How much should a baby sleep at 8 months - sleep pattern (day and night)

At eight months, the child's growth rate begins to slow down, but physical activity continues to increase.

Children of eight months have already strengthened the basic muscles that allow them to sit with a flat back without support, crawl confidently, and attempt to stand on their feet, holding the baby by the arms - trying to walk independently. The child can easily use his fingers. Shows curiosity and is able to assess his mother’s mood, which he imitates.

The day is full of games; children show special interest in colored cubes, bright rings, multi-colored pyramids and boxes of different sizes. Children with great interest disassemble the pyramid, rearrange the cubes, and lay out toys from the boxes.

Babies spend more time on active games - crawling, exploring the world around them, simply asking to be held in their arms to take off like an airplane, or cheerfully “jumping” with daddy to a high ceiling.

Daytime sleep requirements

How much and how does a baby sleep at eight months of age? Daytime rest is still necessary so that a mobile and active baby can replenish expended energy and give his body a break, relaxing the nervous, musculoskeletal and muscular systems. Its structure remains virtually unchanged.

The duration of sleep is reduced, now the baby only needs 4 hours to restore the body.
You need to put him to bed twice.
Taking into account the fact that the baby is now an early bird, it is good to put him to bed for the first time at 8-30 in the morning for 1.5 - 2 hours.
The most favorable time for afternoon sleep is from 14-30 to 16-00.

It is very important to ensure that the baby does not become overtired during the waking period. “Walking” for more than 3 hours and 15 minutes will inevitably cause overwork, problems with falling asleep and restless sleep for the baby.

Why does a child sleep very poorly at night, often wake up, cry and toss and turn?

Hello Alexey here! Every second parent faces such a problem as poor sleep in a child. Today I will try to tell you why a child does not sleep well at night. In the article I touched on almost all ages and the main causes of restless sleep.

Why doesn't my baby sleep at night?

In order to answer this question, first let’s find out how many hours a newborn baby should sleep at night:

Age from 0 to 28 days - normal sleep from 19 to 20 hours a day,
From 0 to 2 months - the child should sleep from 16 to 18 hours a day,
From 2 months to 4 months - normal sleep from 15 to 17 hours a day,
From 4 to 6 months - the norm is considered to be 13 - 16 hours a day,
From 6 months to 12 - 12 - 14 hours a day.

Now let’s talk about the reasons for a newborn’s poor sleep:

Very hot in the room

A child’s metabolism is already several times faster than an adult’s, so the child is always hotter.

Those. if you are cool, which is good for a newborn, or normal for you, then the baby is warm, and if you are warm, then the baby is very hot!

In general, if the temperature in the room exceeds more than 23 degrees, then the child will sleep poorly - 100%.

The room is very dry

This occurs due to modern indoor radiators, which burn part of the air. To do this, use a special device that humidifies the air.

4 dangerous causes of dry air in the room:

The baby begins to become thirsty, he wakes up and asks to drink often. This occurs because the child’s body spends a very large supply of water to humidify the inhaled air.
The baby often wakes up and cries, because due to the dry air, the mucous membrane of the mouth and nose dries out.
The baby's body becomes dehydrated. As a result, food eaten before bed is poorly digested because gastric juice becomes thick. With this condition, the child begins to experience colic and gas.
Due to dry air, a child with a cold (cough, snot), phlegm and snot dry out and he cannot cough them up. As a result, a cold can develop into bronchitis, laryngitis, or tracheitis.

Stuffy in the room

When it’s stuffy in your room, there’s no talk of a child. Ventilate your child's room with fresh air 15 minutes before bedtime.

Filled diaper

When the diaper is full, the baby feels uncomfortable. Therefore, before going to bed, be sure to check the diaper; if there is diaper rash, apply a special ointment with dexpanthenol to it.

Baby has a tummy ache

At three to four months of age, colic begins and goes away by six months.

Colic can be determined as follows: the child, despite being dry and full, cries day and night with anguish and blushes. Even if you pump him up with your hands, he still doesn’t calm down. But after a while it calms down.

Children's anti-colic drops - Bobotik, Sub-simplex, etc. - can help your child.

He's scared and lonely

The baby experiences a feeling of loneliness, so go to bed with him and do not listen to anyone who says that the child should sleep alone.

Hunger

A newborn feels hungry very often, so before going to bed, feed him well with breastfeeding, milk porridge or formula.

Confused day and night

If a child sleeps well during the day, he cannot sleep at night. To do this, set a routine for your child during the day.

Overexcited

This condition is determined by the fact that the child begins to be capricious before going to bed. This may be due to active games before bedtime, swimming, gymnastics, etc.

To prevent this from happening, start getting ready for bed three hours before. Those. Do all procedures three hours before bedtime, excluding active games and cartoons.

Got sick

Infants often suffer from ARVI; poor sleep may be due to a temperature of more than 37.5 degrees.

These are the most common causes of poor sleep in infants.

Causes of poor sleep in a one-year-old child

Disorders of the gastrointestinal tract cycle,
Stuffy nose (allergy),
The microclimatic conditions in the room are disturbed,
Disturbance or lack of sleep patterns in a child,
Overwork,
Noise,
Filled diaper
Disturbed feeding regime (the child asks to eat at night),
Children's phobias,
Teeth are being cut
Nervous diseases,
Feels bad.

Why does a 1.5 year old child sleep poorly at night?

At this age, the baby can wake up and be absolutely healthy, and this is considered normal. Now let’s look at the main reasons for a child’s poor sleep. They can be from any disease, as well as removable factors.

The child experiences discomfort - wet diaper, diaper rash, signs of illness, thirst, hunger.
Digests the events of the day in his head. This could be a change of environment, new acquaintances, etc.
If the baby has not spent his energy during the day, then at night he will not have time to sleep.
A nervous mother, the baby sees and understands everything, and your nervousness can affect him.
The child feels uncomfortable. Uncomfortable pillow, linen, mattress, etc.
Extraneous noise, bright lighting, etc.
Lots of activity before bed. The child ran, jumped, etc. Even if he falls asleep, he will sleep restlessly and wake up.
Childhood fear. For example, he began to sleep separately from his parents.

Why does a child sleep poorly at night at 2 years old?

The causes of poor and restless sleep can be classified into 2 groups:

Physiological

The child's room is not suitable for normal sleep. This may be due to temperature, poor bedding, if the pillow is down, this can cause allergies. A synthetic blanket or pajamas evaporates excess sweat and prevents the body from breathing calmly. This can also include strong lighting, for example a street lamp coming into a child’s room. In this case, you need to replace the curtains with thicker ones.
Some children continue to erupt baby teeth. As you know, this process is quite painful and greatly affects sleep.

At the age of two, a child may not sleep well, often wake up and demand food or just attention. This phenomenon occurs due to violation of the baby’s routine by parents under 2 years of age. To prevent this from happening, the child must be taught a routine from the first year. When should he eat, bathe and sleep? At four to five o'clock in the evening, talk to him as little as possible. Try to put your baby to bed before nine in the evening.
Poor sleep can also be caused by the weather; the child is weather sensitive. This phenomenon is rare, but it does happen. To do this, you just need to pay attention to the weather and the baby’s behavior.
The reason may also lie in the child’s fatigue. This may be due to an infectious disease; the child sleeps poorly and tosses and turns. With this phenomenon, sleep may not be sound, i.e. The baby can wake up abruptly due to any rustle.

Psychological

At the age of 2, the child begins to develop childhood fears and therefore the baby does not sleep well. He may be afraid of the dark, cartoon characters, toys, and even a picture on the wall or wallpaper can cause him fear. Therefore, before your child goes to bed, you need to remove large toys.
The bright events that happened to him in the coming days can have a positive impact on the child’s psyche. This could be active walks, visits to the circus, zoo, etc. The emotions that the child received lead to overexcitation. Therefore, the baby does not sleep well and tosses and turns. In this case, there is no need to take any measures; the body itself will restore to its previous biorhythm.
At this age, children have nightmares, just like adults. The child turns from side to side, wakes up abruptly and cries. As a result, he plays poorly during the day, nervousness and whims appear. And if this is observed very often in a child, then parents should contact a child psychologist and a neurologist.
Fear of loneliness, i.e. when his parents leave him alone in the room at night. And in this case, the parents either take the child to sleep with them, or sit by his crib until he falls asleep. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, you need to identify the reasons why he is afraid to be alone. Create comfortable sleeping conditions for your baby (pay attention to toys, design, various objects, room temperature, etc.)
Poor sleep may also be associated with the baby’s character. Special features are shown precisely at the age of two. And if this happens very often, then you can’t do without a child psychologist. Favorable sleeping conditions and sufficient attention to the child will help to quickly cope with this disease.
It may not be strange, but even rearranging his room can affect the child and his sleep. And if you move, then even more so. Usually everything goes away as soon as the baby gets used to the new environment (three to four weeks)

Causes of poor sleep in children (3 to 6 years old)

Poor sleep can also be caused by nightmares. Those. The brain processes the information received during the day at night. The reasons may be TV, communication, active walks.

Thus, everything is confused in the baby’s head, as a result of which there is a fear of the dark and tormented by nightmares.

Don't let your children watch something scary on TV; choose fairy tales without bad characters.

At this age, children go to kindergarten and it is there that they transmit colds to each other. And they often acquire helminth infestations (worms), so they sleep restlessly due to unpleasant symptoms.

Why do children from 6 to 12 years old sleep poorly at night?

At the age of 6, the child is impressed by the school and the information received there, and at the age of 8 - 9 years old, adaptation to the environment begins.

And then more and more, for example, at the age of 10 years, a fear of tests appears, misunderstandings with classmates and peers, quarrels between parents, the death of a family and beloved pet begin. All this can affect the student’s normal sleep.

At 11-12 years old, girls begin to experience hormonal changes. First love, various quarrels with friends, parents, fatigue from physical activity. In such cases, a heart-to-heart conversation helps a lot. But, if you notice a child having a nervous breakdown, then soothing tea or a child psychologist can help.

Insomnia can also be caused by the following diseases:

heart failure
endocrine system disorder
malfunction of the nervous system

What is normal sleep for a child of different ages?

Let's now identify healthy and adequate sleep for children. Dr. Komarovsky equates a child’s sleep to the sleep of the whole family. Those. if the baby sleeps sweetly and nothing bothers him, then the parents get enough sleep and feel 100. If it’s the other way around, then the whole family suffers from the child’s poor sleep.

Pediatricians have found that the average daily sleep of a child is:

newborn - up to 22 h/s
from one month to three - approximately 20 h/s
from six months - 14 hours/s (night - from 8 to 10 hours)
one-year-old - not less than 13 hours per second (at night - 9 -10 hours)
from two to four years – 12 h/s
from four years - no less than 10 hours per second
from six years - 9 hours of sleep at night (or 8, taking into account the fact that the child sleeps for an hour during the day)
from eleven - no less than 8 - 8.5 hours

Prayers for your baby to sleep well at night

For a good effect, prayers must be read from memory and from the heart. Be calm and think about what exactly you want to get from what you read. Before starting prayer, you must repent and ask for forgiveness for all your sins, since the baby and mother are connected with each other by a thin thread and therefore all her sins are reflected on him.

Prayer for better baby sleep

Say the words that are in the picture below, then cross the baby, the effectiveness of prayer is stronger if the child is baptized.

Sleep prayer to the baby's Guardian Angel

For a long time there has been such a belief that every person has his own Guardian Angel, since God is one and he is not able to help everyone. Read the following lines to your baby:

But, if he already knows how to read himself, then let him read it himself:

Prayer for a restful sleep to Saint Matrona

Saint Matrona is considered an assistant in a number of urgent and quick issues. Including helping with insomnia. Address the Saint with the following words:

Address to the 7 Holy Youths of Ephesus

Appeal to the Mother of God and the Lord God

Such prayer not only helps the baby cope with bad sleep, but also cleanses his soul.

Well, that's all I wanted to tell you today. Be happy and healthy! Bye!

Regards, Alexey!

Source: https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5b73c8c1f43a0900a9f1263b/5b93cd801c6ec800aebae07d

All about night sleep

An eight-month-old baby needs nighttime sleep not only for rest and unloading. Scientists have proven that at this moment growth hormone is actively released and immune cells are formed. The information received during the day is remembered and analyzed. The brain conducts a kind of “scanning” and assesses the condition of the internal organs. For rest to be beneficial, it must be structured correctly.

The time period from 19-30 to 21 hours is considered the best for bedtime.
30 minutes before falling asleep, perform traditional sleepy rituals: bathing, relaxing massage, changing into pajamas, reading books and feeding.
The duration of rest must be at least 10 hours.
We must strive to ensure that children's sleep becomes long, without breaks for food - after all, there is no longer a physiological need for this.

You won’t be able to wean yourself off late-night snacking quickly; you should start by reducing the duration of feeding. If the baby is bottle-fed, gradually reduce the amount of formula in the bottle. It is imperative to get up when your baby wakes up, but it’s better to wait a bit with feeding. To start:

approach the baby and try to lull her to sleep again, without turning on the bright light;
refrain from changing the diaper - this should only be done if absolutely necessary;
pat the baby on the back, but it’s better not to touch the legs, arms and head - this way you can completely wake up the little one;
If the child does not calm down, offer him a bottle of water.

Most likely, the sleepyhead will turn over a little and fall asleep peacefully again.

Pediatrician Komarovsky does not recommend sleeping with a child in the same bed, especially if he is breastfed. The smell of milk coming from the mother will make the baby wake up again and again, even if he doesn’t want to eat at all.

Crisis 8 months

During the first year of a baby's life, psychologists predict several age-related crises. All of them are associated with another breakthrough in growth and development and are accompanied by unpleasant changes in the child’s behavior and habits.

The age of 8 months is no exception - a quiet and docile baby suddenly:

becomes restless, moody, whiny, irritable;
loses appetite;
as if it “sticks” to you, not letting go for a minute;
gets nervous and cries when parents leave;
demands attention all day long;
organizes a real “festival” of disobedience.

And most importantly, the baby’s sleep pattern is disrupted: he does not want to fall asleep, he often wakes up, crying and calling for his mother.

What is the reason for this behavior? Until now, the baby was aware of himself and his mother as one whole. At 8 months there is a sharp leap in the child’s development - he learns to think in categories. The little one himself, mom and dad in the child’s consciousness now appear not in unity, but as completely separate beings.

The baby begins to understand that his mother can leave and leave him alone. This is where the problems of falling asleep lie - both boys and girls are afraid of falling asleep and losing their mother. And waking up between sleep cycles and not finding her nearby, they fill the silence of the night with loud crying.

Tips for normalizing sleep

Dr. Komarovsky advises adhering to the following rules so that putting your baby to sleep takes a minimum of time:

The room should be well ventilated, and therefore saturated with oxygen. If possible, it is better to sleep with the window slightly open. The maximum possible room temperature is 24 degrees. The humidity level should be about 50-70%. A baby who is accustomed to opening up in his sleep does not need to be covered on his own. It would be more rational to wear pajamas before going to bed.
Quiet games before bed are the key to a peaceful bedtime. Read good stories. A baby at 8 months is already able to listen to 2-3 fairy tales at a time.
Get a relaxing massage before bed.
It is better to bathe your little one in a large bath, so he can spend all his remaining energy and then fall asleep soundly.
Buy an orthopedic mattress for your little one for sweet and pleasant dreams.
Sing lullabies that your baby loves.
Wear disposable diapers at night.
Before going to bed, it is good and healthy to take a short walk in the fresh air.

Parents themselves will see and appreciate the benefits of following the rules for organizing sleep that Komarovsky offers. Help your baby practice important and necessary skills.

Pediatrician of the 2nd category, allergist-immunologist, graduated from the Belarusian State Medical University of the Federal Agency for Health and Social Development. Read more »

How to overcome a sleep crisis

Unpredictable actions cause fear, anxiety and tension in the baby - in this state you will not sleep. The duty of the parents is to instill in the child the confidence that under no circumstances will he be left alone, that the mother does not disappear forever, even when she is lost from sight, but will definitely return.

Don't sneak away from your baby for too long. Otherwise, he will control your every step, being in constant nervous tension.
Say goodbye, even if you're gone for three minutes.
Try to explain that you will come soon and return on time.
Play hide and seek. The baby will understand that objects that are not visible do not disappear and appear again after a while.
Stay close to your child until he falls asleep.
Be sure to go to the baby who wakes up at night, pat him on the back, and quietly lull him to sleep.

Your participation will help the child calm down, relax and fall asleep peacefully, overcoming unnecessary fears and concerns.

How to help your child sleep?

Children of 8-9 months are extremely active, and this leads to the fact that putting a fidget to bed can be extremely difficult. It is difficult for a child to rebuild his nervous system - even while in a crib, he still craves games and action. It can be difficult for parents to calm down a wild toddler.

What are some ways to get the little naughty boy to sleep? It is important to distribute games wisely throughout the day. In the evening, be sure to exclude all noisy and active games. When dad returns home from work, he wants to coddle and tickle his baby, but active games would be inappropriate in this case too. At this time, the child should immerse himself in a peaceful and calm environment that would put him in a sleepy mood. It is useful and very effective to include some rituals that are observed daily. The baby will immediately understand that bedtime will soon come and it will be much easier to put him to bed. As rituals, you can choose bathing in the bath, dressing in pajamas, reading a fairy tale, stroking massage, etc.

It will be easier to put the fidget to bed if you include rocking in your arms or in the crib in the process. Sometimes a child is capricious only with his mother, then it would be useful to involve his father or other family members in bedtime. Most likely, the whims will fade away and the baby will fall into a peaceful sleep within 5 minutes.

If there are no results, we connect the stroller to the action. You can rock your little one to sleep in it and then transfer it to the crib. Babies who are used to sleeping in a stroller during the day instantly fall asleep in it in the evening.

Other causes of sleep disturbance

Statistics show that every second baby has poor sleep in the eighth month of life. There are a great many reasons for this.

Problems with the child’s health come first. This can range from simple colic or painful sensations during teething, to serious neurological disorders that make the baby wake up every hour and cry in pain.
A lack of calcium in the body disrupts the nutrition of nerve cells and the transmission of impulses, as a result of which the child becomes restless and irritable. How serious the situation is will be determined by the decoding of the blood test, on the basis of which treatment will be prescribed.
Reaction to noise. If up to 8 months the child slept peacefully with the TV or radio on, now any sound can easily wake him up.
Lack of sleep hormone, as a result of exposure to external conditions (light outside), or an individual characteristic of the child’s body.
At this age, the baby masters new motor skills, which he continues to practice even in his sleep, waking up from his own sudden movements.

Be attentive to your baby. If a problem exists, solve it as quickly as possible. This is the only way your child will grow up healthy and happy.

Deviations from the norm

The baby's regimen at this age requires careful adherence, which will contribute to a cheerful mood and good health. Violations of the rest regime can be based on a number of reasons, some of which are inherent in the mother herself, and some in the environment. Pediatricians sometimes hear such examples - a child sleeps very often, 4 or even 5 times a day, and the duration of rest is short - no more than 30 minutes. There is a clear violation of sleep patterns here. What to do if the child begins to sleep poorly (for more details, see the article: why does a baby sleep poorly during the day and what to do to improve sleep?)? We recommend:

Analyze the possible causes of the baby’s agitation and try to eliminate them. For example, loud music invigorates a child, or older children are enticed into active games, etc.
Adjust the climate in the room. Often children do not sleep well due to the heat. More comfortable conditions for sleeping - fresh and cool air in the bedroom.
Stick to a daily routine. Strict adherence to the established rules should not be affected by weekends or holidays. By leaving the regime just once, you risk undermining the entire existing system.
Help the baby follow a routine (we recommend reading: healthy daily routine for a 5-month-old baby). Seeing that your baby is capricious before bed, delay bedtime a little. You can engage your child in reading or hold him in your arms while speaking in a calm voice. The baby must go to sleep at strictly set hours.