Baby sleep: common confusions modern parents obtain
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Baby sleep: common confusions modern parents obtain

Newborn sleep: It’s one of the three main things you think about when you have a baby. Shubham Apr 8·4 min read

Don’t assume the mellow, sleepy newborn state will last regularly.

We hate to break it to you, but your dozy, peaceful infant who simply falls asleep, milk-drunk, after feeding may not always be this way. The first few weeks (or even months) are not always indicative of the kind of sleeper you happened to score in the newborn sleep lottery. Some babies randomly sleep through the night early on but it doesn’t mean this will continue indefinitely. If you’re one of the lucky parents with a “unicorn baby” (this means your baby is sleeping well without much effort on your part), try not to gloat. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing it right, while that other mom with the sleepless baby hasn’t figured it out. Believe us, she’s trying.

Sleeping too much during the day will keep the baby up at night.

Not likely, except in extreme cases. Unless your little one is sleeping practically all day and up all night, you probably don’t need to concern yourself with the length of their naps. Newborns especially need a ton of sleep. In fact, up until about 6 months, I don’t recommend that your little one be awake for more than about 2–21/2 hours at a time. For newborns, that number is more like 45 minutes to an hour.

What keeps babies awake at night, more than anything else, is overtiredness. You might think that an exhausted baby is more likely to sack out for a full night than one who slept all day, but it’s actually just the opposite. The reason we refer to it as being “overtired” is that baby has missed the “tired” phase and their bodies start to kick back into gear, which keeps them from falling and staying asleep. A baby who has gotten a decent amount of sleep during the day is far less likely to miss the sleep window.

Substantial variations are depending on the baby’s age and the length of their naps, but up to that 6-month mark, it’s really not uncommon for a baby to be sleeping around 5 hours a day outside of nighttime sleep, so if your little one is still within those guidelines, let them snooze.

Follow the eat, wake, sleep cycle.

The baby wakes from sleep and immediately eats. Then the baby is awake for a while to play. Then the baby goes back to sleep….

This cycle has several purposes. First, it encourages full feedings by allowing the baby to eat immediately after waking. The baby will have the most energy immediately after waking, making him more inclined to take a full feeding and go longer between feedings.

Also, by feeding the baby after sleep rather than before sleep, the cycle prevents the baby from associating food with sleep or using food as a sleep prop. When using this cycle, feeding before bedtime is typically only feeding before sleep.

Note: Newborns require frequent feedings and rest to ensure healthy growth development in the early months. Always feed your baby as frequently as your baby needs to ensure healthy weight gain.

Change your baby’s diaper strategically…

Changing the diaper before a middle of the night feeding prevents the baby from waking up too much after feeding is finished. When the baby wakes up change the diaper and re-swaddle to prepare him for sleep immediately following a night feeding. If you change the diaper after the night feeding, the baby may become too awake, making it more challenging for him to fall asleep.

Now, I’ve also heard from parents of very young newborn babies (Think: Birth to 3 weeks) sharing that the baby poops right after a night feeding. This is very common during the early newborn phase when babies are still working out the flow of their digestive tracts.

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Mary-Ann Schuler is a child psychologist and parenting expert with over 20 years of experience

She and her program Baby Sleep Miracle have been featured in publications such as “Parenting Magazine”, “Easy Parenting”, “Parents” and many more

Her posts on social media reach over 750,000 parents every month and she speaks at several conferences every year