During the first three months of development, tiny babies rarely sleep for more than four hours without requiring feeding. At around three to six months, the majority of babies start to settle. They are awake for longer periods during the day and some with lucky parents may sleep five-hour stretches at night! The time they spend in deep sleep starts to lengthen and the time spent in light sleep shortens (Ficca et al, 2000). This means babies are able to enter deep sleep more quickly. This is called sleep maturity. (Sears, 2005).

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There is evidence to suggest that sleep-trainers may be a dangerous solution to a frequently waking baby. Encouraging a baby to sleep too deeply, too long, too soon, may interfere with the natural developmental and survival mechanisms that the baby is armed with. Sleep researchers have found that blood flow to the brain is almost doubled during light sleep and believe this is indicative of a more active brain during these periods. They believe important development takes place during light sleep. Training a baby to spend more time in a deeper sleep may therefore be damaging to the baby (Sears 2006).

References
W. Sears (2006). “8 INFANT SLEEP FACTS EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW.”

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There is a theory that advises you not to respond to a newborn baby’s cries during the night because it will teach him to comfort himself back to sleep and therefore, he won’t bother you as much. I have to say, this is the worst advice I have ever come across. A newborn baby in the early stage of growth is very vulnerable and it is the parents’ duty to satisfy every need of their offspring. Letting him ‘cry it out’ could be very psychologically and physically damaging to the child in the early stages of development. Later on, there does come a point in development when baby will need to learn to comfort himself on his own (click here for more info), however, as far as the right and safest way to look after your newborn is concerned: give him everything he needs, and yes that obviously means some sleepless nights in the beginning.

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It is important that we understand the reasons why newborn babies wake in the night. In the first few months they have many essential needs, yet their ability to communicate is extremely low. For example, their miniscule tummies digest milk extremely quickly and if the stimulus for hunger does not wake the baby, he will not get the level of nourishment needed at that vulnerable age (Sears 2006). Likewise, babies are still learning to regulate temperature and it’s an important survival mechanism that they awaken if they are too cold or hot during the night. The same applies to many stimuli that also have the potential to wake the baby. Therefore, these mechanisms are not there just to annoy the parents, but to ensure the well-being of the baby! As we are next dragging ourselves out of bed to tend to baby, we should take comfort in the fact that his innate, built-in defence-mechanisms are evidently working just fine!

W. Sears (2006). “8 INFANT SLEEP FACTS EVERY PARENT SHOULD KNOW.” (09/10/07).

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Parents are often concerned that their baby may not be sleeping enough, whilst others voice their concerns about their baby sleeping too much.

I think it may be useful for parents to know the amount of hours that the average baby sleeps at different ages. However, it is important to remember that there is a huge variation that exists from one baby to the next. Some newborn babies sleep 21 out of the 24 hours per day. Others only need as few as 8. The test to see if your baby is getting enough sleep is to examine if she is waking happy and alert. If so she is getting enough sleep. If she wakes and is irritable or tired, she may need to sleep longer. (Hames 2002).

Figure 1. The Amount of Sleep the
Average Baby Needs (Quine 1997)

References

P. Hames (2002). “Help your baby to sleep.” HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
Quine, L. (1997). “Solving Children’s sleep Problems”, Beckett Karlson, Cambridge

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Babies have a great deal to learn in a very short space of time. During waking hours, there is too much going on for babies’ brains to digest or reflect on the huge amount of information being received. During sleep the brain can organise and make sense of the vast array of experiences without distraction. Sleep is also a time for renewing the chemicals in the brain and the body, ready for another active day. (Hames 2002).

References

P. Hames (2002). “Help your baby to sleep.” HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

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When an adult falls asleep, her higher brain functions decelerate which allows her to enter the phase known as deep sleep. During this time her body hardly moves, breathing is slow and regular, and her muscles become relaxed and loose. After around an hour and a half later and her brain becomes more active and she enters into a period called light sleep. It is during this time when she may slip into REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep where most dreams occur. These deep/light cycles continue throughout the night, at around two hours intervals, so that the average adult spends around 6 hours in deep sleep and 2 in light sleep.

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