Sleep time of newborns
Adequate sleep is one of the preconditions for ensuring the health of newborns and infants. The younger the baby is, the longer the sleeping time is. The sleeping time of the baby can reach about 20 hours per day within a few days after birth. That is to say, besides breastfeeding time, the baby is basically in a sleeping state.
Comfortable sleeping position
Normally, most newborns take the supine sleeping posture, because this sleeping posture can relax the muscles of the whole body and minimize the pressure on the heart, gastrointestinal tract and bladder of newborns. However, when sleeping on the back, because the root of the tongue relaxes and falls backward, it will affect the smooth of the respiratory tract. At this time, we should closely observe the sleeping condition of the newborn. For babies sleeping on the side, parents should adjust the left and right directions in time to avoid facial deviation. We don’t advocate newborn babies to take the prone sleeping position, which is susceptible to accidental asphyxia.
Best Sleep Environment
Babies should sleep in warm and comfortable places. It is recommended that the baby be placed in a cradle or cot, with protective bars on both sides of the bed. The temperature of the sleeping environment is 24 – 25 degrees Celsius and the humidity is about 50%. Don’t wear or cover your baby too thick. Baby’s head temperature is about 3 degrees Celsius lower than the body temperature. Higher temperatures can make the baby restless, thus disturbing the normal sleep. The light should not be too strong when sleeping at night, try to create a soft and quiet environment.
Methods to lull the baby to sleep
When the baby is crying and sleepless, parents will come up with various methods to lull the baby to sleep. Here are some good methods.
(1) Pat the baby: If the baby’s mood is not stable after sleeping, the mother can hum and pat the baby to give him a comfortable mood and absolute sense of security.
(2) Soft music: You can choose some soft music to help your baby sleep. Babies have a natural appreciation of music!
(3) Sleep in the Backlight: When the baby stays in the mother’s belly, it adapts to the dark sleeping environment. So you can let the baby sleep in the direction of the backlight and let him adapt slowly.
Taboo:
Some incorrect methods will bring adverse effects to the baby’s health.
(1) Shaking: Because shaking makes the baby’s brain concuss in the skull cavity, causing rupture of small blood vessels on the surface of brain tissue, which will lead to epilepsy, mental retardation, limb paralysis or even brain edema and brain hernia.
(2) Companion: If mothers sleep with babies, they may suppress their babies and cause asphyxia after falling asleep.
Does newborn baby need a pillow?
Normally, newborn babies do not need pillows, because the spine of the newborn is straight, the back of the newborn lies naturally on the same plane as the back of the brain when lying flat, so the newborn sleeps without pillows won’t cause pillow fall due to the tension of neck muscles. If the pillow is too high for the newborn, it will easily cause neck bending, affect the respiratory function, cause respiratory disorders, and affect normal growth and development.
Why does baby startle when sleeping?
Within 3 months, the baby has a physiological startle phenomenon, which is a normal phenomenon caused by immature brain development and does not need to be dealt with.
What to do when the baby wakes up at night?
Many reasons for baby waking up at night are due to improper parental care. Babies in shallow sleep have various movements, such as opening eyes, sucking, turning over, crying, and sometimes looking up, but most of these movements are meaningless. Therefore, parents should not give too much care. Parents can wait for more than 5 minutes quietly and then react. Sometimes too much care will disturb the normal sleep of the baby, which is not conducive to the normal physiological development of the baby.
“Biological clock” inversion
The development of neonatal brain function is not perfect and they have no concept of day and night, so the “biological clock” will be mistaken and the phenomenon of day and night inversion will occur. The best way to solve this problem is not to create a quiet environment deliberately during the day, do things as usual and don’t be too nervous about your baby, then the baby will naturally distinguish between day and night.
Baby’s “Night Food”
Babies should be breastfed on demand and fed whenever they want. If the baby didn’t wake up at night, don’t disturb him as much as possible, and the interval between feeding can be prolonged appropriately. Generally speaking, a newborn baby can be fed twice a night.
