Understanding the sleep pattern in Babies
It is impossible to make any adult or baby to sleep
deeply or continuously all night. Sleep is not one continuous
state but a string of cycles which goes something like
this: deep sleep-light sleep-dream sleep- a brief awakening
and then deep sleep etc once more few times through
the night. Deep sleep is the important one as at this
stage babies build, grow, repair and remain healthy
while in light sleep our brains stay active. In the
early days, a newborn has a difficult time going to
sleep and staying asleep because he is in light sleep
a lot more but this changes when baby is about 3 months
old as he starts his sleep in the deep-sleep stage.
For an adult, a cycle typically lasts 90 minutes while
for babies the cycle is shorter - about 50 minutes so
the potential number of wakes are more each night. Further
to this, babies spend a larger proportion of the cycle
in light sleep and that means more wake-times for the
parent as well.
If the baby is overtired or overhandled then it will
take longer for baby to fall asleep. If the baby is
put to bed while still awake, he will learn to put himself
to sleep. Some babies acquire this skill more quickly
than others and most need some sort of aid such as patting,
rocking, nursing, the pacifier, the car ride, and so
on. The trouble with all this is that baby gets not
only dependent on these comforts but stays asleep for
only about 30 minutes and then the whole process needs
to be repeated. Since baby's sleep cycles are short,
he reaches the next light sleep phase quite fast. When
his aid that helped him to fall asleep is not there,
he will find problems falling asleep again. Babies in
the early days start their sleep in the light sleep
phase but all this changes after the 3rd month when
they start off sleeping in the deep-sleep phase. That
explains why in the initial days babies find it difficult
to go to sleep and staying asleep.
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