When the baby is not sleeping: tips and strategies to manage it
Your baby will go through a multitude of changes in a short time: all perfectly normal and absolutely functional for proper growth. Alas, there will be more difficult phases to manage such as those characterized by sleep deprivation, typical of the very first months of life and a reason for great fatigue on the part of parents. Discover all the evolutionary stages of your little one in the video below and then continue reading.
The sleep of a newborn
The quality and quantity of a newborn baby's sleep is extremely variable. By comparing yourself with other mothers you will be able to hear the most disparate stories: children who from the first weeks of life made their parents sleep peacefully if not for some sporadic crisis, sleepless babies who exchange day for night and super cuddly babies who do nothing but stand next to their mom during their night's rest. Why this great variety of experiences?
There is no precise reason for the difference in behaviors of newborns when it comes to sleep, but it is true that there are reasons behind the insomnia of a small child. How to recognize them? Today we try to list the most common factors that can alter the sleep of a newborn and that are to be monitored in case you recognize one or more of the related signals.
Do not be alarmed if the baby just arrived sleeps very little at night and a lot during the day: the exchange between day and night hours is much more frequent than you think. The reasons that we will illustrate to you are of a different nature and also concern the circadian clock that babies have yet to learn to develop like us adults and which unfortunately make mum and dad spend many sleepless nights.
Let's now understand the most important reasons why a newborn may have difficulty sleeping.
The lack of rest in the small child
The world is full of children who do not sleep for 1 or 2 years (if not 3 or 4), but these are exceptional cases that do not fall within the range of standard situations.
When sleep fails we all feel a bit "upside down and new mothers even more because very young children still have to synchronize themselves on the" correct "times of the adults for bedtime. The insomnia of newborns is very famous, but this does not mean that a mother is always afraid that her little one has something wrong, perhaps a malaise that keeps him awake more than he should and consequently keeps her awake too!
When the baby does not tend to sleep well, however, he tries to make himself understood in the only way he knows, that is by crying. continuous moaning in case of very high fever, to name a few examples.
In normal situations, a newborn sleeps according to its own rhythms which with development will become like ours: even among grown-up people there are those who sleep a little more and who, on the other hand, need only a few hours of sleep a night to be active.
In fact, after months of birth the night sleeps are more and more and the hours dedicated to daytime naps become more and more infrequent. The turning point for parents with small children who sleep little at night is the milestone of 2 years: at this age a child sleeps regularly at night and, at most, allows himself a nap in the afternoon. If you still have trouble falling asleep in the evening, you can start talking about sleep disorders by consulting your pediatrician.
The reasons why a newborn does not sleep
However, there are factors that transcend your child's young age that can alter his or her restful sleep, newborn and even older.
The most frequent can be summarized in 5/6 macro-categories:
- cold and stuffy nose
- alteration of the sleep wake cycle
- hunger
- craving for cuddles (generated by a feeling of insecurity)
- boredom
- fear of abandonment
These are the most common reasons, but since every baby is unique, there are sure to be other reasons that can change his or her approach to sleep compared to another baby. We will limit ourselves to delving into these typical childhood disorders and needs, also trying to suggest some related strategies to deal with them well and make you recover a few hours of sleep. Obviously we do not have a magic formula to make the problem disappear at its root, but we can dispense some advice that we hope you will find useful.Let's start with the physical difficulties and then move on to psychological factors, perhaps the most complex to deal with, but not to be neglected to ensure peaceful nights for the whole family.
© alfemminile Vintage baby names
The stuffy nose
The baby has a stuffy nose and therefore breathes badly. Very frequent disorder that among other things can easily affect mum and dad, with the difference that we know what to expect and we know how to treat ourselves, while a baby does not yet know how to do it. Babies begin to breathe with their mouth within the year. of life, however, you have to wait until the threshold of 6 years to make sure that they are able to blow their nose by themselves. Let's understand how to deal with this problem.
A baby with a stuffy nose sleeps badly because he can't breathe. When the baby's nose is plugged, the accompanying noise is usually a bit strange, as if there was a rattle that immediately alarms the parents.
Do not worry, your child is not in danger of suffocating if he has a stuffy nose; however he feels a lot of discomfort because he cannot breathe well or rest as he would like. A blocked nose can also lead to a refusal to feed as she will not be able to inhale and exhale with her mouth engaged and her nose pressed against the mother's breast.
To avoid all this it is essential to prevent a blocked nose by keeping it free as much as possible. Especially in the winter months when the nose becomes more obstructed, nasal washes can be a good preventive action: they can be purchased in pharmacies and also in supermarkets, in particular the washes with isotonic saline solution, simple and quick to use on the newborn. For small incrustations in the nostrils use the nasal aspirator, it is painless and helps to have a freer breathing. For more persistent colds, on the other hand, it is possible to switch to hypertonic saline solution which decongests the affected area.
Alteration of the sleep wake cycle
To serenely accompany a newborn to bed, it is good to establish a routine prior to going to bed from an early age, which for the first months of living together seems to be a "business! the first important regression of sleep, it is possible to try to direct the baby towards a series of very specific actions that make him understand that it is time to close his eyes. This routine involves pleasant activities for the newborn such as a warm bath, a sweet lullaby and then the tender embrace of the mother.
What to do to manage the situation in the event of an alteration in the sleep-wake rhythm? Surely one thing not to do is to always make the baby fall asleep in the dark, especially if it is in broad daylight. Our biological clock internally records the day (when there is more light) as the time for activity and the night as the hours spent sleeping.
So if we get the little one used to always sleeping in the dark, his biological clock will struggle to tune in to the time of day during which he needs to rest. It is a scientific fact: often leaving it in the dark to sleep alters its production of melatonin, a substance produced by man at night, from dusk to dawn approximately, and it is precisely the key element that regulates normal. rhythm of the sleep-wake cycle.
This is why babies very often confuse day with night!
So a good behavior, in addition to establishing a daily sleep routine, is to let the baby rest in bright environments during the day and only at night in the dark.
Hunger, boredom and pampering
Your child may struggle to fall asleep even from hunger or boredom. Specifically in the first case, the pediatrician himself will check your baby's sleep, to understand if he is feeding correctly.
If you are breastfeeding the issue of sleep with a newborn is much more precarious than with a newborn who takes only a bottle. We will not decant the thousand qualities of breast milk in this article, but there are countless studies in favor, because it is a species-specific food and because it is a very precious food able to protect the little ones even from seasonal ailments.
Sometimes, however, breastfeeding can suffer hitches: breast milk may not be enough in some days and this happens when there are spurts of growth. In these periods the newborn is particularly irritable and often such attitudes can be the consequence of the fact that you are not satisfied enough and this affects your sleep a lot. When this happens you can think of giving an "addition of artificial milk, or try to breastfeed more often to promote milk production, until the moment of the shot has passed. .
If the baby is older and is no longer breastfed, it may be that he eats little because he does not like the first meals or because he is a big glutton and needs more grams on his plate.
Always consult your pediatrician to understand if and how to vary your child's diet.
The other point that affects the quality of sleep of the very little ones is psychological: the child gets bored and tends to look for his mother very often, as a pacifier and anti-stress against monotonous days. It may seem strange to you but even babies can get bored! And they manifest it in the form of the need for extra pampering on the part of the mother figure.
It is very obvious when a baby is looking for his mother only to cuddle, because he needs to always feel her near, day and night and it does not matter whether it is 3 in the morning or 7 in the evening! She cries often and is only reassured when she smells the scent of her mother's skin, very tired from the few hours of rest, but who for love of her son holds on tight.
How to manage these moments of crisis? The best tactic is not to let chaos reign when such episodes occur, or rather, pampering and attention are welcome, especially if the baby is just born, but for the good of the whole family and for the restful sleep of adults and children. it is right to follow some basic rules.
Healthy habits to sleep well are a panacea for directing the little one to fall asleep with little difficulty, even in the future, so cultivate wonder and amazement during the day and maintain a relaxed and relaxed atmosphere for the nights and evenings. Other tips? As soon as the baby is a little older, move him to a specific place for the evening sleep; count that you can try to take him to his bed even around 10 months. You will certainly struggle for a few days, but if you insist on bringing him back to his bed. bed every night, eventually it will give way! Ask dad for help with these operations because if the babies no longer have to be breastfed at night there is nothing better than the father's chest to distract them from the mother's breast. Finally, he tries to always take the child to bed at around the same time, to reassure him that even if his mother is not there at night, she always comes back in the morning.
Insecurity and fear of abandonment
We kept this motivation that leads babies to sleep problems for last, but it is actually a very important psychological factor in the very early stages of childhood. Sleep quality is extremely affected by insecurity and fear of abandonment.
Being separated from the mother generates in a very small child (within 3 years) a strong feeling of anxiety, a biological footprint typical of animals: in nature, animals attract the attention of the mother with a cry, and baby humans cry to attract those who brought them into the world, regardless of the hours of sleep lost. Separation anxiety occurs between 6 and 8 months of life, and it is easy to notice because you notice a strong impediment to rest. Even around 18-24 months it is possible that sleep regression will recur, causing parents to fall into great despair because they think that sleepless nights are now an old story.
How is it possible to take care of the well-being of your little one by making him grow loved and safe?
The most obvious answer is always being next to the mother, because for a baby the safest place in the world is in the arms of his mother. But it can't be practicable in the long run.
Fortunately, studies on the subject show us that after the threshold of 2 years or at most 3, children feel less this separation anxiety and tend spontaneously to become autonomous, sleeping in their own bed within 5 years of life. So try to stay calm as much as possible, establish a sleep routine for your baby and fill his day with interesting activities ... if that's not enough to help him get a good night's rest after checking that there are no physical problems at stake. like a stuffy nose, bring a lot of patience and when possible take turns with dad.
