Sleep is the most important thing for babies, but mothers have many misconceptions about their babies’ sleep. Or they have many conflicts with their families. Because of these misconceptions. Some moms suggested in the background that I organize these common misconceptions. So I divided them into 3 articles for helping to new parents.
Myth #1: Children do not sleep well at night, it is because they sleep too much during the day
The real situation is, for small-month-old babies, they need a lot of sleep. The more sleepy you are, the more difficult it is to fall asleep, and even if you fall asleep, you are very sensitive and wake up easily. So if someone tells you, "Don't sleep during the day, save your baby for a good night's sleep". Don't take it seriously! There is none of one doctor, or an expert, or a book will tell you that your baby doesn't need to sleep during the day.
I have prepared a reference table for you to check and compare.
Myth #2: Children fall asleep when they are sleepy and don't need to be coaxed
The real situation is, infants do not have the ability to fall asleep on their own. Sleeping on their own is an ability that needs to be acquired, like walking. Parents need to help them learning to fall asleep on their own by guiding them in an appropriate way. Babies with early and regular rest can reach the level of falling asleep without crying or fussing at very young age. Some children whose sleep is not taken seriously by their parents do not sleep even at the age of 2 or 3 years old and have to be coaxed to sleep for a long time!
Myth #3: Children can sleep for a long time just like they do during the month
What's true. As your baby gets older, your child spends more and more time awake and less and less time sleeping, especially in the first year, even for a few days at a time. Your child might sleeps all day during the first month. But after 2 months the problems of difficulty falling asleep and short sleep start to pop up. You can choose to ignore these problems, but they don't just disappear out of thin air, they get trickier and trickier because the backlog is not addressed!
Myth #4: Let your child sleep as long as he wants, the longer the sleep the better
The fact is, the length of a single nap during the day, that is, not too little, nor too long, basically in 1.5-2 hours a single time is good. Less than 1 hour or more than 3 hours are inappropriate.
Less than 1 hour will cause your baby exhaustion builds up and explodes at dusk or at night before bedtime because he is not sleep enough each time. He will be very irritable and difficult to put to sleep.Commonly known as: witching hour.
More than 3 hours will tend to make the child's day and night reversed and sleep very late at night.
After dusk (after 6:00) naps should not be too long, control within 1 hour is better, otherwise it is easy to affect the night time sleep and the quality.
If, for example, some babies sleep a little less in the morning nap, it doesn't matter, they can sleep a little more in the midday/afternoon nap.
Myth #5: If your child is not sleeping now, it means he is not sleepy
The real situation is, children's sleep signals if not caught in time, the later the more difficult to put to sleep. In many cases, children do not sleep and cry, it is not because he is not sleepy, but he is sleepy over. He is unusually sensitive, sleep difficulties, the fact is that he urgently needs to fall asleep.
"Catch the sleep signal", this is simply the golden “killer app” for putting to sleep successfully.
But each baby sleep signal will be different. Some babies yawn the first one when put him into the bed,he will fall asleep immediately. Some babies have to wait until the third yawn. And for some babies, it's too late to wait for him to yawn.
There are some babies who seemed very excited. When there is no sleepy signal whole day, parents mistakenly think that children do not need to sleep.
In fact, such a baby needs a regular schedule as soon as possible. Parents can use the schedule as an aid to determine sleep signals. You will find that once your baby is on a regular schedule, even if he is still acting out, you can put him to bed on time and fall asleep in less than 10 minutes.
This is where the difficulty of daytime naps comes into play. Parents know that at night the child is very sleepy and can be sure in their hearts that the child really needs to sleep. But during the day, the parents are not so sure, they start beating a little drum inside themselves, and then if there is an elder next to them and saying, "Baby is not sleepy, get up and play.“
In addition, continues sleeping is really the most difficult thing in the sleep guidance. It need to rely on long-term persistence to see results. So maybe many parents begin to waver in their determination to continues sleeping till to next mealtime.
The parents are torn and uncertain. The general mood is more like this.
Eh, he doesn't look like he's sleepy! Is it really time to sleep?
(I'm muttering: He really going to sleep!)
Wow, he's finally sleeping!
(I'm muttering: Okay, great, get enough sleep!)
Yikes, how come he woke up in less than 30 minutes? I guess he doesn't need to sleep anymore, right?
(I'm muttering: NO, NO, NO! Put the baby back to bed immediately!)
Let's pick up the baby and play with him
(I'm muttering: Oh! Don't! The baby is very sleepy and grumpy. He should be in good spirits and smiling when he gets enough sleep.)
Oh, why are you crying all of a sudden? Are you hungry?
(I'm muttering: Hey, it's not mealtime yet. Your baby is crying because he's sleepy!)
Please go back and refer to the previous sheet of sleep requirements for babies of different ages. Although babies are different, the differences are not too exaggerated. When you can't figure out whether he is getting enough sleep, go back to that sheet often.
Myth #6: When a child wakes up, he has slept enough and get up and play
The truth is, when your child wakes up, if he is in a bad mood, grunting, or cries and fusses at dusk and being hard to soothe, that means he hasn't slept enough and is very sleep deprived. (You can go back to the first two paragraphs again)
He wakes up because something is wrong with the continuity of sleep and he needs to stay in bed and go back to sleep. Especially for naps that are very short and obviously not enough, what you need to do is insist on continuing the sleep, not picking him up and playing with him.
Myth #7: Children know by themselves what time they should sleep and what time they should eat
The truth is, when a newborn is given birth, his biological rhythm is not yet established without a biological clock. He is very prone to disorder in his work and rest. When to sleep, when to eat, he will respond according to the behavior of his parents then form his own habits.
Here's what it means.
If you feeding casually, not bound to a fixed time and length. Your child may from time to time cry to tell you that he may be hungry at any time according to your feeding habits. (of course, there may not be hungry crying, but also be misjudged as hungry)
If you have been very regular feeding and putting your child to sleep. He will form his own biological clock based on your guidance. Forming a good habit of eating at the right time and going to bed at the right time.
Your behavior directly determines whether your child's work and rest is regular or chaotic.
In the next two articles, we'll continue our analysis, the remaining 8 misconceptions and the public pressure you'll probably face, so stay tuned!