Is Baby Sleeping Enough And What Is Considered Sleep?

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Is Baby Sleeping Enough And What Is Considered Sleep?

by Claudia
(Singapore)

My baby is 21weeks old. Not sleeping through the night but usually lasts 6hours (1 feed in the middle of the night). I don't have a problem with that but with the fact that he usually kicks and sucks in the middle of the night, sometimes for 1 hour till he cries or I decide to feed him. Only then he will go back to sleep again.

Day time, he takes 3 naps but naps can be short like 30-45mins and I will spend the next 1 hour trying to carry him back to sleep but to no avail! If I am lucky, he sleeps for 1 to 1.5 hours. So day time at best 2.5 to 3hrs of sleep plus night time at best 8-9hours of sleep. Is that enough?

Furthermore, some of his sleep is not deep sleep.... ie., sucking constantly on the pacifier with eyes closed but startle at the slightest sound. This stage can be for the whole 1 hour of sleep then he will 'wake up'. Is this considered sleep? How do I help him sleep better and sleep more? Tried many ways like not over stimulating him, putting him down to sleep earlier, darkening the room, having a set routine of darkening the room, singing to him and kissing him on the forehead, all does not seem to work.

Am I worrying too much (since the number of hours is way off the recommended 'average')?

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Is Baby Sleeping Enough And What Is Considered Sleep?

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Dec 02, 2010

I feel your pain
by: Kelly

My little one is almost 2 months old and I can't, for the life of me, get her to go to sleep at night. We've tried a routine of rocking her to get her down around 9-10pm, but she fights sleep until 3am. That just seems like way too long for a baby to be awake. She has little catnaps or sucks on her soother for an hour, but she's not fully sleeping. She will eventually fall asleep after I feed her at around 3-4am. At this time she'll sleep for 5-6hrs. I would like to know how I can change this timing. I'm starting to go crazy, being up for almost 8hrs straight of trying to get her down. I feed her, obviously throughout that time, but nothing seems to get her sleepy! It's all getting so exhausting! How can I change this or do I just wait it out and hope she will eventually turn around?

Dec 03, 2010

Sleepless nights!
by: Baby Help Line (Christine)

Not getting enough sleep at night is very difficult to deal with and I completely sympathize with you both, having had lots of sleepless nights myself - particularly with my first child!

It's hard to say how much sleep a baby 'should' have since babies vary so much - I remember reading in all the books when pregnant with my first child that babies slept pretty much all day at first - then being horrified to find that mine seemed barely to sleep at all! Claudia, the 'sleeping' hours you mentioned sound very much like the pattern two of my children followed at around that age, with several 'catnaps' and a longer sleep at night. I can also identify with the feeling that your baby is not sleeping 'properly' - and wakes easily.

Although it feels like it's been going on forever and you're very tired, please take a little comfort from the fact that this is a phase that won't last forever.

In the meantime, the things you are doing so far are worth persisting with - and Kelly, I'd really recommend taking baby out into the daylight as much as possible during the day in order to get her body clock working efficiently. But she is still VERY young and you may need to just 'go with the flow' for a while until she gets into a routine (if you are nursing, you might want to try allowing her to nurse frequently throughout these hours, as she may be trying to build up your supply - I went through periods of having to 'cluster feed' for hours on end, but it does settle down!).

I answered another question about sleep today which you might like to take a look at, because the advice I gave would be relevant here too - you can see it here.

In particular, I really recommend the use of white noise - it's worked wonders for my children and really helps prevent them from startling and waking easily. They just seem to find it very soothing and it masks all those little noises that may wake them. I like a box fan because it's quite loud, but constant - you can also buy recorded white noise CDs, or leave on a radio that's not tuned in properly (for the static).

I hope you find this helpful, but please do remember that this won't last forever and your little ones will eventually settle into their own patterns (and you'll get more sleep!).

Christine Albury

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