Baby Sleeping Patterns
Some Tips From The Baby Sleep Pattern Experts
By Donald Goldmacher, MD and Michael Fox, RN
More than 70%* of infants and toddlers have problematic “baby sleep patterns.” Like you, countless parents find themselves exhausted, frustrated, and wondering if their baby will ever sleep through the night. Like other parents, you've read all the baby sleep books and tried many things, but nothing seems to be working.
* 2004 Survey by National Sleep Foundation
But there is good news. With your help, your baby can sleep through the night within a week.
Click here to watch a preview of our acclaimed video.
Infant Sleep
For over twenty years, we have provided parents like yourself with step by step, practical advice to help their baby and themselves get a good night's sleep. Our tips are based on the ground-breaking research conducted with infants and babies at the Stanford University Infant Sleep Laboratory, and subsequently confirmed by numerous Baby Sleep Experts. Most importantly, they observed that young Babies can learn to use their own natural abilities to sleep through the night, and will fall asleep on their own if put to bed awake.
Infant Sleep Patterns: the first 4 to 16
weeks of life
During the first 4 to 8 weeks of life, the typical infant sleep pattern is to randomly sleep
from 16 to 20 hours during a 24 hour cycle. Unfortunately, a new baby can not tell the difference between day and night. However,they do share our biological drive to sleep at night. In fact, if
your baby is put to bed— while awake— at the same time each night, her sleep
pattern will begin to change. You will see your
baby sleeping for longer and longer periods
by the time she is 8-12 weeks old!
Infant Sleep Patterns and self-soothing
All of the infant sleep research, all the leading Baby Sleep experts, as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics agree that the most important step in teaching your baby to sleep through the night is to let her fall asleep on her own, which we call self-soothing. This allows her to fall back to sleep in the middle of the night when she awakens. It usually takes about 2 weeks for her to learn this essential technique.Self-soothing is the key to preventing baby sleep difficulties down the road. Watch our video and observe self-soothing behaviors.
A substantial late night feeding
helps.
Your
baby is growing more mature week by week, and by 10 to 16 weeks of
age, if your baby has eaten enough food when he goes to
sleep, he is less likely to awaken in the middle
of the night expecting to be fed. To help your baby learn to sleep through the night, give him a substantial feeding at the same time each evening, between ten and midnight. After feeding, put him down to sleep while still awake. This is known as a focal feeding. Researchers have
found that feeding him after midnight can actually interfere with a baby's ability to sleep through the night.
The Difference Between Day and Night
Your baby can learn that night is for sleeping— and you can teach her. Your home should be a stimulating place during the day and a quiet one at
night. At night, reduce the amount of noise and stimulation.
If your baby is consistently allowed to soothe himself back to sleep, to learn the difference between day and night, and given a late night feeding, 96% of you will have your baby sleeping through the night by 10 to 16 weeks of age.
For Babies 3 to 12 Months of Age
 If your baby is already more than 3 months old, not to worry. Putting your baby to sleep while she is still awake, is the most important step you can take in teaching her to fall asleep on her own. After you have put her down, she will likely cry for the first few nights, and you will likely feel very guilty. But the crying will diminish each night, and you will all start to get a good night's sleep. If the crying persists for more than 10 minutes, by all means go in and do what you normally do to calm her down. Then, start again. We've helped thousands of parents just like you with our baby sleep DVD, that shows you exactly how to get your baby to sleep through the night.
We welcome your questions or concerns; so please feel free to contact us here .
Our video is the recipient of a prestigious Parents' Choice award and a media award from the National Council on Family Relations. |
