Mommy & Baby: How Should Your Baby
Sleep?
by Kirsten Hawkins
What can affect your baby’s
disposition and well-being more than the feeding she gets?
Sleeping! The sleep your precious bundle gets will affect every
part of her waking life, including how she eats, how she
interacts, and how she learns. Additionally, how your baby
sleeps deeply affects you, as mommy. A fatigued and weary mom simply cannot adequately
meet her baby’s needs, or anyone else’s, for that
matter.
Parent-Directed Feeding (PDF) directly ties in to sleeping
patterns of your young baby. It provides consistency, routine,
and an ability to predict with a tremendous amount of accuracy
what’s going on when your little one cries. Confidence as a
mommy comes when you know what to expect. Mom is also able to
get more rest when utilizing PDF, ultimately making her
healthier and more able to meet her baby’s and family’s
needs.
Expecting babies to sleep through the night is very realistic,
achievable, and reasonable goal, however it almost never
happens without parental guidance. Babies that are healthy
& full term are typically able to sleep between 7-8 hours
at a time during the night between 7-14 weeks of age. When a
baby reaches this milestone is very individual, but typically
by 3 months of age, a properly-nourished PDF baby is sleeping
through the night.
There is an art form to encouraging your baby to develop
healthy sleep patterns, and as I mentioned earlier, it is
rooted in the feeding-philosophy you adhere to. Using a PDF
flexible routine, you’ll want to set up your baby’s routine to
look like this (and in the following order):
ü Feeding time
ü Wake time
ü Nap time
When you establish this pattern, your baby’s sleep patterns
will become predictable in short-order. Do not confuse the last
two and encourage your baby to fall asleep while eating; you’ll
set up a pattern that you won’t be able to sustain and won’t
give your baby the adequate sleep she requires to grow and be
healthy. Babies do know when they are sleepy, but they have no
ability to establish this routine for themselves, and if left
to their own abilities, they will not develop healthy sleep
patterns.
Failure to establish continuous night-time sleep is not a
result of breast- or bottle-feeding. Neither the composition of
breast milk or formula nor the speed with which either are
digested have any bearing on a baby’s ability to establish
healthy nighttime sleep patterns.
If nothing else, good nighttime sleep habits produce healthier,
more intelligent children, and thus should be a priority for
parents to establish in their children’s lives.
About the Author: Kirsten Hawkins is a baby and
parenting expert specializing new mothers and single parent
issues. Visit http://www.babyhelp411.com/ for more
information on how to raising healthy, happy children.
Source: www.isnare.com
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