How Much Sleep do Babies Need?
New parents spend a lot of time worrying about the quality and duration of their children’s sleep. There’s good cause. Adequate sleep is necessary for healthy growth and development. Plus, mom and dad need a break every now and then.
Keep in mind that every child is different. If your child sleeps a bit less than recommended but seems happy and rest, you’re probably fine. If your little one likes to snooze and sleep longer than he or she needs, that’s fine too. Don’t get hung up on the exact figures.
Also remember that your daily activities are going to change how much your child needs on a regular basis. After a day of horseplay and running around, more sleep is needed. Developmental changes will affect sleep needs as well. For example, if your baby learns to roll around and now won’t sit still, he/she will wear out and need more sleep.
The best indicator of how much sleep your kid needs is… your kid! Watch him or her and look for tired signs: rubbing of the eyes, whining, slowing down, breaking eye contact, etc.
Here’s a basic chart to give you an idea of how much your baby should be sleeping. Like I said, all kids are different, so don’t panic if your child is a half hour short each day or an hour over. You aren’t ruining their development.
On the chart, the numbers in parenthesis indicate how many naps should be taken. So at nine months old, the three hours of daytime sleep should be split among two naps.
It’s important to develop good sleep habits as early as you can. Just like adults, children will fall into sleep patterns if you’re consistent and make everyone’s life easier.
If your child is far short of their recommended sleep hours but appears to be untired, this may be deceiving. Your child very well could be sleep deprived. You will have to help him or her develop good sleep habits to feel rested, so his body can focus on growing.
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Written by Stephanie Parker from Sleepingbaby.com, inventor of the Zipadee-Zip
The motto for Sleeping Baby, makers of the Zipadee-Zip, is: “Inspiring Dreams One Night at A time,” and that, in a nutshell, is how it all started…with one little dream that has since become the Parker family’s reality. When Brett and Stephanie Parker’s daughter, Charlotte, was born, the feeling that welled up inside of them was indescribable; they never realized until first looking into those baby blues of hers that they were even capable of that kind of love.
When it was time to transition baby from swaddling, the Parkers tried every sleep sack on the market and every swaddle weaning trick they could find for nearly two weeks and nothing worked to get baby Charlotte to fall and stay asleep.
Stephanie became determined to restore sleep and sanity to their household and set out to find a solution that would soothe Charlotte’s startle reflex and provide her the cozy womb-like environment she loved so much but still give her the freedom to roll over and wiggle around in her crib safely. Out of sheer desperation and exhaustion, the Zipadee-Zip was born. The first Zipadee-Zip(R) Stephanie put together on her little sewing machine worked like magic!
To date tens of thousands of Zipadee-Zips have been sold and all from word-of-mouth marketing. It is so rewarding for the Parkers to see other parents and babies getting the sleep they both need and deserve!
For more information, visit sleepingbaby.com.
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