-read for new parents: teach your baby to stop feeding at night and sleep through the night in seven days

Many postpartum mothers hope to have a good rest after giving birth to restore their bodies and vitality. But they didn't expect that the nightmare had just begun. The newborn baby kept crying and making it difficult for the mother to fall asleep in the middle of the night, which made the mother exhausted. The editor of No. 5.com teaches you how to teach your baby to stop drinking milk at night and sleep through the night in seven days. Come and learn!

The baby keeps crying and the mother is upset

Many new mothers have had this experience. In the first three months after the baby was born, he always cried and made a fuss, especially at night. He would always wake up and cry in the middle of the night and refused to go to sleep. Even after feeding, he still couldn't fall asleep. In the long run, mothers must be very tired. So is there any way to improve this situation as soon as possible? Everyone envies my child for being easy to take care of and obedient, but it is not the case. Xia Tian is a child with high demands and no sense of security. When I was in the hospital after giving birth, I was exhausted by the hospital's strict adherence to the mother-child rooming-in. Xia Tian always wanted to be held by someone, and would cry as soon as he was put down. As a new mother, I was once so sad that I felt that I had failed in my duty. Later, when the head nurse was making rounds in the middle of the night, she couldn't bear it and kindly helped me take the baby to spend the night, so that I could sleep until dawn (in fact, I only slept for four hours).

After entering the confinement center, Xia Tian's night crying symptoms were still very serious. She cried so much that everyone in the confinement center knew who she was. Because I was worried that this situation would continue after returning home, and I was also distressed, I started to train her to stop crying at night and stop feeding at night from the second day of the confinement center. I am very grateful to the nursing staff and childcare staff of the confinement center for their patience in teaching me methods. In addition, I also read a lot of parenting books. The following are some principles and experiences summarized by the editor of No. 5.com.

Find out why your baby is crying

When your baby is crying, you must first rule out why she is crying?

1. Physiological needs

Are you hungry, have a wet diaper, or have a stuffy nose (newborns are very prone to stuffy noses), is the weather cold or hot?

This one is the easiest to get rid of and the easiest to overcome, but when I was about a month in, I experienced intestinal colic for three whole days, which was also a very frustrating experience for me.

(ii) Is the caregiver’s heartbeat stable?

If you cry all the time, how can you teach your baby not to cry? When your baby is crying, the mother must first calm down and stabilize her heartbeat. When the baby is in your belly, he listens to the mother's steady heartbeat, which is the most familiar sound to him. When you are nervous or your heartbeat speeds up, it is easy to make the baby anxious, so anxious mothers are likely to raise anxious children.

How to stop your baby from feeding at night

After finding out why your baby is crying, you can start preparing to stop him from drinking milk at night.

(I) Establish a work and rest schedule:

First, understand your baby's habits, such as how often he drinks milk and how long he sleeps each time.

When you understand this, start to slowly extend the time your baby spends feeding. If he drinks once every three hours, try to extend the next feeding time by 10 to 30 minutes. Even if the baby cries, you should hold back and divert his attention. Slowly he will get used to it, so try to extend his schedule in this way.

(ii) Talk or play with him more often when he is awake

Try talking to him when he is awake or take him to the window to feel the sunshine. It is also important to let him get used to the fact that it is bright during the day and dark at night. Because babies do not know the difference between day and night when they are in the belly, it takes some time for them to understand. Two months ago, looking at black and white picture cards is also a good way to train eyesight.

(III) Wrap your hands tightly

Newborns have a so-called fright reaction. Please imagine that you have gone from your mother's belly to a new world, away from all your original life. Not to mention babies, adults will have difficulty adapting to a new environment, let alone a small baby? In order to relieve his anxiety, please remember to keep him in a fixed environment within three months. The older generation will say that babies should not change their rooms at will, as this will disturb the mother. In fact, it means that you should not change the environment at will to avoid making the child uneasy.

4. Sleeping rituals

The most important thing is the sleeping ritual. Dim the lights in the room, play sleep music, take a bath (hot bath), apply lotion and massage, and wrap your body tightly.

Before Xiatian goes to sleep, I will dim the lights in the room and take Xiatian to take a hot bath to relax his muscles, then gently apply lotion and massage. While doing the above actions, I will play music at the same time (remember to play the same song, after a long time, the baby will think of going to bed when hearing the music) and then feed him one mouthful at a time, and the amount of milk he drinks must be at least 10CC more than the usual amount he drinks (here it is recommended to adjust his sleeping habits, drinking formula milk will make him fuller, breast milk will not last long).

At first, I could last about 5 hours. The first time Xiatian slept until 8 o'clock in the morning, I almost cried. I hadn't had a full sleep for a long time. After a few times, Xiatian got used to this schedule.

Now she can skip the bath before going to bed. She knows it's time to go to bed just by dimming the lights and playing music. (Because the weather is getting hot, I will let her swim and kick the water before going to bed to burn off her energy.)

I have heard that some friends' children still cry and make a fuss when they are seven or eight months old. Just thinking about it makes me feel that the parents are so tired. The process of stopping night feeding is actually not as easy as imagined. The editor of No. 5.com reminds parents to hold back and not give milk to the baby as soon as he cries. Try to postpone the time for half an hour or an hour. Try to hold on, and the quality of sleep will be yours.