Baby Care

Archive for the ‘Baby Sleeping’ Category

One of the most important baby care items you have to keep an eye out for is SIDS. SIDS stands for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and is causing by accidental loss of oxygen and suffocation while the baby sleeps at night. Many of the SIDS cases happen for babies between the ages of 2-6 months and babies that are on their stomach. However, there are cases of SIDS when the Baby is not sleeping on their stomach. Proper Baby Care recommendations by doctors and hospitals are to put babies to sleep in their cribs with nothing else, so no blankets, baby bumpers, and more!

With many parents we’ve talked to, we’ve seen tons of cases of babies hitting their heads on the crib rails and also getting their feet stuck in the crib railings. While there is definitely some risk to babies getting injured by getting stuck in the crib rails or banging their heads. Most parents think it’s not worth the risk of having bumpers, heavy blankets, and would rather limit the risk of SIDS.

Baby Bumpers can be thick pads that protect the baby from banging their heads or getting stuck in the railings. We would recommend the Breathable Baby Bumpers first to test to see if they work for your needs as they are made of a mesh Baby Bumpers and more breathable than the thick pad Baby Bumpers. Still there is an increased risk with bumpers, however, getting breathable bumpers is a good option if your baby is turning all the way around, banging their head or getting stuck in the crib rails. These breathable bumpers are very cheap and may make a good option to try out before putting heavily padded bumpers into the crib with your baby at night.

It’s also a good option to invest in a Summer baby monitor with video so you can check on your baby once in a while in their crib to make sure they are not stuck in the corner of the crib in a position that they may not be able to get themselves out of.

Good baby care starts with a good solid schedule for your baby. In order to get your baby onto a good baby nap schedule, it starts with a consistent schedule for baby feeding. If you feed your baby regularly around the same time, you will notice that the babies nap time will fall around the same time each day. However, baby naps and naptime can vary for each baby.

Some babies take a long nap in the morning. Newborns sleep all day and eventually they will settle into 2 naps per day, and ultimately just have one nap per day as they get older. For some babies, they will enjoy naps in the same spot that they sleep such as their crib. This will also help them get to sleep at night and become more familiar with sleeping in their crib location. Obviously some days will be different so it’s good to train your baby to sleep on the go, in the car seat or stroller which is usually an easier place to get the baby to nap as a baby will get tired when on the go…

Many babies will sleep for a short period of time during the day and then wake up. Most parents do not want to swaddle their baby during the day and keep the swaddle for the night time only if they are interested in swaddling at all. All babies are different and it’s important to understand their cues and when they are tired. Understanding where your baby enjoys sleep can help get them to sleep for their nap. Naptime can be difficult for parents and their is no easy answer as each baby is different. The best you can do is try your baby to get your baby to nap and create a naptime routine. Sometimes, putting dark blackout shades in the babies room will help the baby nap for a longer period of time during the day.

One of the first steps and more important baby care techniques is to devise a sleep routine for your baby. This sleep routine will the way that you get your baby to sleep each night, and also maybe give your family a little peach and quiet, especially if you have more than one child.

After talking to a number of parents, the Ferber sleep method is a good way to get your baby over their troublesome sleep habits. While this method is not for everyone and all parents need to use the sleep routine that works best for them, this Ferber method may help your baby soothe his/her self to sleep.

In a nutshell, the Ferber method states that you should let your baby cry a bit in the Crib on their own. After a few minutes of their crying, you stop by and comfort your baby. Do not pick your baby up out of their crib… Simply try to soothe the baby in the Crib and let them know that you are there. Then, leave the baby to go to sleep again. This next time, wait a few more minutes longer (i.e however much you can stand) and go back in and repeat the process. For the first night, it could take you a numerous amount of entries into the baby’s room. However, after a few nights, your baby should be on their way to sleeping on their own.

With our baby, as opposed to running this sleep routine in a matter of one weekend or a few nights, we practiced a method similar to the Ferber method over a month. We invested in a Summer Video monitor, which is definitely a good investment. We would devise an after feeding routine whereby we soothe our baby with books, light music, sounds, etc. After the baby was finally getting tired, we would put our baby in the crib while the baby was awake and take notice of the babies cues on the video monitor. All in all, he learned to soothe himself to sleep, all the while chewing on his hands. However, that seems to be our baby’s way of soothing himself. I would recommend not using a pacifier so you can teach your baby to soothe and fall asleep without it.

Good luck with getting your baby to sleep on their own and creating a great baby care technique and sleep routine to provide your family with peace in the evening!

One of the biggest talking points among new parents is how much their babies sleep. While certain newborns will live up to the old adage of ‘sleeping like a baby’ and sleep through the night pretty much straight away, others will take a bit longer to settle into a routine and might decide that it’s much more fun to be nocturnal.

Sleep is something that we often take for granted before we have children, but suddenly, when we find ourselves deprived of it on a daily basis, it’s all we can think or talk about! Here is a brief guide to how much sleep a baby needs for the first three years of life.

Newborns

Of course, each newborn is different, but in those first few weeks of life, babies tend to sleep for between 16 and 19 hours a day, generally in two-four hour stretches.
In these early days, it’s hard for babies to tell the difference between day and night; this, coupled with the fact that newborns have small tummies so need to eat little and often, can lead to a few sleepless nights!
Some newborns will sleep for longer periods at a time which is fine, unless perhaps they are premature or of a low birth weight, in which case you may be advised by your health visitor to wake them more regularly for feeds.

Three – six months

By the age of three months, many babies will have settled into more of a routine and, with any luck, will be sleeping for up to six hours a night.
Between the ages of three and six months, as a general rule, babies will be sleeping for approximately 14 hours a day, which may be distributed ten hours at night and four during the day, although don’t expect to have an uninterrupted night.

Six to 12 months

When your baby is aged between six and 12 months, you may start to think about cutting down his daytime naps to two naps of approximately two hours. If you’re very lucky, your baby may now be sleeping through the night, for up to 11-12 hours – if you put your baby to bed at 7pm, he might even sleep through to 7am! This will seem like bliss, but, as stated above, babies are individuals so don’t be too demoralised if your baby still wakes at night. Also, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that if you put your baby to bed late at night he will be more likely to sleep in late. In fact, the opposite may be true. If your baby doesn’t go to bed until 10 or 11pm, he may well be overtired and have a restless and disturbed night’s sleep, so try to establish a sensible bedtime routine in the early months which sees your baby in bed by 7pm.

12-18 months

Between the ages of 12 and 18 months, you may decide to reduce your baby’s naps still further, especially if you find that he’s still waking in the night. As every child is different, there is no hard and fast rule as to how long your one year old should sleep for, but you may decide that one long afternoon nap of two hours is sufficient.

Two years

When your child reaches the age of two and the toddler years are fully upon you, you may find that he is resistant to going to bed as there are too many other exciting things for him to do. You should be firm and establish some boundaries. If you find that your toddler is still waking in the night and getting up at 6am, then you may find our feature on Coping with an early riser helpful.

By the age of two, your child should definitely need no more than one nap during the day of between one and two hours. If you have a bedtime routine firmly in place, he will also with luck be sleeping through the night for a period of up to 12 hours!

Three years

By the age of three, your child should need approximately 12 hours’ sleep. You may decide to cut out your child’s daytime rest altogether or, alternatively, reduce it to one hour-long nap.  You can expect your three-year-old to sleep for about ten hours a night. The benefits of establishing a bedtime routine early on should not be underestimated; the calmer and more settled your child is before going to sleep, the more likely he is to sleep through, so avoid anything that might make him too hyper or over-excited before he goes to bed. Watch our video on bedtime routines for more information.

The following chart should serve only as a rough guide. Remember: every child’s different, so the amount of sleep needed will differ from baby to baby.

Sleep diaries

You may also find it helpful to keep a sleep diary as a record of your baby’s sleep patterns. As the name suggests, this is literally a diary in which you can chart everything from how long it takes your baby to settle to how many times he wakes in the night, how long he wakes each time and what time he wakes up in the morning.

This might be a useful guide for you, as it will help you to get a clearer picture of your baby’s sleep patterns. You can then talk to your health visitor about any worries or concerns you may have. You could draw up a chart consisting of seven columns across for the days of the week and twenty-four rows down for the hours. Colour in the hours that your baby is asleep during the day and night. You could also use the diary as a way of charting the times when your baby is feeding.

Most of the mothers buy videos and baby music CDs for babies.

Apart from the human voice, baby music is the original interactive medium and is most beneficial learning resource for newborns, infants and babies today.

Millions of babies in more than 80 countries have benefited from the music.

There are some premises that classical music can make your baby smarter or intelligent and exposure to baby music is part of what you do to introduce your baby to all sights and sounds of their world.

Only play the high quality baby music that is age appropriate and effective. It is the best to give a baby proper start in life.
Benefits of listening to baby music:

* Baby music can definitely helps to calm your baby and put your baby in a restful state at bedtime or naptime.
* Listening to baby music has the power to increase the thinking ability by stimulating electrical responses in the brain, promoting creativity, increasing receptivity to learning by inducing a relaxed state and capitalizing on instinctive body rhythms which stimulate conceptual ability.
* There is some good collection of music such as Mozart or Bach for bedtime. It has been discovered that listening to Mozart music can helps to develop speech, improve motor skills and helps for memory development. Enya music can be very soothing. Georgia Kelly’s harp music is also relaxing and peaceful.
* Religious and soft gospel music is also good choice that helps your baby to go to sleep.
* Listening to music gives relaxation to not only to babies, but also for soothing the entire family.
* Baby music affects the children in many ways. These include increased self esteem and confidence, increased mutually rewarding interactions, learning new ways of managing cognitive and behavior skills, an improvement in the children’s social skills, learning about supporting speech and language and singing songs and playing the musical games at home that they learn in the sessions.
* It promotes the development of reading skills. Nurtures the imagination. By listening to music babies stop crying.

After your baby awakens, you can stimulate your baby’s sense by playing nursery rhymes or music from kids’ movies. By listening to minimalist Phillip Glass’s baby music, your baby will respond and as they get older, they will dance with it.

White noises in the form a fan or from sound machines that creates the sound of an ocean or sound from rain fall can be restful as well and these noises can block out the noises from the home.

You don’t need to create an artificially silent environment for the baby. If you do like that, it can make it harder for your baby to get to sleep when the home’s rhythms and noises get back to normal.

The baby music helps both of you to get to sleep and also helps to soothe your own nerves. It provides a wonderful time of bonding and restfulness for you and your baby together.

Lullaby is probably the only part of folklore, which has survived to our days, and continues to develop. For many centuries lullabies accompany our children to their sweet dreams, and, despite technological advances, do not lose their significance. Nobody has ever even tried to replace them. Why lullabies are so popular? And why they are irreplaceable?

Why do babies need lullabies?
Lullabies are needed for children of all ages. Their first task is to reassure the child and set him/her on a strong healthy sleep.
Melodic, simple, quiet – lullabies like both small babies, and their parents. In many families, lullabies are traditional conclusion of the day, the ritual, and they cannot do without it.
This is the child’s first contact with the art, and it is very important. A child hears it, learns to perceive both normal conversation and song. He/she gets accustomed to his/her mother, remembers the melody and learns it. Later he/she begins to distinguish the words and repeats them. Small children like to sing lullabies to their dolls, and even parents.
Lullabies help to establish a strong link between a child and his parents. At the time of going to bed a close contact between mother and child is required. The kid must feel that he/she is not alone helping him/her to relax from daily cares. These simple songs help to show sincere feelings.
From their infancy, people remember the voice of their mother. Lullabies are songs which are written using the notes of pure love and collect them in tenderness harmony. Something magical is store in a lullaby melody. It comforts, soothes, makes forget about the pain and helps to sleep.
When a child is very small, that is, it is still in its infancy, he/she gets accustomed to a certain voice that will serve him/her for a sign or a symbol of security and peace.
Then, when your child will grow up a little, he/she still loves and responds to the native voice.
Lullabies are an excellent alternative to other means of calming the child. Instead shaking and long conversations, this gives a much better result.

Why lullabies are better?
Of course, now there are many inventions to replace live lullaby. There are singing toys, CDs and just the TV. Some parents have resorted to such assistants, believing that these songs are no worse than traditional lullabies.
Other parents cite the fact that absolutely can not sing and do not want their child to be accustomed to the fake songs.
But it is important who does it.
No toy or tape recorder can replace the love of a child with which his/her mother hugs him/her

before going to bed, singing even the simplest motifs.
It doesn’t matter what lullaby you sing (you can even create your own version). Your presence and

care is much more important.
The toy or a TV can be brighter and more interesting than your songs, but the child always prefers to sleep in your presence than to listen to a monotonous grumbling of the unfeeling box.

Are lullabies only for mothers?

Traditionally, lullabies are sung by women – mothers and grandmothers. But now fathers also try to sing. The childshould feel the love of both parents, so it is not surprising that, over time your child may require to sing for him/her father or even grandfather.
Men prefer the traditional lullaby songs from cartoons, or even compose their own songs, and it is not worse than those songs that Mothers sing.
If you are unsure whether it was lullaby to your child, just try to sing it at least a week. Kids like this way of lying in the cot if only you’re close to them, regardless of the quality of performance. Despite the achievement of the industry of toys, mankind did not invent a better way to put the child to sleep.

Mothers often ask themselves this question. Only the child can give the answer. Some children need to sleep a lot, the others just vice versa. If the child is full, well-groomed full, sleeps in a cool room, you can let him/her decide how much to sleep. Most infants, if they are satisfied and their stomach works properly, sleep from feeding to feeding. But some children from the birth sleep for a very short time and not because something is disturbing them. You do not need to take any action.
The older the child becomes, the less he/she sleeps. Usually, the first waking period begins at about 4-5 o’clock in the evening. Each child has his/her sleep schedule. By the end of the first year of life, he/she will sleep 2 times a day. Then he/she will move to a one-time sleep. Only in infancy parents can be sure that the child sleeps as long as he/she wants. In 2 years the child is a complex human being. He/she may sleep less than his/her body demands, because of the excitement and anxiety for other reasons.

Falling asleep. It is advisable to accustom the child to the thought that he/she should sleep immediately after taking a meal. Some children like to play after meal. I will recommend trying to break this habit. Accustom the child to sleep in his bed.
Most children become accustomed both to silence and to moderate noise. Therefore there is no need to walk on tiptoe and whisper. This will only teach him/her to silence, and he/she will wake up from the unexpected sounds. If the child is accustomed to normal household sounds, you can safely take the guests in the next room, watch TV or listen to the radio. You can even enter the child’s room without wakening him/her up.

For many years pediatricians gently (and sometimes rigidly) convinced parents that their children should sleep in cots, carrycots, cradles, baskets – anywhere, just not in the parental bed. Mothers and fathers – especially in the last few years – on the contrary, continue arguing with the doctors, claiming that the most natural and beneficial for the child is to share a bed with parents. Those preferring to sleep with a child believe that it contributes to successful breast-feeding, strengthening the connection between mother and child and even helps to prevent sudden infant death syndrome (SVDS). However – is there any actual confirmation of this? And besides, is it safe to sleep with the child?

Here is the answer. Recent studies have confirmed everything that pediatricians have been saying for many years. For children there is nothing good in sharing a bed with parents. Moreover – there is a certain risk. And before putting baby to sleep with you in one bed, you need to understand the possible consequences. The study involved cases of infant mortality in the United States over a twenty-year-period ending with 2004. Researchers collected information on all children who died suddenly. Causes of death in most cases have not been established – they were explained as SVDS. SVDS statistics, for a twenty-year-period showed a favorable trend in the time when the campaign «sleeping on the back» was being carried – after a study it was found that for children who sleep on the stomach, the risk of sudden infant death syndrome is higher than for others.

But there is another category of infant deaths that pediatricians find an explanation: the accidental asphyxiation and strangulation in bed. The number of cases increased four times during the last 20 years. Of course, some of these cases have nothing to do with this issue. Thus, the cause of 15% of deaths was the unsuccessful design of children’s cot. However, more than 50% of cases of suffocation in the sleep occurred in a situation where the baby and his parents were sleeping together. And, as a rule, the proximate cause of the death of a baby was when of the parents press a child down with his weight in a dream.
It is necessary to understand how high the risk of such a tragic outcome is, and therefore decide for themselves whether to share a bed with a child or not.