Why does a newborn baby have trouble sleeping? Why do you need topponcino?

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There are many reasons why a newborn baby sleeps poorly, sleeps little, or sleeps very lightly and wakes up frequently.

Unstable, interrupted sleep becomes a real torture for young parents.

This may be due to:

• - incorrect daily routine,
• - intestinal colic,
• - uncomfortable atmosphere in the room,
• - violation of usual rituals or their absence at all,
• - diaper rash on the baby’s skin, etc.

The list of reasons why a newborn baby sleeps poorly can go on for a long time.

This article will specifically focus on a little-known, but nevertheless large-scale reason for a child’s sleep disturbance associated with the need for the mother’s presence.

Many mothers face such a common problem as interrupted baby sleep. A newborn baby, after being fed or rocked in his arms, instead of the prescribed 3-4 hours, sleeps for 30-40 minutes, after which he wakes up. Such a newborn’s sleep cannot be called complete. To put a sleep-deprived baby to sleep again, you have to repeat the whole ritual again.

Intermittent sleep of a newborn child negatively affects not only the developing child’s psyche, but sometimes drives even the most patient and caring parents to exhaustion. When a newborn baby does not sleep well, it affects all family members. The process of rocking seems to be the only possible way to put a newborn to sleep. In addition to rocking in the arms, electronic swings, cribs with pendulums, pacifiers are used... In some cases, this really helps to “put the baby to sleep,” but does not establish stable sleep for him. Moreover, it becomes even more difficult to wean yourself from these bad habits...

It turns out there is a pattern

A newborn baby may wake up more often - every 15 minutes, and some individuals do not sleep on their own at all - only in their arms or on their chest.

If you track at what point this happens, you can discover a certain pattern. A newborn baby wakes up when he feels that his mother is moving away or leaving him.

In fact, it is quite natural that in the absence of the mother, the baby sleeps poorly and often wakes up - he controls whether the mother is nearby. Not consciously, of course, but at the level of a reflex.

Intuitively, mothers understand this and try to somehow adapt to this situation, prolonging the sleep of the awakening baby in various ways. For example, they put their hand on the child’s back, thereby indicating their presence, sing to him in a soothing voice, rock the cradle, and use active hissing. However, it doesn’t always work... The newborn falls asleep and wakes up.

Every young mother, even before her long-awaited baby is born, imagines in her dreams how he sleeps from birth in a separate crib. Future parents try to make the sleeping place comfortable and beautiful for the newborn. To do this, the crib is decorated with soft sides, braids, mobiles, canopies and other children's paraphernalia that parents like.

But as soon as the baby is born, all the expectations of mom and dad fade into the background. This is due to the fact that parents are getting less sleep and, to optimize the process of putting the baby to bed, they most often begin to place the baby next to them on the bed. This approach can give rise to one of the most important sleep problems, when the child refuses to sleep without his mother and it will be quite difficult to move him into his own bed. It is worth noting that the sooner you start teaching your baby to sleep without parental help, the faster and easier this process will be.

Reasons why a child wants to sleep only with his mother:

1. Strong attachment . Which is the absolute norm. Mom is the dearest person who is always there, helps with any problem, and responds to all requests. In addition to all this, regardless of the type of feeding, the mother feeds the baby. Be it a bottle with formula or breast milk, which also especially attracts babies with its smell.
2. Co-sleeping . From birth, parents put the baby in their bed for all their dreams. This formed the baby's habit of sleeping next to his mother. He feels her warmth, breath and hugs, without which he cannot sleep.
3. Lack of ability to fall asleep independently . Mom only wanted to make it better by always helping the child fall asleep. The baby sleeps in his arms, falls asleep when rocked or on his chest, and still with the help of his mother, thus the child simply cannot learn to sleep without the help of an adult.
4. The baby has neurological problems . In this case, he may need his mother almost every minute. Such needs of the child must be met and the infant’s requests must be responded to as quickly as possible.
5. Sleep associations . At a certain age, the child has formed a stable sleep association. Mom may be one of these associations. The child needs tactile or vocal support at the moment of falling asleep, as well as at the moment when, upon awakening, it is necessary to prolong sleep.
6. Hidden benefit or other psychological reasons for the mother . It happens that the mother, for some reason, takes on all the responsibilities for caring for the baby. This leads to the fact that the child literally cannot get off his mother and does not know how to cope without her. The mother, in turn, may thus want to attract attention from her husband or close relatives, or, on the contrary, seek shelter in the arms of the baby. Every woman has her own reasons.

All children are different and being in constant contact with their mother during the first year of life is a normal desire for every baby. Some newborns have increased anxiety and that is why they cannot fall asleep without a hug from their mother, while others, on the contrary, are too calm and can fall asleep under any conditions. Often, anxiety is associated with a transition period or growth spurt, when the child becomes extremely capricious, may refuse to eat and even be afraid of dad if he does not see him often. To reduce anxiety during the period of active development, it is necessary to devote more time to the baby and, if possible, always be in the field of view of the baby.

When the child is one year old and he still cannot sleep without his mother’s participation, it is worth taking measures to ensure that the child becomes more independent and learns to fall asleep on his own.

A few recommendations on what you can do to help your child fall asleep without his mother:

• Check external sleeping conditions . So that nothing prevents the baby from sleeping soundly both during the day and at night. To do this, you can download the “COMFORT AND SLEEP” CHECKLIST and go through each item.
• Develop a ritual for bedtime . Include voice and tactile support. It is important that the baby likes the ritual. It is worth paying attention to the fact that the duration of the process was from 2-10 minutes, depending on the age of the child.
• Start replacing strong sleep associations with weaker ones . Introduce new habits every day. You can help the child with your voice (hiss) or physically (patting, stroking).
• If the child falls asleep exclusively in his arms (or when rocked to sleep). It is necessary to replace rhythmic movements with static ones. First, reduce the intensity of motion sickness until it stops completely. Perhaps at first the child will simply fall asleep in his arms.
• Transferring to a crib . A very labor-intensive process that takes a huge amount of time. To teach your baby to sleep in his crib without his mother’s help, come to the COURSE “BABY’S SLEEP, MOTHER IN RESOURCE” (+SZ).” Tatyana Kremneva and her team of consultants will help you improve your sleep and tell you how you can teach your child to sleep without the help of his mother.
• Self-sleeping . Once the child is able to sleep in his own bed, at the request of the parents, he can be taught to fall asleep independently. There are a lot of methods for teaching a child. It is very difficult to know which one is right for you. On Tatyana Kremneva’s page @sonmalysha.ru there is a test to determine the methods. Come to the profile, read the posts and come to the live broadcasts.

After all the stages have been successfully completed, you can safely delegate the bedtime process to your dad or other close relatives. It is necessary to tell and show all participants the sequence of actions when laying down. At first it is nearby, but not in the way. Give advice, but don't criticize.

For an older child, you will have to develop a different, longer plan. On the one hand, when the baby has grown up, you can come to an agreement with him, but on the other hand, the child is an adult and he understands everything very well. Especially the fact that sleeping with mom is good, comfortable and familiar. For children over 3 years old, the most important thing is to move the baby. At first, you can put a child's bed in the adult bedroom or put a mattress on the floor and insist that the child sleep on it. Then gradually move the bed to the place where his bed will stand in the future.

Some parents use a different method. For a while, mom or dad simply moves into the baby's separate bedroom, puts a mattress on the floor for themselves, and insists that the baby sleep in his own bed and the parent on the mattress. Further, when the baby has learned to sleep in his own bed, parents begin to leave the child’s bedroom for 1 minute at the beginning and increasing the interval of absence every day. You need to continue doing this until at some point you return, after the promised period of time, and your baby is already asleep.

When a child falls asleep solely with the help of his mother, the woman is likely to experience serious stress. The feeling of guilt in front of the child for her thoughts and powerlessness can haunt the mother. At this moment, the support of loved ones is more important than ever. Ask your dad and friends for help, sleep with your baby and start moving away from co-sleeping only when your strength returns to you again.

Author: Tatyana Kremneva.

The situation is repeating itself

Well, if the baby wakes up and is crying, then the only way left is to take him in your arms, calm him down, wait until he falls asleep and his sleep becomes deep. Usually it is 20-30 minutes. Next comes the hardest part: transferring the sleeping baby back to his crib without him waking up.

Millions of mothers, experiencing daily suffering from the fact that their newborn child does not sleep well, ask the question: what to do in order to establish proper healthy sleep for the baby?

Why does a newborn baby sleep poorly and the situation repeats itself cyclically?

In most cases, the baby falls asleep easily and sleeps well, but is still in his arms. As soon as you put him in his crib, he wakes up.

Pros of co-sleeping

There are, of course, more advantages to sleeping together between an infant and parents than the disadvantages:

• It is easier for a mother to breastfeed her baby, since she does not have to get out of bed several times a night. Almost all babies ask for the breast at least two or three times during the night. But here too, mom needs to be very careful. You should not sleep while feeding, so as not to inadvertently crush the baby. If the mother is very tired and does not get enough sleep, then even at night the baby should be fed in a sitting position. Or you can ask your husband to look after the sleeping mother and baby while the baby nurses.
• The mother constantly hears the breathing of her baby, even in her sleep, which means she will be able to respond in time to any concern of the child.
• The mother sleeping next to her will cover the baby if it is cold or, on the contrary, will reveal it if he is hot.
• The mother who is nearby will not allow the child to bury his face in the pillow.
• The child always feels the mother's condition. If mom doesn’t have to constantly twitch and run to the crib at night, her sleep will be more restful. This means that the baby will sleep sounder and longer. Then both the child and the mother will get enough sleep. And a well-slept and rested mother will have more strength to work with her child during the daytime.

A sense of security is the key to stable sleep

The thing is that in the first months after the birth of a baby, there is a very strong invisible connection between the mother and the newborn child. This is due to the fact that the life of a newborn is almost 100% dependent on the mother, because she is, first and foremost, a source of nutrition! Food! Nature has built into its creations a very strong instinct of self-preservation. Otherwise, life on Earth would have ended long ago. That is why, when a newborn baby is sleeping and his mother leaves him somewhere, he feels that he is losing his usual vital safety landmarks - the smell of his mother, breast milk and the feeling of warmth. It's not safe for him! The baby's brain gives a wake-up signal, and the newborn baby begins to call for his mother.