Baby sleep cycle

Young children need to sleep for growth and development

Typically, children between the ages of one and two years need 11-14 hours of sleep per day, and these hours can be divided between nighttime sleep and one or more naps during the day.
Young children often resist falling asleep, wake up in the middle of the night, and have trouble getting back to sleep. They may also have nightmares or night terrors, which may be more stressful for parents.

Why don’t babies sleep long?

Why is your baby fully awake, multiple times during the night, and need your help to get back to sleep? And when can they get past this stage?

While many children outgrow this at some point, most children who have trouble sleeping will continue to have the same problems at an older age. This is because they simply do not know how to sleep independently and have not developed sleep skills on their own.

What prevents your child from maintaining continuous sleep cycles through the night is that when he wakes up he simply doesn’t know how to get back to sleep Independently.

Teaching your child to sleep independently will help him to better accept the moments of awakening during the night.

How do we train children to sleep?

Once your baby learns independent sleeping skills, his brain will guide him back to sleep when he wakes up.

How do you know you are ready to start sleep training?

There is no appropriate age to start sleep training. Every child reaches their developmental stages at different ages and has different needs. Furthermore, a technique that works for a five-month-old baby may not work for a young child.

For example, a gentle pat can work well for younger children but not for older children

The age of four to nine months is widely accepted as an appropriate age to begin sleep training as a child can learn to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own. If your child is more than one or two years old, there is no need to worry; because young children can be trained to sleep too.

Sleep training

Decide when you and your baby are ready; because sleep training requires consistency, patience, and commitment. You can ask yourself the following questions before starting sleep training.
What does your schedule look like?
Are there major trips, vacations, events, or shifts that might get in the way of sleep training?
Will you be able to make the required changes in your routine?
What methods did you look for, and which are the most comfortable to implement?
Are you committed to following the plan for two to four weeks?
Is your partner – your family on board with this plan?
Moreover, consult your baby Pediatrician to rule out any health conditions or factors, including the young child’s age and weight, that could play a role in your baby’s sleep.

Sleep training methods for young children

Encouraging good sleep habits

Sure, in the first few months, midnight feedings interrupt both parents and babies’ sleep, but it’s never too late to help your baby sleep well. Consider these tips:

• Follow a regular routine to feel calm at bedtime
• Put your baby to bed when he’s sleepy while he’s awake
• Give your baby time to calm down. Your baby may fuss or cry before he gets to a comfortable position and goes to sleep.
• Consider using a pacifier.
• Provide calm when caring at night. When your baby needs nurturing or feeding at night, use dim lights, soft sounds, and soft movements. This will show your child that it’s bedtime, not play.

Develop a regular rhythm

Newborns sleep 16 or more hours a day, but often in intervals of just a few hours. Although this pattern may not be regular at first, sleep schedules become more consistent as the baby grows so that he is able to sleep for longer periods between feedings.

Birth is three or four months long. Many infants sleep for at least five hours at a time. Sometime during the baby’s first year, the baby will start to sleep for about 10 hours each night, and this varies for each child.

Put your baby to sleep in your room

Ideally, your baby should sleep in the same room with you but alone in a mattress or other infant sleeping area for at least 6 months or up to a year if possible.

Beds made for adults are not safe for infants. An infant may get stuck in the spaces between the headboards, between the mattress and the mattress frame, or between the mattress and the wall.

May include a pre-sleep routine:

• Shower your baby
• A soft song or lullaby
• Read your baby a story
• Wrap your baby in a special blanket

When the baby discovers their way back to sleep at night, they will sleep better. So you should stay in bed rather than jump when you hear your baby’s first moan, even if that’s hard. Give him time to get back to sleep on his own. But of course if he doesn’t fall back to sleep, you should calm him down. It’ll take a few nights, but he’ll get used to it.

The sooner you start training your child to sleep with a good bedtime ritual, the sooner your child knows the steps to expect.