How to help your baby fall asleep on his own? Talk about infant sleep

The most troublesome thing for parents is the sleeping problem of their babies, because parents may be busy when the baby wants to sleep, and parents may be exhausted when the baby is excited. So, they will be very tired. So, as parents, how can we help babies develop good sleeping habits?

Share my experience

Before giving birth, I read many books on this topic. I highly recommend a book called "French Mothers' Guide to Childcare". I agree with the ideas in the book. One of them is that you have to trust your baby. Every baby can manage their own sleep, but the time it takes is different. In France, most babies can sleep through the night by themselves within 4 months. Let me share my experience.

When babies first come to this world, they will lack a sense of security, not to mention how to learn to fall asleep by themselves. They must be given some auxiliary tools, such as swaddles and pacifiers. (It is recommended to give pacifiers two weeks after birth) Because sucking and hugging are the source of their sense of security, just like being in the warm womb of their mother. I recommend the swaddleme swaddle, which is tightly wrapped and does not strangle the baby. The baby sleeps very soundly and will not be interrupted by the startle reaction. For the pacifier, I recommend the small green one from Avent, which is recommended by many stars and Xiao Hongshu. Every time before going to bed, I will wrap her up and put a pacifier in her mouth to let her know: It's time to go to bed. The possibility of success at one time is almost zero. All we can do is to be more patient. When she is distressed, I will continue to soothe her with sound and patting to guide her to sleep. Sometimes when she is too irritable, I will hold her and coax her, but once she is calm and about to fall asleep, I will put her in her own crib (not to sleep with adults because it will affect each other). Over time, she developed the habit. She knows that it is time to go to bed when she is wrapped in a quilt, stuffed with a pacifier, and dimmed the lights. She finally managed to get a good sleep, so I rewarded her with a little red flower.

Babies don't need to be fed at night, except for those who are in confinement. After about 40-50 days, we can help them stop feeding at night, which will affect their sleep and easily cause them to be overweight. Babies who don't sleep well are prone to crying. Try to let them move more during the day, especially during the period of 7-8 o'clock, when babies are tired and naturally sleep well at night. Secondly, we can also gradually establish a regular diet schedule, extending the feeding time from two hours to three hours. Babies sometimes cry because they are not necessarily hungry, but they may be sleepy or want you to play with them. Only mothers know the specific reasons, but don't feed them too frequently, and don't use nipples to calm their emotions. These are not good habits. Then, you can feed them a little more at 9 o'clock in the evening, and even add some milk powder (if the baby's stomach is not adapted, my daughter added the German version of Enfamil to the evening meal). Just like the previous paragraph, put the quilt on the quilt, put the pacifier in, dim the lights, and guide them to sleep. In the first few days, they will still wake up habitually. Your reaction is the key at this time. Don't turn on the headlights or speak loudly to the baby. Turn on the night light, quietly put the pacifier back into the baby's mouth and observe. Generally, they can fall asleep again. If not, you can gently soothe them until they fall asleep. In extreme cases, you can soothe them with the nipple. Once they are calm, take out the nipple and put the baby back to the crib. Again, once the habit is formed, everything will be fine.

Doctors talk about infant sleep

1. The importance of sleep

1. We spend one third of our life sleeping, so a good sleep is very important. During sleep, the body's basal metabolism and energy consumption are reduced, which helps to eliminate fatigue and restore physical strength, especially for infants and young children. Sufficient sleep can make you feel good, and give you enough physical and mental strength to accept new things. During sleep, the brain does not stop working completely, but readjusts its function in another state, which is conducive to improving his memory and intelligence.

2. Sleep also plays an important role in the physical and cognitive development of children. About 80% of the growth hormone needed for growth is secreted during sleep, and the secretion peak can only be reached during deep sleep, usually between 10 pm and 1 or 2 am. The second peak is from 5 to 7 am, as shown in Figure 1. On the contrary, falling asleep too late or having poor sleep quality will not reach the secretion peak. Therefore, a good sleep, especially good sleep quality, is an important basis for the development of children's height and weight.

3. Good sleep can also enhance children's immune function and stabilize their emotions. Children who lack sleep for a long time or have poor sleep quality will be irritable and even show some abnormal behaviors.

4. A good sleep for the baby can also stabilize the mother's mood. I think many mothers hope that their babies can sleep more, eat more, wake up happily and play happily, and have time to arrange their own things. But as long as you start to take care of the child, you will find that the kind of baby who can sleep through the night only exists in books or in other people's homes. In short, your own baby will not be like this.

2. Baby's Sleep Pattern

Figure 2 shows the sleeping patterns from birth to adulthood. It can be seen that newborn babies have no distinction between day and night. As they grow older, the time they are awake and playing during the day will gradually increase, while the time they sleep at night will also gradually increase, and the number and duration of waking up at night will gradually decrease.

According to the statistics and recommendations of the American Sleep Foundation in 2015, children of different ages need different amounts of sleep per day: 0-3 months, 14-17 hours; 4-11 months, 12-15 hours; 1-2 years, 11-14 hours; 3-5 years, 10-13 hours.

This is the total sleep time for each child. Of course, each child is different and there are individual differences.

From these two pictures, we can understand the sleeping patterns of babies under one year old, and then we can answer many questions that mothers are concerned about, such as why newborn babies have reversed sleep patterns during the day and night, why babies have short sleep periods, why babies always wake up during sleep, why babies cannot sleep through the night, etc.

In fact, the above problems are all due to the immature nervous system of infants and young children and their special sleep patterns. In other words, most of these phenomena are physiological phenomena. The first picture can explain all these problems. Excluding pathological factors, what parents have to do is to accept the baby, wait patiently, guide at the right time, gradually develop habits, and cultivate good sleeping habits. How to do this will be explained in detail later.

3. Common sleep problems and solutions for infants and young children

1. Newborns cannot distinguish between day and night, their sleep is reversed, and they are easily startled when sleeping, which we call jump startles

This is because the fetus has no concept of day and night in the womb, and its sleep pattern is a short wake-up and intermittent sleep pattern. After birth, adults need to help the baby establish the concept of day and night. First of all, adults need to create a good atmosphere. When sleeping during the day, there is no need to deliberately turn off the lights, draw the curtains, keep quiet, and gradually extend the daytime. Usually it can be established in 1-2 months. If it exceeds 4 months, you need to go to the hospital to check the nervous system.

Since the baby's nervous system is not fully developed, the central nervous cells are highly excitable and easily excited by stimulation. This is because the insulating tissue around the nerve fibers, the myelin sheath, has not yet formed. Therefore, after being stimulated by sound, the baby cannot be centrally located in the cerebral cortex like adults, and the stimulation is often transmitted to the nerve fibers of the limb muscles, causing the movement and shaking of the arms and legs. The excitatory focus of the brain of a newborn baby is relatively active, so startle will occur. As the baby's nervous system continues to improve, this situation will improve. If it is very frequent or accompanied by crying and needs to be comforted, you can wrap it appropriately to simulate the womb environment to increase the sense of security. Under normal circumstances, this situation will gradually improve until it disappears when the baby is about 3 or 4 months old. If the baby still frequently jumps or shakes his limbs after 5 months, you need to go to the hospital to check the nervous system.

2. The baby has a short sleep time, is easily awakened, cries easily, has difficulty falling asleep, and needs to be fed or held to sleep, etc.

The book "Baby's Secret" divides babies into four types: model babies, angel babies, active babies, and grumpy babies. Each baby has his or her own personality, and different sleep patterns are also a reflection of that personality. Model babies are indeed less troublesome, and with a little guidance, they can quickly establish a regular schedule. For active babies and grumpy babies, parents need more communication, more patience, and more skills.

If the patient is easily startled and cries, the following factors should be ruled out first:

(1) The sleeping environment is noisy, bright, and airy;

(2) Uncomfortable pajamas, diapers that are too tight, too many blankets, too hot or too cold;

(3) Overfeeding before bedtime, indigestion, and intestinal cramps;

(4) Excessive laughter, intense activities, and excessive excitement before going to bed;

(5) Being frightened during the day or before going to bed;

(6) Sleep-breastfeeding association: It is common for breastfed babies to fall asleep by simply turning over, while others need to suckle their mother’s nipple continuously before they can fall asleep again because of the sleep-breastfeeding association.

(7) Whether the pillow and sleeping posture are appropriate;

(8) Causes of illness: If you are sick, such as vitamin D deficiency, pinworms, eczema, abnormal brain development, colds or enteritis, you should go to the hospital for examination.

Every baby has a different way of falling asleep. There is a passage in Michio Matsuda's "The Encyclopedia of Parenting": Letting children fall asleep quickly is our ultimate goal. In order to achieve this goal, mothers must try every possible means. Some people say that children should never be allowed to sleep while breastfeeding. Those who say this must have never raised a child who has difficulty falling asleep. Difficulty falling asleep is determined by the nature of children. If a child can fall asleep quickly by sucking the nipple, you can let him suck the nipple. As long as you don't develop the habit of your child getting up to play at night, the problem will naturally be solved when the child grows up.

In short, if a baby under one year old can be comforted, fall asleep, gain weight and height satisfactorily, develop normally, feel happy when awake, and is not often sick, then the mother does not need to panic. This may just be a problem that can be solved with time. We hope that children can grow up healthily, including mental health. Infancy is an important stage for building a sense of security, and a pleasant parent-child sleep may be a wonderful memory.

3. Can’t sleep through the night, difficult to stop feeding at night

You may have heard about when a child can sleep through the night, such as four months, six months, ten months, one year old, etc. You may also have heard that the child cannot sleep through the night because you feed him at night, or because you have not weaned him, or because the child is not full before going to bed. You may also have been advised to feed your child milk powder instead of breast milk before going to bed, to feed your child rice cereal instead of milk before going to bed, to wean your child, or to let your child cry, so that he will stop wanting adults to pat and feed him, and he will sleep through the night.

Statistics show that at 11 months old, less than 7% of children can sleep through the night every night.

In fact, the infant brain begins to enter a period of rapid development, which makes the child's brain often excited at night, so the number of awakenings increases. After seven or eight months, for the same reason, the child who can sit and crawl even starts to roll around in bed at night.

Each child's appetite is a reflection of their personality. Some children just have larger appetites, so even if they are fed regularly during the day, they still need 1-2 night feedings. This is normal for breastfed children or children under 6 months old. However, if the weight gain is too fast, or the child eats less during the day but a lot at night, or if the child frequently asks for sucking but does not eat much, then we will intervene and gradually transition with soothing or comforting the pacifier. For children, don't rush into anything, and the same goes for night feedings. Don't suddenly stop feeding the child 5-6 times at night without consulting him or her. Let the child cry for a few nights and it can be stopped, but we can do better.

4. What sleeping position is suitable for babies?

It is recommended that babies under one year old should sleep alternately in supine, prone and side positions, and should not use the same position every day. However, the proportion of time used in sleeping positions will vary depending on the growth period of the child. It is best to use supine position for newborns aged one to three months. When turning the child over in positions other than supine, it is best to stay by his side to avoid danger. Parents should choose sleeping positions that are suitable for the baby according to the child's characteristics and different situations. This will not only allow the baby to have a good sleep, but also make the baby's appearance more beautiful and correct.

5. How to choose a suitable baby pillow

Before the baby can sit independently (6 to 9 months after birth), the cervical spine has not formed the cervical flexion and is straight. Using a pillow will cause the airway to bend, causing relatively poor breathing. The physiological formation time of cervical flexion should occur after the baby can sit. Therefore, it is not necessary for the baby to use a pillow before sitting. When the baby starts to sit independently (6 to 9 months), the cervical spine begins to bend forward to maintain the balance of the human body. As the baby grows up, the cervical curvature is relatively fixed. The pillow is used to counteract the relatively uneven airway caused by the cervical curvature when sleeping on the back. If the child does not use a pillow when sleeping after sitting, and there is no difficulty breathing during sleep, you can follow the child's habit and do not force the child to use a pillow; if there is a "snoring" sound when breathing, you should induce the child to use a pillow. When to start using a pillow is not based on age, but should be based on development. Be careful not to make the pillow too thick. This problem does not need to be considered when sleeping on the stomach.

6. How to sleep to get a beautiful head shape

(1) Take turns breastfeeding;

(2) Change sleeping positions frequently, alternating between side, prone, and supine sleeping.

4. How to develop good sleeping habits

1. Start with the mother: To prevent sleep disorders in babies, you can start with the pregnant mother. Only when the pregnant mother is healthy can the baby be healthier. Experts say that to prevent sleep disorders in infants and young children, pregnant women should supplement nutrition, ensure adequate sleep, and develop correct sleeping habits during pregnancy.

2. Develop a clear day and night routine

3. Discover signs of fatigue as early as possible: for example, being a little quiet, a little dazed, or rubbing eyes, rubbing nose, yawning, humming, no longer cooperating with activities, being irritable, listless, tired, staring at a place expressionlessly; or having wandering eyes, losing temper, grumbling, losing interest in toys, etc.; if these signs of fatigue are discovered and responded to by parents in time, the child’s sense of security will be enhanced, and if they go to bed in time after feeling tired, their sleep quality will also be better.

4. Create a good sleeping environment: Appropriate temperature, dim light, comfort and quietness are all important. Do not change your baby's sleeping environment frequently.

5. Establish a fixed bedtime ritual: Even newborns within two months of birth need to develop routine bedtime behaviors, such as bathing, massage, reading, listening to music, etc.

6. Independent sleeping: American parenting experts believe that independent sleeping is an ability that is not innate but acquired through training. It is recommended that parents start training their children to fall asleep independently and sleep through the night when their children are about 3-6 months old. After the child enters 18 months, due to the improvement of mobility, further training is required during the transition period from the crib to the children's bed.

7. Take a nap during the day: Babies aged 4 months to 1 year old have passed the neonatal stage and usually take a nap in the morning and afternoon. Some babies need to take a nap in the evening. The total duration of daytime naps is usually three hours or more. Children over 1 year old no longer need a nap in the morning and can sleep for 2 to 3 hours in the afternoon. In order to make the baby feel more energetic, the afternoon nap can be moved forward by half an hour. Most children will maintain the habit of napping until they are 3-5 years old. Note that each child's sleep pattern varies from person to person and can be changed accordingly.

Four major sleep problems

Four major sleep problems - sleeping in arms, frequent night awakenings, night terrors and crying, and lack of sleep

Problem 1: Sleeping with the baby in arms

Holding a baby to sleep means walking and rocking the baby until the baby falls asleep, and the baby is held in the baby's arms all the time during the baby's sleep. This phenomenon is very common and almost every family has experienced it.

Why is cuddling to sleep so common?

The most intuitive reason is: although holding a baby to sleep requires physical effort, it is simple to operate. Many parents wait until the baby falls asleep before putting him down. For parents, since the baby will wake up as soon as he is put down, and it is difficult to coax him to sleep again, it is better to hold him all the time.

Why do babies sleep longer when they are held in their arms?

The reason why holding your baby to sleep can help him sleep longer is:

When falling asleep: Sleeping in the mother's arms gives the baby a sense of being in the mother's arms. The baby can feel the mother's body temperature and is closer to the caregiver, which can make the baby feel physically comfortable and provide psychological comfort.

During sleep: When holding the baby while sleeping, there is no need to move the baby to the bed after falling asleep. Moreover, the environment for falling asleep and waking up is the same, which is not likely to cause alertness and wake up.

At the end of the sleep cycle: continue to hold the baby. If the baby wakes up, parents will generally pat the baby and walk around. This attempt can allow the baby to transition to the next after one sleep cycle ends, thus prolonging the sleep time.

In principle, sleeping with a baby on your back, in a car seat, or in a stroller are similar to sleeping with your baby in your arms.

Generally speaking, it is easier to break the habit of holding a baby to sleep after 3 months, which coincides with the time when the sleep pattern changes from light sleep to deep sleep. However, there are also many children who continue to sleep with the baby for a longer time, even until one year old, which is more due to the influence of sleep habits.

How to improve sleeping while being held?

To break the habit of holding your baby to sleep, you must first learn how to put his sleeping baby down.

Pay attention to the steps and methods when putting the baby down: When putting the baby down, it is easy to stimulate the baby's startle reflex due to falling, so when putting the baby on the bed, avoid putting the baby's head low and the feet high. You can put the baby's buttocks on the bed first, stabilize for one or two minutes, then put the head down, and finally withdraw the hands holding the baby. When withdrawing, use auxiliary actions such as hugging the arms, patting, and pressing the hands.

Don't let your baby feel the temperature difference: If you hold your baby to sleep, the baby will easily wake up when you put him down due to the temperature difference. You can try to put a towel under your arm, and when you put him down, the towel will be attached to him, so that the baby will not be easily alerted to the temperature change. Remove the towel from under the baby after he has fallen asleep to avoid suffocation.

Try to maintain a consistent sleeping environment: you can try to put your baby in bed when he/she is drowsy, so that he/she can fall asleep directly in bed. If your baby is not used to it, you can use patting, hugging and other soothing methods to help your baby fall asleep in ten minutes, skipping the process of holding him/her to sleep and then putting him/her in bed to wake him/her up.

Difficulties that may be encountered in the process of overcoming the difficulty of holding the baby to sleep:

Q: My baby wakes up as soon as I put him down, and then cries loudly and cannot fall asleep at all. What should I do?

Answer: Some parents accidentally come into contact with sleep knowledge and suddenly decide to change the way of holding the baby to sleep. Later, they find that putting the baby down will wake him up. Repeating this several times will cause the baby to wake up from sleep, get frightened, and then lose control of his emotions. Even if he is held, he cannot be comforted. In this case, the skills are not proficient, the communication is not sufficient, and failure is inevitable. Habit change requires time and experience accumulation. Parents should be patient and not rush to achieve success in one fell swoop. Combined with the above-mentioned techniques for breaking the holding sleeping, practice more. Secondly, you must communicate well with your baby so that they are mentally prepared for the upcoming changes. In addition, not being able to put down and always holding the baby to sleep may also be related to the baby's physical pain such as gastroesophageal reflux, which requires parents to carefully investigate the reasons. If the progress is really slow, you may as well stop and summarize the reasons. Moreover, for children of young age, holding the baby to sleep may not be completely avoided. You should be more tolerant and relaxed in your mentality, and sleep should be given priority. Some problems will gradually improve as they grow up.

Frequent night wakings and difficulty weaning off night feeding:

Frequent night wakings are one of the most distressing problems for parents. Parents are constantly woken up from their sleep by their children's crying. In addition, they are unable to soothe their children's crying, and they feel frustrated and exhausted both physically and mentally.

What are the main causes of night wakings?

From a physiological point of view: just like an adult can eat a lot at one meal, and may not feel hungry until 5 hours after a meal, while a baby's stomach capacity is very small, and when it is just born, it may only eat a few mouthfuls at a time, and will feel hungry 2 hours after a meal;

In addition, infants’ sleep cycles are shorter than those of adults, which are physiological factors for frequent night wakings in the early stages. As infants grow older, especially those with night wakings that are much shorter than their hunger cycles, “hunger” will no longer be the dominant factor.

From the perspective of sleeping habits: falling asleep while being held or breastfed may cause dependence, that is, the baby cannot fall asleep again after waking up after falling asleep, and needs to repeat the situation of falling asleep before continuing to sleep.

For a baby, it is not easy to go to sleep peacefully again after sleeping in the warm embrace of the mother with delicious food in the mouth and waking up to find that everything around is quiet and dark and the mother is nowhere to be found.

If they are able to continue falling asleep smoothly, then this feeling will not spread. However, apart from being held or drinking milk, they seldom fall asleep under other conditions. They think that they can only fall asleep when being held or drinking milk. In other words, their sleep associations are very single, so crying is inevitable.

Putting the nipple in the baby's mouth as soon as he wakes up and relying on breastfeeding to coax him to sleep without principles is also one of the main reasons for the baby's long-term habitual night wakings.

Habitual night wakings:

1. Many night awakenings are "wake-up calls" and occur at a fixed time every day, which is called "habitual night awakenings". Generally, it is because the baby has woken up for accidental reasons at a certain time, and has been fed, held and coaxed, etc., which has become a habit.

2. When the baby is sick, teething, or the mother cannot accompany and raise the baby full-time (goes to work), the baby will wake up frequently at night for a period of time, and parents should comfort the baby. This is a normal phenomenon. However, if the baby is not aware of the need to adjust in time after the situation recovers, it is possible that the baby will have the "problem" of habitual night waking.

3. Many parents have found that if they actively feed their babies with milk at 11 o'clock at night, after a few days the babies will wake up at this time as if they had set an alarm clock, whereas they almost never woke up at 11 o'clock before. This shows that night wakings are not entirely natural physiological needs, but may be the result of parental behavioral intervention.

In short, waking up at night does not mean being hungry. The reasons for waking up at night are many and complicated. It can be caused by feces and urine, eczema, changes in temperature, stimulation during the day, changes in environment, visitors to the house, mother at work, learning to turn over, teething, and even mosquito bites.

Set aside some time to make a judgment, and don't blindly rush to stop your baby from crying by holding him or feeding him. Only by identifying the cause can you respond appropriately.

How to deal with frequent night awakenings?

First of all, we need to analyze the reasons why the baby wakes up at night based on the type of night wakings.

There are three main types of frequent night awakenings:

A. I wake up a lot in the first half of the night, once every hour or even every 45 minutes, but I sleep soundly in the second half of the night;

B. Sleep for more than 4 hours in the first half of the night, and sleep for one to two hours in the second half of the night;

C. Frequent waking up throughout the night;

Type A situations are more likely to be related to the baby’s bloating, indigestion, heat, and mood;

Type B cases are related to the sleep association of not sleeping without milk and the baby's abnormal intestinal activity;

In terms of proportion, Class B is the largest, followed by Class A.

Secondly, pay attention to whether the baby's frequent night wakings are sudden or long-term. Long-term ones are generally caused by physiological reasons that lead to the need for additional comfort, but after the physiological reasons disappear, they are not adjusted in time and become a long-term habit; while sudden night wakings often have sudden physiological and psychological reasons.

Starting points for improving frequent night wakings:

Work on addressing the physiological factors that cause the problem;

Try to have a regular schedule during the day, ensure the amount of food intake, and don't let your baby wake up hungry because he didn't eat enough during the day;

Avoid over-tiring your baby;

Adjust step by step to complete the baby's fragmented and broken sleep;

Change your baby's sleep associations: gradually reduce the number of times you feed your baby to sleep, and try to take the baby out when he or she is drowsy, leaving space for your baby to try to fall asleep on his or her own; at times when your baby is relatively easy to fall asleep, replace strong soothing (with a nipple or pacifier) ​​with weaker soothing (patting, etc.), and replace weak soothing with non-intervention (such as humming).

This transformation process requires parents to have sufficient patience, give time to try, and tolerate certain setbacks.

Some auxiliary methods to improve night waking:

Sleeping together: In some cases, mothers will find that their babies wake up easily when sleeping in a small crib, but they can sleep soundly if there is someone sleeping with them or in a big bed. This situation does exist - sleeping together may improve the sleeping condition, but mothers must pay attention to safety when sleeping with their babies.

Synchronous sleep: The severity of a baby's sleep problem is closely related to the feelings of the parents. The baby may fall asleep at 7 o'clock, but the parents may drag it out until 12 o'clock. In this way, when the baby starts to wake up more often in the second half of the night, the parents are very sleepy and feel very painful.

Synchronized sleeping means that when the baby falls asleep, parents should try to sleep with the baby as well. This way the baby will feel less painful at night and they will have the perseverance and patience to deal with the problem of night wakings.

Raising a child is very hard work. In order for both parties to get a better rest, the couple can divide the work and cooperate with each other. The father can stay up in the first half of the night to let the mother get a good few hours of sleep, and the mother will be responsible for taking care of the child who wakes up at night in the second half of the night.

Touching: It is very helpful for young babies. Massaging the baby before bedtime to relax the muscles can improve the baby's sleep.

High-quality companionship: Many mothers work during the day, and it is time for their babies to go to bed soon after they get home at night. The quality of interaction and companionship is poor, and the baby’s needs are not met, making it difficult for the baby to fall asleep.

Change from lying down to feeding in the arms: Some mothers have summed up their experience and found that when they hold the baby and feed him/her properly, instead of the mother and baby lying together, feeding a few times in a daze and then falling asleep together, the number of times the baby wakes up at night can be reduced. It can be said that there is sweetness in the end after suffering.

Bottle feeding: Mainly used to check whether the child wakes up due to hunger. In many families, when the baby cries at night, the whole family urges the mother to feed the baby. They seldom observe or think that the baby may not be hungry, so they try to coax him or her, or squeeze out the milk and feed him with a bottle. Everyone knows how much the baby has eaten, so they decide how to comfort the baby based on facts to reduce conflicts.

In addition, gradually adding water to the milk, eventually turning it into entirely water, is also a way to reduce night feeding. The premise of this method is that the baby can accept bottle feeding.

Prolong continuous sleep: If the baby has been able to go for 5 hours without being hungry for a period of time, then excluding the growth spurt, you should be confident that the child is not hungry, reduce intervention during this sleep stage, and ensure the integrity of the baby's sleep as much as possible.

Prolonged response: Sometimes babies only make some noises when they are in light sleep or trying to continue sleeping. Delaying the response can protect the baby's beneficial attempts.

At other times, when encountering difficulties, if you don’t help in time, the baby may wake up completely and it will be difficult to fall asleep again. It is necessary to respond in time, such as when the baby has wet his/her bed.

Wake him up when necessary: ​​Sometimes babies have night terrors and suddenly cry uncontrollably and are unable to fully recognize their parents. You can try turning on the light or making some sound to wake him up. Once the baby wakes up completely, he will stop crying.

In short, babies' sleep is not as mature as adults', so it is not normal for them to wake up too much, but it is normal for them to wake up at all. The idea to improve frequent night wakings is to reduce the number of times to a tolerable range, rather than trying to eliminate all night wakings at once regardless of the cause.

Parents need to adjust their mindset and not have too high expectations of "baby sleeping through the night", nor be too pessimistic.

Frequently asked questions about night wakings:

Q: My baby wakes up 7 or 8 times at night, which is unbearable. But if I don’t feed him, he will cry and make a fuss, and I can’t calm him down. What should I do?

A: The difficulty of continuing to sleep is different for waking up at different times. You can start with the easier ones. For example, if the baby was just fed an hour ago, the possibility of continuing to sleep without feeding is greater than when falling asleep; for example, it is easier to soothe the baby in the middle of the night than in the early morning; for example, if the baby hums but does not cry loudly, it may not need any soothing. After a few minutes of trying, the baby can continue to sleep...

The change cannot be sudden, and must be discussed with the baby in advance. If the transition from breastfeeding to not feeding at all is too abrupt, then gradually shortening the time is also a transition that can be tried.

Problem 4: Lack of sleep

Many children get little sleep, mainly due to two main reasons: taking naps too short during the day and going to bed too late at night.

Short daytime naps: Babies have shorter sleep cycles than adults. After a 45-minute or half-hour cycle, they will wake up if they cannot smoothly enter the next one. Parents do not know that their babies need to continue sleeping, and they directly wake them up, which will cause the children to lose sleep.

In the case of waking up after a short time and being in a bad mental state, in order to extend the nap time, a second sleep cycle is needed, that is, parents help or children rely on themselves to enter the next sleep cycle to extend the single sleep time, similar to coaxing them back to sleep as soon as they wake up or even coaxing them to sleep before they wake up (careful to avoid second sleep, such as always taking a nap and forcing yourself to take a nap even if you are not sleepy).

If the sleep connection fails, you can set a nap time earlier and increase the number of naps. In addition, babies can stay awake for a shorter time than adults. In some cases, babies are already sleepy, but parents do not pay attention to sleep signals and continue to play with their children, which can easily lead to a lack of naps.

Falling asleep late and waking up early at night: Many babies lack sleep because their parents get off work late, and they arrange bedtime for their babies even later, and they don’t fall asleep until 10 or 11 o’clock. In fact, this time is too late! Especially after waking up from a long sleep in the afternoon, they are already very tired at this time in the evening. This is the reason why many children have difficulty falling asleep and wake up frequently at night.

Many real examples prove that going to bed early can improve night terrors and awakenings, and most sleep books support this view. Going to bed early does not necessarily mean waking up early, but going to bed late may actually mean waking up early. Going to bed late is likely to lead to a loss of sleep.

Adults think that 7 o'clock is very early, and going to bed before 6 o'clock is even more challenging to traditional concepts. But in fact, the difference in understanding is caused by the different sleep characteristics of adults and babies. For tired children, you can still give it a try bravely.

Not only children should go to bed early, but parents should also go to bed early. Synchronized and sufficient sleep can improve the mental state of taking care of children at night and reduce anxiety.

For dual-income families, parents get off work late, so it is difficult to go to bed so early. Parents who really can't do it don't have to worry too much. In short, every family is different, and everything depends on you and your children.

But within the possible scope, it is still necessary to turn off the lights early at night and go to bed early. Although interaction between children and parents is important, the quality of parent-child interaction will inevitably be compromised if children are left to drag their tired bodies to be amused by adults.

In addition, as the age increases, after 9-10 months, the number of cases where the baby cannot fall asleep or wakes up too early due to falling asleep too early begins to increase. For children, the task of comforting them when they wake up at night cannot be pushed entirely to the mother. The father's participation in nighttime parenting is a key step in getting rid of the association of milk sleeping.

Night waking is a problem that accumulates over a long period of time, and you need to give up the extravagant hope of "solving it all at once and never letting it rebound."

Xixi's mother highlights the key points:

Young children have immature bodies and their sleep is not stable. In this case, the amount of sleep is the priority, that is, as long as they can sleep, whether they can fall asleep on their own is not the decisive factor. Parents can try to put the baby down when they are drowsy, but there is no need to be too anxious to stop holding the baby to sleep or feeding the baby to sleep. As the body matures, it becomes increasingly important to slowly give the baby the opportunity to try to fall asleep on his own and establish good sleeping habits.