Sleep occupies most of the time in the life of infants and young children. Therefore, parents are very concerned about the baby’s sleep. Adequate sleep is very important for the physical and intellectual development of infants and young children. Because adequate sleep can promote the development of brain function, which is conducive to the storage of brain energy, memory consolidation and physical recovery. Insufficient sleep can affect the development of children’s cognitive function, impair the frontal cortex function of the brain, lead to changes in emotion and attention, and language and abstract thinking deficits.
How long does the baby sleep a day?
For the total sleep time, the younger the baby, the more sleep he needs. Babies from newborn to 2 months sleep 14-18 hours a day, babies from 2 to 4 months sleep 14-15 hours a day, and babies from 4 to 6 months sleep 13-14 hours a day. However, sleep time also has individual differences, every baby’s sleep time isn’t the same. Some babies sleep less time, as long as when awake, their mental state is good, their diet is not affected, we need not worry.
How long did the baby wake up from sleep?
There is no circadian regularity in neonatal sleep, which often reverse day and night. However, with the maturation of the nervous system, a relatively stable circadian regularity of sleep and awakening will gradually emerge. And with the increase of age, daytime sleeping time is shorter and awakening time is longer. Newborns wake up for 1-2 hours every 3-4 hours and can wake up for 3-4 hours after 4 months. After 3 months, the daytime sleeping time decreased slowly, with fixed nap time and a night of long sleep. About 44% of babies begin to sleep long at night after 2 months. The longest sleeping time at night for 6 months’ babies is 6 hours, and the average sleeping time at night for babies aged 6 months to 5 years is about 11 hours.
Will the baby be hungry after sleeping at night?
Some parents worry that their babies will be hungry if they don’t eat at night. In fact, they don’t need to worry at all. According to research, healthy full-term infants aged 4 months can sleep for 6 hours without eating, infants aged 5 months can sleep for 9 hours without eating and infants aged 6 months can sleep for 12 hours without eating. And if the baby doesn’t eat at night, he will eat more during the day, so parents don’t have to worry about the baby’s nutritional deficiency. But don’t let the newborn sleep for more than 4 hours at night. When the newborn sleep for more than 3 hours during the day, parents should also wake him up and feed him.
Deep sleep and light sleep alternate
Sleep consists of light sleep (eye movement sleep) and deep sleep (non-eye movement sleep). In infancy, when in light sleep, the baby may have various strange movements, such as sucking, smiling, making faces, pouting, dancing, stretching, trembling, voicing, breathing irregularly. And their eyeballs move under closed or semi-closed eyelids. Light sleep accounts for most of the sleep in the first two years of life. Light sleep plays an important physiological and psychological role in infant development. Studies have shown that light sleep can increase the synthesis and metabolism of proteins in the human body, so that new knowledge can be retained. Therefore, parents needn’t worry about the baby’s strange movements during light sleep and don’t interrupt the baby’s light sleep by waking up the baby or holding the baby.
In the neonatal period, sleep begins with light sleep, then goes into the deep sleep after about 15 minutes, then goes into the light sleep, and finally wakes up. Deep sleep and light sleep account for half of each sleep cycle. Sleep behavior and physiological function gradually mature 2-3 months after birth. Sleep patterns gradually change over three months to start with deep sleep (adult sleep starts with deep sleep), and the duration of deep sleep is prolonged, twice as long as that of light sleep. 82% of babies aged 6 months begin to sleep in deep sleep. From 2 to 5 years old, the time of light sleep gradually decreased from 30% to 20% – 25% (equivalent to adult level). In addition, physical activity is less during shallow sleep, which is more obvious in the latter half of the night and develops to adult type. Sleep cycles also prolonged with age, with an average of 45 minutes per sleep cycle for newborns and 60 minutes per sleep cycle at the age of 2-3.
Develop baby’s sleeping habits after 4-6 months
Babies aged 0-2 months rarely sleep for more than 4 hours at a time. Because the baby’s nerves are not mature enough for him to relax and fall asleep. Parents can help their babies fall asleep by wrapping, gently shaking, feeding and using pacifiers. Don’t worry about spoiling your baby or forming permanent bad habits, because babies within three months can’t remember their surroundings. But from 4 to 6 months, we should help babies cultivate good sleeping habits.