Does your baby wake up frequently at night and need sleep training? It's not an exaggeration to be cautious, mother, don't do bad things with good intentions

Taking care of young babies, sleep has always been the most troublesome problem.

Babies feed a lot and sleep for a short time each time. It’s just a matter of waking up frequently during the day to feed, and waking up once in a while at night, putting adults with regular biological clocks on the verge of collapse.

In addition, the mother is also worried that the baby's frequent night waking will affect the quality of sleep and delay development.

What came into being is infant sleep training, which often has many followers.

Everyone's ideal result is to train children to form a regular schedule and improve sleep quality, so that not only can they fit their own biological clocks, but also allow children to sleep through the night.

However, if your baby wakes up frequently at night, do you really need sleep training?

After a period of verification, the results obtained obviously did not meet everyone's expectations.

Some pediatric experts have expressed their views on this matter: the so-called infant sleep training is not so magical at all, and if it is not performed properly, it may cause harm to the baby.

In fact, the stomach capacity of children before 6 months is small, the neurological mechanism has not yet been fully developed, and sleep disturbance is a normal situation.

Parenting experts at home and abroad have suggested that parents should not conduct sleep training on their children too early , and guide them scientifically after 6 months.

For example, Festinger once said that parents must correct this misconception, really accept the baby's life style, and not view their living habits from the perspective of adults.

It is normal for them to eat 6-8 meals of milk a day and wake up several times at night. Forcing correction may cause harm to the child and cause developmental delay.

Even if you want to try sleep training, you must make sure that your baby is normal or abnormal. It is completely unnecessary for normal conditions.

Babies under the age of 1 like to sleep, in order to save energy for growth and development.

As long as he wakes up crying at night because he is hungry or feeling unwell, it is normal, because he needs to breastfeed or relieve discomfort in order to sleep peacefully.

Only when the baby does not have any needs but wakes up frequently at night and needs to be comforted by breastfeeding before falling asleep again, should parents consider changing the routine.

Therefore, for sleep training, mothers can't be too cautious, and don't do bad things with good intentions.

What should scientific sleep training look like?

1) Start with the external environment

If the baby does not sleep well, parents should first consider whether the environment is comfortable.

Because babies with poor physical coordination and sensitivity have very high requirements for the sleeping environment, their adaptability is very low, and once there is any interference from the outside world that is different from the previous ones, they will not sleep well.

If you want to improve the external environment, you should focus on the three perspectives of temperature, light and sound .

• First of all, it is best to control the temperature at about 26 degrees. Do not use an electric blanket in the cold winter, because the baby's skin adjustment ability is very weak; in the summer, you can turn on the air conditioner, but you must use a windshield, so that the baby cannot be directly facing the air outlet.
• Second, excessive light can affect the secretion of melatonin, which in turn reduces the quality of sleep in children. Turning on the night light at night is convenient for night feeding, but falling asleep under this condition for a long time will affect development.
• Finally, don't keep absolutely quiet when your baby sleeps, otherwise it's easy to develop bad habits. Some relatively soft and soothing music can be played to help children fall asleep. But avoid making sudden noises, such as moving furniture, dropping things, etc.

2) A sense of ritual before going to bed

This method has been emphasized many times, but in the process of implementing it, parents will always encounter various problems.

Most parents are quite tired with their children, so they are too lazy to do the program before going to bed. They just feel that it is almost time for the baby to go to bed, so they hug them to comfort them or give them a kiss.

In fact, sleeping is not a simple matter, even adults will have insomnia. In addition to eating, the baby sleeps and plays every day. There is basically no opportunity to consume physical strength. Therefore, when the physiology is in a state of excitement, it will not sleep well.

In addition to taking the children to play for a while after feeding, it is also necessary to try to calm their mental state before going to bed.

For example, give your baby a hot bath at night, play a lullaby, or take him to an active-passive exercise.

If such a program is carried out for about a month, the children will gradually develop a habit, and when the time comes to do these things, they will know that it is time for them to sleep.

3) Sleep with the child

Experiments have shown that children and parents feel more secure when sleeping with their parents, and it is easier to sleep soundly.

Therefore, it is recommended that parents sleep with their children when conditions permit, even if it is just pretending to lie there , mainly to let the child feel that you are always by his side.

4) Correct bad breastfeeding habits

"10 mothers sleep with 9 milk", in fact, this situation is not a big problem, because the baby feels the most secure when drinking milk, and breast milk contains hypnotic ingredients.

But if the baby is not hungry and needs a few sucks to fall asleep, or if he can't fall asleep without milk, it must be adjusted.

The main principle is to slowly add other activities between feeding and sleeping , such as playing more, and try not to let the baby directly link feeding and sleeping.

All in all, it is extremely normal for the baby to sleep more and wake up a lot. Parents should not be too anxious and hurt the baby with unnecessary sleep training.

Even if you want to adjust the sleep pattern, you must follow the scientific principles and proceed step by step, subject to the baby's ability to accept.