Successful & Happy Parenting
Do you wonder what do successful parents do differently that they are always calm and collected while enjoying their parenting journey to the fullest?
Let share a little secret, they are well rested.
As parents, we rest while our little one sleeps peacefully. If your baby sleeps for consolidated period and without your intervention, you can recharge and attend to your baby while they are awake. You don't have to put your life on pause. When your baby sleeps well, she is cheerful and she will make your day special.
Common sleep challenges
Every parent faces sleep challenges at some point in their parenting journey from newborn to being toddler. Mostly because a baby's sleep cycle is maturing fast and needs are changing rapidly. Initially every week is different and gradually the phases last longer upto few months. Somewhere between 2-4 years the toddler starts sleeping like an adult and baby sleep trouble subsides. When exactly this will happen varies.​ If your baby is not sleeping well at day or during the night, your have not failed as a parent. It is merely an opportunity to learn more about your baby and how she is different from your neighbours kid. ​
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Sleeping training is not a solution all problem and Cry-it-out, or Ferberisation also has its limitations. I believe sleep is natural and under right conditions, babies will sleep better. I would on educating these right conditions and working our way towards the best situation.
Common sleep challenges in baby are less sleep, multiple night wakings, rigid preferences, sleep disturbances, late bedtime, sleep in twins and triplets, catnapping or short napping, baby fighting sleep and sleeping through the night
Less sleep
Most parents worry that their baby is sleeping less than required. Refer the baby sleep requirement by month chart to see if your baby is sleep as per her age. You will also notice that the sleep recommended for babies within each age group is a range. This accounts for individual variation. Some babies need more sleep and some are happier with less sleep.
Night waking
Babies waking up multiple during the night and requiring support to return back to sleep is creates biggest challenges for the family. This is because the baby will go back to sleep but the sleep of parents are disturbed. Bedtime for babies and parents will mostly be different and the sleep cycle of babies are shorter - 45 mins to 1 hour while parents sleep cycle is around 1.5 hours. This means the sleep cycles could be out of sync and parents may be awaken from the restorative REM sleep. Parents will clock 8 hours of sleep but will not feel refreshed. Mothers especially are hit hard and adverse effects include fatigue, feeling low, anger, forgetfulness, reduced immunity and falling sick often and perhaps delayed recovery from post partum blues
Rigid preferences
Some babies have rigid preference like sleeping with a particular caregiver in an extremely particular manner, position and/or environment
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This includes sleeping only while being rocked in baby swing (hammock, jhula, thooli) or sleeping in arms, sleeping on lap, sleeping on shoulders while walking, sleeping on chest and sleeping while being patted or being nursed to sleep. Nursing to sleep or breastfeeding to sleep or sleep on side after feeding combined with night waking are especially hard on mothers. When the settling time or sleep onset latency that is the time to sleep is long or when you have to multiple times during night. It becomes diffcult
Sleep disturbances
A baby that was previously sleeping well starts developing sleep challenges. The starting point is know but parents find it difficult to go back. The event could be illness, mothers returning to work, change of nanny or arrival of younger siblingsThe need here is a transition plan.
Late bedtime
Some babies sleep much later than their parents would like them to. There are cases where the baby goes sleep at almost 12 in the night and wakes up very late say 10 in the morning. This is unhealthy for the baby and difficult to manage for parents because the parents will have to wait for the baby to sleep and attend to household chores like tiding up the house or preparing for the next day.
Twins & Triplets
Among twins and triplets one baby might be sleeping well and the other might not be. This is interesting because parents provide the same care and environment and yet genetically similar babies behave differently
Catnapping
Catnapping is when a baby sleeps for short periods of time, upto 20 minutes, during the day. Catnaps could indicate that the baby is ready to drop a nap or a bigger trouble if all the naps are cat naps.
Baby fighting sleep
The parents might take a long time to get the baby to sleep. This might more than 20 minutes of rocking, singing lullaby, patting and walking around. In other cases, the baby might start crying when taken to bed. Parents might want babies to settle into sleep sooner.
Sleeping through the night
Parents might worry that baby not sleeping the entire night in a single consolidated stretch is a cause of concern or attending to the baby during the night is no longer possible as the primary case giver, mostly the mother is returning to work or due to health concerns, a full nights sleep is required for the primary care giver. This is a sub set of night waking trouble