Help! My baby won't sleep

When a caregiver tells me that their infant never sleeps, I immediately ask them what "never" means. Most will respond by saying that their infant wakes up every three hours to feed. To a caregiver, it just feels like never because of their level of exhaustion in the mornings.

This frequency of waking is completely normal during the first four to six months and actually has a number of benefits, including maintaining a nursing mom's milk supply and enhancing the baby's brain development.

If your infant is waking very frequently, has difficulty falling asleep or is cranky during the day, a visit to your baby's healthcare provider for a formal work-up, and a lactation consultant if mom is nursing, may be necessary to rule out any underlying issue.

Nighttime wakings, although frustrating for caregivers, are necessary for proper infant growth and development. Just keep in mind that this phase will pass and that your baby will soon sleep longer and wake less frequently.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Good Night's Sleep May Be Your Ticket To Weight Loss

Image
Sleep has so many benefits that it is no surprise to learn that it may help you lose those stubborn extra pounds. A lack of sleep increases the level of the hunger hormone ghrelin, which can cause you to take in some extra calories. Sleep deprivation can also increase your cravings for sweets and other unhealthy foods. Sleep also helps you maintain a healthy weight by giving you the energy to be active. When you are short of sleep, your muscles may feel sore and tired making you less inclined to exercise. This leads to a vicious cycle as being sedentary during the day does little to help you fall asleep at night. Implementing sleep-promoting habits like turning off electronics well before bedtime, doing some nighttime meditation and keeping your bedroom at a comfortable temperature can help you get the sleep you need so you can shed the weight you don't need.
Read more

Going to bed hungry is bad for sleep

Trying to sleep on an empty stomach will often result in difficulty both falling asleep and staying asleep. This is because some of our hunger hormones actually promote alertness. Therefore, if you're feeling peckish at bedtime, eating a healthy snack may be your best bet for achieving the depth and duration of sleep that your body needs.
Read more

Tracking Your Sleep May Not Be A Good Idea

Image
Health apps are all the craze lately. From counting how many steps we take in a day to determining how much time we spend in REM sleep during the night, learning about our daily rhythms can inform us about our current state of health and identify areas that we may need to work on. Having said that, this technology does have a downside. A study in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that those who used sleep trackers became fixated on getting perfect sleep. This preoccupation is called orthosomnia. The anxiety and worry associated with not getting impeccable sleep caused sleep problems. Although eight hours is often touted as the magic number, there are those who need more and those who can do with less. Also, the time spent in each sleep stage and the length of a cycle can vary from person to person. Therefore, if you find that tracking your sleep has decreased the quantity or quality of your slumber, it may be time to put the app to rest.
Read more
Lisa Varadi's books on Goodreads
Sleep: The Secrets of Slumber Sleep: The Secrets of Slumber
reviews: 2
ratings: 3 (avg rating 5.00)

The Insomnia Diet The Insomnia Diet