Some nights you need to get up and soothe a crying baby three,
four, or what seems like ten times a night. You're not used to
waking up this often and you're tired. It's one of
the most challenging parts of having a new baby. It can affect
almost all aspects of your life: your health, mood, relationships,
career, and sometimes even your sanity.
For many parents and caregivers, especially those
who must go to work in the morning, one thought can drown out all
others: Will this baby ever sleep through the night?
The answer is yes—in a way. The truth is, few babies truly "sleep
through the night." Instead, sleep researchers have found that infants
younger than 12 months old typically wake up an average of three times
during the night (Anders, Goodlin-Jones, & Sadeh,
1999).
For the first few months of life, 95% of infants cry when they wake up.
And most of them need someone to soothe them before they can get back to
sleep. But as your baby gets older, she may simply go back to sleep on
her own. Several studies have found that by eight months, over 50% of
infants who wake at night go back to sleep without any soothing from
parents or other caregivers. In fact, sometimes their parents didn't
even realize they'd been awake (Goodlin-Jones, Burnham, Gaylor, &
Anders, 2001).
Learning about sleep.
For a subject that's so important—pediatricians report that questions
about sleep are among the most frequently asked by caregivers (Anders et
al., 1999) —researchers know relatively little about a baby's nightlife.
But by using video cameras and activity monitors to keep track of
babies' sleeping and waking cycles, researchers are beginning to
understand how infants form sleep patterns.
All babies are unique, and sleep patterns vary greatly from infant to
infant. Even though typical sleep patterns don't apply to all babies,
researchers have identified general patterns that you can look for as
your child gets older.
As different as night and
day.
It may seem hard to believe when you aren't getting enough sleep, but
most infants younger than three months old sleep around 18 hours a day.
It's also normal for some to sleep more, and for some to sleep less.
Young infants tend to sleep for around two to four hours at a time, and
then wake for short periods, often to be fed. These patterns of sleeping
and waking can vary, and they go on around the clock (Anders et al., 1999).
In the first weeks and months, it's too early to expect a young baby to
sleep through the night. As tiring as it seems, don't expect infants to
pay attention to adult schedules right away. A newborn doesn't know that
people sleep when it's dark, and a baby's "circadian rhythm"—the 24-hour
internal clock that controls our sleeping and wake patterns—is still
developing (McGraw, Hoffman, Harker, & Herman,
1999).
But hang in there! In a few months, babies gradually begin to organize
sleeping and waking according to daily cycles of darkness and light. The
24-hour, light-and-dark cycle begins to affect most babies' sleep
patterns within the first three months (Louis,
Cannard, Bastuji, & Challamel, 1997).
By six months of age, many babies organize their main sleep times in
concert with darkness and light. Although babies can vary a great deal,
six-month-olds may sleep six hours or more at a time, and most of these
longer periods take place at night. Also by six months, your baby will
probably wake up fewer times at night (Anders
et al., 1999).
Hush, little baby.
Not only will your six-month-old begin to sleep for longer periods of
time, she'll become better able to soothe herself when she awakes.
Researchers using video recording systems in babies' homes observed that
babies vary a lot when it comes to waking and crying—or not crying—at night. They found the biggest changes in infants' sleeping and waking
patterns between three months and six months. Six-month-olds not only
sleep longer at a stretch than three-month-olds, they are more likely to
go back to sleep on their own when they wake (Goodlin-Jones
et al., 2001).
As they get closer to their first birthdays, infants tend to sleep
longer, wake up less often, and sleep more and more at night. By the
time your baby turns one, chances are she'll be sleeping 8-12 hours a
night, waking up only once or twice during that time. And she may take a
nap once or twice during the day, ranging from 20 minutes to around two
hours at a time.
Helpful Parenting Tips
When you hear that cry in the night, remember two things:
Your baby doesn't know the meaning of the phrase "sleeping through the night."
Don't expect her to sleep through most of a night before she's three to six months old.
Even then, remember that it's normal for babies to wake up several times during the night.
Every baby is different, and your normal, healthy baby may have different sleep patterns
than other children.
Be patient and hang in there. Your baby will probably begin to sleep for longer stretches
of time when she's developmentally ready.
There are so many wonderful changes in babies during the first six
months. Sleep is one of them, as babies develop more adult-like sleep
patterns. So hang in there. Sleep is on the way.
References:
Anders, T. F.,
Goodlin-Jones, B. L., & Sadeh, A. (1999). Sleep disorders. In C.
H. Zeanah (Ed.), Handbook of infant mental health (pp.
326-338). New York: Guilford Press.
Ficca, G., Fagioli,
I., & Salzarulo, P. (2000). Sleep organization in the first year
of life: Developmental trends in the quiet sleep-paradoxical sleep
cycle. Journal of Sleep Research, 9, 1-4.
Goodlin-Jones, B.
L., Burnham, M. M., Gaylor, E. E., & Anders, T. F. (2001). Night
waking, sleep-wake organization, and self-soothing in the first
year of life. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 22(4),
226-233.
Louis, J., Cannard,
C., Bastuji, H., & Challamel, M.-J. (1997). Sleep ontogenesis
revisited: A longitudinal 24-hour home polygraphic study on 15
normal infants during the first two years of life. Sleep, 20(5),
323-333.
McGraw, K.,
Hoffman, R., Harker, C., & Herman, J. H. (1999). The development
of circadian rhythms in a human infant. Sleep, 22(3),
303-310.
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