Get Your Baby to Sleep Through the Night

Sleep Patterns

Encouraging your baby to sleep through the night is one of the most popular topics among parents.  Parents whose babies are sleeping uninterrupted feel a sense of relief or accomplishment. While parents whose babies aren't sleeping through the night often inquire if they are doing something wrong. 

Experts on sleep duration have not achieved consensus on specific sleeping hours for infants between 6 to 12 months of age.  Sleeping through the night is defined as being able to sleep between 6 to 8 hours, or not interrupted sleeping patterns inside the time frame of 6 to 8 hours.  

The Study: Uninterrupted Infant Sleep, Development, and Maternal Mood

There are both good and bad news on this topic.  In a recent study, published in the Official Journal of the Academy of Pediatrics (2018) by Pennestri et al., researchers indicated that a high percentage of infants did not sleep through the night.  Also, that infants have interrupted sleeping patterns between the 6 to 8-hour criteria.  

In addition, researchers indicated that 37.6% of infants between 6-months of age and 27.9% infants of 12-months of age did not sleep through the night during the 6-hour criterion.

For the 8-hour criterion, 57.0% infants (6-months of age) did not sleep through the night and 43.4% infants (12-months of age) did not sleep through the night either. This study included 388 participants and no relationships were found between mental, motor development, and mother's well-being (https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-4330).   

What to do

There are some suggestions or techniques that you can apply with your baby:

• Keep your baby calm
• Integrate playtime during the day
• When your baby is drowsy put him/her to sleep in the crib
• Wait few minutes before you reply to your baby's restless mood

Please click on the link below for more information: 

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/sleep/Pages/Getting-Your-Baby-to-Sleep.aspx

 Always consult with a pediatrician or a clinician.