How and how much does the infant sleep?

How much does the newborn sleep, older baby? Whether activity newborn toddler is different from before birth? How it changes the time of the infant's wakefulness? Whether infant sleep phases are the same as in adults? When the baby sleeps through the night and parents can breathe a little? Read and find out what your child's dream looks like and Time your activity in the first year of life.

In the first period after birth, the baby sleeps most of the day, but with age time of activity i the baby's wakefulness gradually lengthens. A toddler's sleep is often a big challenge for parents - infant sleep phases differ greatly from how adult sleep is structured, and establishing a circadian rhythm can take several months and cost a lot of sleepless nights. It is worth learning about the developmental patterns of sleep, remembering that the answer to the question, how and how long is the baby sleepingit also depends on his individual predispositions and abilities.   

Prenatal sleep and activity 

The behavior of newborns largely resembles their activity during their development in the womb. Prenatal research shows that from about 32 weeks of gestational age, the following can be distinguished in developing children:

• restful sleep, 
• active sleep and 
• a dream that is called indefinite. 

Indefinite sleep is initially the predominant state of activity, but - as the term birth approaches - its amount is reduced in favor of restful sleep.

How much does a newborn sleep?

After birth, newborns and toddlers have access to new, higher states of activity associated with periods of awakening: vigilance, fumbling, and crying. Initially, however, the organization of sleep remains similar to the current one, i.e. it is very distinct from that of sleep and the circadian rhythm of adults. Newborns still spend about as much time in active sleep as they do in quiet sleep. How much does a newborn sleep? In the first weeks of life, babies sleep about 16-18 hours a day. 

Sleep phases newborn

Tiny baby sleep, unlike adult sleep, begins with active sleep (with the movement of the eyeballs), from which a baby wakes up much easier than from a peaceful sleep. Initial sleep cycles take an average of 50-60 minutes to start with, with initial active sleep lasting 20-30 minutes and transitioning to restful sleep that lasts just as long. Babies may wake up between sleep cycles - standby time the youngest babies it falls both day and night.

How and how much does the infant sleep?

One of the primary developmental tasks of infants in the first months of life is establishing the sleep-wake rhythm and adjusting it to the circadian rhythm - so that the periods of sleep gradually lengthen and fall into the night hours, and the periods of wakefulness fall on the day. Sleep demand varies from about 16-18 hours a day in the neonatal period to about 14 hours at the end of the first year of life.

Infant sleep phases 

In the first months of life, the sleep of the youngest infants gradually begins to resemble that of adults. From the second month of life, reorganization of the sleep phases is observed so that infants begin to sleep with deep sleepwhich varies as in adults and gradually lengthens at the expense of the rapid eye movement phase that shifts towards the end of the sleep cycle. The rhythm of infant activity states is also slowly regulating and stabilizing.

Sleep time a baby's waking time

The emergence of the circadian pattern, in which the waking time increases during the day and the sleep time is shifted to the night, begins around 5-6 weeks, and the establishment of the night sleep rhythm and diurnal naps can be expected at the end of the third month of the infant's life. . This is the stage where the baby's sleep time and wakefulness begin to be predictable, and by the end of the fourth month of life, many parents notice a marked improvement in their ability to fall asleep and their babies wake up less frequently. Total the time of the infant's activity it becomes longer and longer during the day.

When does a baby sleep at night?

Many parents, tired of getting up at night with their toddler, would like to know when the baby sleeps at night. By the age of six months, many babies are already able to "sleep through the night", which means that they are able to sleep several hours with continuous sleep during the night. However, this does not change the fact that - as research shows - before the age of one, toddlers wake up to an average of three times a night, and the younger and less mature they are, the more often they wake up crying and need their parents' help to go back to sleep. The rhythm of the nocturnal awakening is also related to the feeding rhythm.

Nocturnal sleep without waking up: after 1 year of age

Fortunately, as babies age, they tend to get better at falling asleep and calming down on their own. After the age of one, most babies are able to sleep through the night without waking up. Over time, the number of hours of sleep also decreases and the duration of wakefulness increases. At the end of the first year of life, babies need about 14 hours of sleep, and at the end of their second year of life, about 13 hours of sleep per dayI will.

Źródła:

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