Newborns and infants need to feed every few hours because their tiny stomachs can only hold so much food. This is directly at odds with our need to sleep throughout the night. Unless you can afford to have someone else nurse your child, there's no way to escape the round-the-clock feeding. Here's what you might be dealing with during this most sleep-deprived time:
The baby wakes up screaming every few hours. That's actually by design (see stomach capacity above). If you have a partner or other help, it's really important you tag team to make this more bearable—switch who has to get up every other feeding. (If you're breastfeeding, that means the mom has to pump "extra" milk to skip the feeding, which also sucks. There are ways to increase your milk supply, but it's still a labor of love.) Also, remember the mantra: "Sleep whenever the baby sleeps," and to hell with everything else.
After the feeding, your baby won't go back to sleep. Babies don't know when it's nighttime or daytime—and they don't care. You, warm and loving caregiver, come to nustle at 3 AM? It's time to play and keep you here! Try to be as boring as possible as you try to help the baby get back to sleep. Specifically: in the middle of the night, keep the lights off and be as subdued, quiet, and quick as you can.
You fall asleep while breastfeeding. That's not a problem, that's a solution! Seriously, if you're breastfeeding, lying down to feed is one of the best ways to sneak in some rest.
Your baby won't go to sleep or nap when she's supposed to. First, check the obvious. Does the diaper need changing? Are you putting the baby down in a sleep-conducive environment (the same sort of the things we adults need for better sleep)? Is the baby overstimulated (e.g., a full day of activities and then playing horsie right before nap time)? Has the baby skipped a nap or stayed up too late? Dr. Sears offers several suggestions for helping a baby who is refusing to nap, including wearing your baby in a carrier or napping with him.
Your baby is not sleeping through the night. This may be the most important milestone, perhaps, and parents' biggest question: When will my baby finally sleep through the night? Most infants will let you get a full night's (seven or eight hours uninterrupted) sleep starting by three months of age, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics—but every baby is different. If your baby is not complying, you could try adding more active play during the day and setting up a more consistent bedtime ritual (e.g., bath, song, story, bed). One thing that will not help is skipping naps; it sounds like it would make sense to keep babies up as long as possible so they'll sleep longer at night, but naps are essential to the child's growth, moods, and nighttime sleep. The average baby from 6 to 9 months old needs two naps a day; overstimulation and skipping naps can cause shorter naps, fighting bedtime, and night wakings. Dr. Karp's Happiest Baby 5 S's system could help your baby get to sleep faster and sleep longer: swaddle, place the baby on her left side for sleep, and soothe with shushing sounds, swinging, and something to suck on. Also, know that "sleeping through the night" could mean anything—7 pm to 7 am or 10 pm to 6 am—but take what you can get, parents!
Your baby keeps waking up. Starting around eight months and well into the toddler stage, kids can start developing separation anxiety. This means that while great at sleeping through the night, he or she resists going to bed and wakes up more often looking for you. It's probably the roughest time, when your child is crying for you and you're not sure if you're supposed to let them "cry it out" or go and console the child. Sleep expert Nitun Verma says it's like pulling a band-aid: do it the quick and harsh way or pull it off slowly but extend the experience; both are painful. It's pretty much up to you to decide which method to use. Dr. Verma assures me it's harder on the parents than on the babies, really.
One special case is if your baby has colic. It's a special issue, but one that can seriously affect your sleep. Scott Siege, a board certified pediatrician and the medical director for Baystate Medical Practices - Quabbin Pediatrics in Ware, MA, says colic is generally diagnosed in kids from about 2 weeks to about 4 months of age as excessive crying due to no identifiable underlying causes. Crying because of formula intolerance, for example, shouldn't be explained as colic, because there's an identifiable cause. Doctors try to treat the causes before attributing the crying to colic. However:
Once the diagnosis of colic is made the first steps are reassure, reassure, reassure. I think it is helpful to understand that the baby is really OK and that it really might not be possible to stop the crying and that this is OK. I recommend that parents develop a routine to quickly assess the baby for a cause when crying starts. This can be "hold, rock, shush, check diaper, feed, etc.". If nothing helps then you might have to accept that the baby is going to cry and the parent must avoid becoming overwhelmed by it. I reassure parents that if they are overwhelmed they can place the baby in a safe place, like a crib, and walk away. This seems horrifying to many parents (and may be to your readers), but a parent can really benefit from a time to relax and then go back to their baby in a better mood which makes them a much better parent at that moment.
Amazingly, colic frequent resolves over a short period of time, leaving that lovely baby the parent always expected to have.
That may be the most important message for all parents in this age range: This will pass (and, looking back, all too quickly). Try to stay patient and loving, but consistent as well. This will help teach your child the important skill of putting him or herself to sleep independently.
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