Sleep Patterns of a Baby

Filed in archive Parenting on January 12, 2006

I found myself sleeping a lot due to my pregnancy. Selfishly, I thought that I should take advantage of that since once the baby is born, I would have to follow my baby's sleep patterns.

As per my experience with my first child, I slept whenever he did. If I hadn't done that, I would not have gotten any sleep at all.

Sleep deprivation in the first year of a child's life is oft experienced by parents since "the newborn's central nervous system is still immature and disorganized. His sleep-wake cycles are random, and he is likely to sleep 16 to 18 hours a day in three- to four-hour cycles, waking three or four times during the night, and needing your help to go back to sleep. By about three months, as his brain matures and he is becoming "entrained" to the routines around him, he is consolidating his sleep, sleeping through two six-hour sleep cycles at night, and taking one or two long daytime naps. You can reassure yourself that by one year most babies sleep 10 to 12 hours at night and can go back to sleep on their own if they do awake".Deprived from sleep? Want to be ready when the time comes? Understanding your baby's sleep patterns would help a lot. That way, you can make sure that you and your child will both get a good night's sleep.