Every parent wants their baby to sleep through the night with as little resistance and interrupted sleep as possible. When baby isn’t getting a good night’s sleep, they’re going to be cranky and fussy throughout the day and you’re going to lack the energy and mental stamina needed to get through your busy day with your infant.
Sleep is one of the most important daily activities of your child. It affects their health and well-being now, in their early developmental years, and even during the rest of their life. New research is discovering that pediatric sleep disorders contribute to attention deficit, hyperactivity, mood disturbances, and memory problems. So, it’s particularly important to develop routines for your newborn, whose sleep habits are just beginning to form.
What’s Normal Sleep for an Infant?
Newborns are developing a sleep pattern for the first time. What’s a normal pattern? Generally, during the first month, about 14-18 hours a day – 8 to 9 hours at night and 8 to 9 hours during the day, in between feedings. Daytime sleep is usually in the form of naps.
At three months, about 10 to 11 hours of nighttime sleep and 4 to 5 hours of daytime sleep is about what you want to shoot for. Then, at 6 months, you’re looking at 11 hours of nighttime sleep and 3 hours of daytime sleep. Daytime sleep hours will taper off slowly to where, at 12 months, baby is sleeping about 11 nighttime hours (about the same) and 2-1/2 daytime hours. By two years of age, they’re still at about 11 hours at night and 1-1/2 hours during the day. Keep in mind, these are guidelines. Every baby is a little different. You’ll learn what’s normal for them.
What’s normal for your baby is what gives them quality sleep. Quality sleep takes into account:
● The time it takes for the baby to settle down and get to sleep
● Amount of consecutive sleep hours and depth of sleep
● Reducing disturbed sleep behavior patterns (i.e. excessive crying, fussing)
Common Infant Sleep Problems
Common sleep problems for baby include:
● Being overtired from not enough sleep
● Mixing up day and night to where baby is sleeping throughout the day and is up all night
● Stomach upset. For example, from acid reflux, gas, other digestive issues
● Nervous system imbalances. Many sleep problems originate with imbalances related to their nervous system. We’ll talk about this more in a bit.
How to Improve Baby’s Quality of Sleep
Be patient. Newborns and babies up to six months are still establishing their sleep cycles. Be flexible with how long baby seems comfortable being awake and asleep.
Be flexible. While it’s good to be a little flexible, it falls on you, the parents, to create good sleep habits, not the baby. Move at your own pace with what you feel is comfortable. The time to break bad bedtime habits is to start when they first occur.
Keep a daily routine. Babies enjoy a fixed routine of sleeping, eating, and playing around at about the same time each day. At bedtime, introduce a few calming activities to help them settle down: feeding, changing diapers, applying lotion, a calming activity like rocking them, giving them a warm bath, storytelling, reading to them, playing soothing music, giving them a pacifier.
Encourage self-soothing techniques. This means finding what helps baby to put themselves to sleep and if awakened, to put themselves back to sleep. Sure, be there if they’re crying! Once they settle down, try placing them on their sleep surface instead of continuing to hold them for an extended amount of time. This way, they learn how to go back to sleep without the need for continued rocking, patting, and bouncing. Learning to self-soothe usually takes some time and each baby follows their own schedule, so be patient. In the process, make small steps toward getting out of the room and letting them settle down on their own.
Make them comfortable, adaptable. Tuck them in by keeping them wrapped snugly and safe. Some babies love the snugness of a swaddling blanket. If so, use it. Allow baby to experience different sound volumes and lighting situations during the day when they are napping. This helps a baby to become accustomed to sleeping with the vacuum on, dog barking, visitors over, big brother toddler running around, etc. so they will be able to get the proper rest they need even when there are distractions.
Adjust their feeding and sleeping cycle. Feeding baby before sleep is essential in early infant stages. Later, you can work on adjusting the feeding and sleeping times. A common schedule for feeding baby during the night may greatly differ between a breastfed baby versus a formula-fed baby. It isn’t uncommon for a breastfed baby to want to eat every 2-3 hours while a formula-fed baby may want to eat every 3-4 hours.
Create a bedroom environment that adapts to baby’s likes. At night, notice what kinds of light and sounds baby feels comfortable with. Some babies like to have some light on, such as a mild nightlight, while some want the room pitch black. Some may like some soft music while some don’t. Sound machines offer soft lullaby music and white noise. Depending upon your baby, they may prefer the sound of a loud humming noise versus the soft lullabies.
Make distinctions between night and day. If you notice baby getting days and nights mixed up, help them make the distinction by keeping their room dark at night and not turning on the TV or other lights during night feedings. During the day, have the windows open or lights on (at a dimmer level when napping), but still on to help them understand that it’s daytime.
Encourage daytime floor play. Let baby play on the floor on a mat or other comfortable surface, clear of furniture. Give them an environment in which to roll and crawl, get tired, and be ready for sleep.
Give them “tummy time.” Lying or playing on their tummy lets baby develop neck muscles, head control, eyesight, and further their brain development. Tummy time will also help them expend their energy to allow for their brain and body to be ready for sleep.
Chiropractic Care and Better Sleep
Infants sleep better while under chiropractic care. This has been verified by studies. A 2014 study in the Journal of Clinical Chiropractic Pediatrics, for one, evaluated whether routine chiropractic care could improve an infant’s sleep pattern. Researchers discovered that a significant percentage of babies enjoyed longer sleep following gentle adjustments to restricted areas of movement of their spine.
How does a young child’s nervous system get out of whack? Imbalances can occur in the spine or musculature during childbirth or after birth from being held in the same position every day, having their same leg picked up to have their diaper changed each time, rough kisses from big brother or sister, tumbles, falls, or any sort of twisting that can occur from daily activities. And when the imbalances remain untreated, those muscles that are tightened or chronic lack of joint movement can contribute to inflammation. Inflammation can irritate spinal nerves, adding stress to baby’s nervous system. Baby loses some of his/her ability to move and function properly. There are also times where a baby may have tight muscles causing them to feel discomfort or the inability to roll over to a new and comfortable position at night, thus causing sleep disturbances.
Chiropractic care doesn’t treat a sleep disturbance directly. Gentle and specific pediatric chiropractic adjustments are the result of helping to restore the normal functioning of baby’s neuromusculoskeletal system. This includes gentle manual therapy in the form of myofascial release -- also known as bodywork -- to the muscles and joints in the spine. The result is more comfort and ability to relax and fall asleep. What mothers love about pediatric chiropractic care is that it’s low risk. No pharmaceuticals are involved.
Who We Are
We are Doctors Michelle Parker and Darcy Goode. Dr. Parker is certified by the Academy Council of Chiropractic Pediatric Association in pediatric chiropractic for pre- and postnatal specialties. She is the only chiropractor with the D.A.C.C.P. certification in Parker County. Both of us have specific pediatric chiropractic expertise in working on the nervous and muscular systems of newborns.
Located near Fort Worth
The office of The Chiropractic Place for Mommy and Me is in Aledo, Texas, just 15 minutes west of downtown Fort Worth or 10 minutes east of Weatherford, Hudson Oaks, and Willow Park.
Feel free to visit our social media pages on Instagram @TheChiroPlaceforMommyandMe or Facebook @TheChiroPlace to get a feel for our atmosphere and how we work with entire families and fathers, grandparents, pregnant moms, mothers, and children. We are proud to offer a family-friendly, pediatrician-approved, and mother-oriented space to the community.
Give our office a call at 682-214-0408 to see if we can help answer your questions and relieve baby’s sleep problems.