Children often have sleep problems during the first year of life, including trouble getting to sleep, waking up in the middle of the night and having irregular sleep patterns. Remember that there are no definite rights or wrong ways to put your child to sleep and that if you and your baby are happy with your current routine then you should stick to it. However, it is not good if it is a struggle to put your child to bed, if he gets overly frustrated in the process, strongly resists being put to bed or if he is waking up so much that he or other family members end up not getting adequate sleep.

Parents who don’t want to leave their baby while she is still awake may opt for the gradual removal method. According to this technique, sit in a chair next to your baby’s bed and wait there until she falls asleep. Do this for two nights. Then move your chair two feet away on the third and fourth nights and five feet away from the bed on the fifth and sixth nights. By the seventh night, sit in the doorway, and on the ninth night, stay in the hallway. Shortly after this, by the 10th night or by the end of the second week, the baby should be able to fall asleep by himself.

Put the baby down and let her cry herself to sleep without any additional comforting. Experts caution, though, that parents using this method might ignore their crying baby when she has some other real, not sleep-related, and problem.

This method can also be a great test of parents’ will. It is difficult to do nothing while your baby wails away. But by giving in after 15 minutes, a half-hour, or even more, the baby learns that her parents will come and get her if she persists, making sleep training more difficult.

With the scheduled awakenings method, observe and record your baby’s natural waking times during the night for a week. A pattern of regular waking times should emerge. Then, following this schedule, wake the baby 15 minutes before each of those natural awakening times and soothe the baby back to sleep each time.

The baby’s “unscheduled” awakenings, those that don’t follow the regular pattern, should gradually stop. At that point, over a period of weeks, cut back gradually on the number of times you wake your baby before his “scheduled” awakenings until he is able to sleep through the night.

Desperate times can call for desperate measures, but don’t even bother with some popular but ineffective ways to get your baby to sleep through the night. Giving your baby solid foods at an early age in the belief that she is waking during the night because she is hungry. There’s no research to support this, and you’ll just condition her to want to eat during the night.

Eliminating naps during the daytime. Don’t do it. This risks making your baby overtired, which will make it harder for her to fall and stay asleep putting your baby to bed later. Like eliminating naps, this will likely make your baby overly tired, making it harder for her to fall asleep.

Baby sleep through the night is the task all parents to look into.

-
About the Author:
Simly, a friendly easy going person who enjoys meeting people and socializing. I enjoy dining out especially ethnic restaurants and going to live concerts shows. Sells shows tickets online. Equally happy at home watching a comedy, as I love to laugh. I love meeting new people with great sense of humour. I love life and enjoy everything that goes with it.
Article Source

If you baby is not napping well during her first few months of life, you may want to try to cut back on the time she is awake by 15 minute increments.  If she is getting over stimulated, then she will fight sleep and be difficult to get to nap.  The way to prevent this is to watch her “sleepy” cues to make sure that you put her down when she is beginning to get sleepy.

Some parents believe that letting their child cry will harm him or her.  Fifteen or twenty minutes of crying will not harm your child physically or mentally.  Babies will learn to self-soothe and fall asleep by themselves, but only if you let her.  It is very important that babies learn to fall asleep by themselves so that they can self-soothe if they awake in the middle of the night.  Otherwise, you may have a child that will not sleep through the night for years.

Regular sleep patterns are intermeshed with regular eating patterns, so let us look at the stages of a baby’s life:

• Newborn:  Your newborn will sleep anywhere from 16 to 20 hours a day, including the naps that he takes between feedings.  When your baby has been fed, let him stay awake for a short while and then put him down before he becomes over stimulated.

• Two months:  At two months and older, your child should be allowed to try to self-soothe during their naptimes and bedtime.  Crying is normal when you put your baby down, but it is okay.  If he cries for longer than 10-15 minutes, then go in and check on him.  Don’t get him up, but pat his bottom or lightly rub his back until he calms down.

• 3-6 months:  At around 3-6 months, your baby will stop taking one of his naps.  Usually it is the third nap or late afternoon nap that they do not need as much.  He may be a little fussy and may want to take a little nap, but you need to try to keep him up if you want him to go to bed at a decent time and sleep soundly through the night.

• 16+ months:  When your child is between 16-20 months, they usually quit taking the morning nap in favor of a longer nap in the afternoons.  Babies this age usually sleep between 10-12 hours a night and take a 2-3 hour afternoon nap.

Ground Rules about Naps

1. You decide when the nap starts and ends, not the baby.

2. When your baby is older than 4 months old, she will wake up crying if she hasn’t slept enough.  She might have a dirty diaper, be in a position that is not comfortable, or cold/hot. Fix the problem and encourage her to go back to sleep.  Babies that have enough rest wake up happy, talking, and in a good mood.

Looking for lawn mower? Find out about the best lawn mower

Paul Rivas is a freelance writer who represents a number of businesses. For gardening machinery, he recommends visiting lawnmowers101.net and reading about best lawn mower.

Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/babies-articles/sleep-patterns-how-to-help-your-baby-sleep-well-1465916.html