Sleep Patterns Of Pregnant Women

When having a baby for the first time, it is vital to understand their sleep pattern, and what affect the time of day or night will have on it. The need for sleep decreases as a brand new baby ages. The times where a baby is alert usually only lasts for two or three hours, at one month of age they sleep for over fifteen hours. You will notice that the sleep period decreases at the age of six months, to around twelve hours per day.

The circadian rhythm is not something that a newborn baby is born with. Within a day, when a baby is very young, their body follows a cycle that is known as ultradian, and that repeats itself again and again. A baby’s sleep pattern changes often when they are young, and until they are eight weeks old, they typically sleep for four hours at a time and break it up with short bouts of alertness.

Many new parents find their baby’s sleep patterns difficult, but the last thing you want to do is try and change them. The schedule of sleep that your baby is on isn’t up to you. By trying to changer his schedule to fit your needs, you may cause his pattern to become even more inconsistent and cause him to take longer to develop the twenty-four-hour circadian rhythm. The natural circadian rhythm for young children is twelve hours on and twelve hours off.

Scientists have recently discovered a natural ingredient of breast milk which makes it different from formula. Interestingly breast milk created in the daytime contains less sleep encouraging nucleotides than that created at night. Nucleotides within the breast milk increased when nighttime approached showing how they follow their own circadian rhythm.

It is important that during the day you allow your home to be at a normal noise level and that you engage your baby with eye contact, which will help them get to know what makes daytime different from the night. Babies find both of these things very stimulating. Keeping eye contact with your baby will have a physical effect, blood pressure will rise, the heart will beat faster and your baby will awaken fully. When night time comes you should try not to excite your baby, you should try to keep a set bedtime routine which will help the baby get ready for sleep.

You will notice that sleep turns into one solid period of time by the age of three months, because the neurological system is maturing and the cycles are combining. You may run into the issue that the cycle doesn’t happen at night. The pattern of more activity during the day and more sleep at night does not fall into place until the baby is closer to four months of age.

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