Understanding Your Newborn’s Sleep

 Babies up to 4 months, sleep approximately 13-18 hours per day usually in short spurts of 1-2 hours and cycle between only two stages of sleep: stage 4 or rapid eye movement (REM) and stage 3 or non-REM.

At about 4 months, babies’ transition into an adult sleep cycles consisting of 4 stages and spend 20% of their sleep time in the REM stage. But before 4 months, infants spend over 50% of their sleep time in the REM stage of sleep during which your baby will make noise, cry a little and move around a bit.

The Stages of Sleep:

Stage 1 The drifting off phase. If you wake up during this phase you don’t really feel like you slept.

Stage 2 This is the “true” sleep phase. It is during this stage that you feel like you have really slept.

Stage 3 This is known as the “slow wave” sleep stage. This stage is when the body rejuvenates and repairs. This is a deep sleep phase.

Stage 4 This is the rapid eye movement (REM) phase of sleep. It is during this phase that we dream and that the brain consolidates information and memories from the previous day.

When baby’s transition to the different sleep stages and make noise, you could be led to believe that they need your help getting back to sleep. This is not necessarily the case, and it is important to try to wait a few minutes to see if they can go back to sleep on their own.

The ability to fall back to sleep during these sleep phase transitions is usually learned. It is important for you to teach your child how to fall asleep and stay asleep. Good sleep habits will last a lifetime. It is when babies learn how to fall asleep independently that they will be ready to sleep through the night.

To teach your baby to sleep independently it is important to do the following:

·       Place your baby in the crib when they are drowsy but not fully asleep

·       Make sure your baby is swaddled (before 4 months or until they roll over)

·       Look for sleepy cues

·       Make sure their sleep environment is safe with no objects or blankets in the crib 

·       Use white noise which mimics the sounds in the womb and will help them fall asleep.

For support teaching your baby how to fall asleep and stay asleep Baby Snooze Coach can help! Email us at babysnoozecoach@gmail.com to set up a time to chat!