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Our society in recent decades has promoted the idea that the “good baby” is the one who drinks all his milk and sleeps alone all night in a quiet and dark place, with little or no contact with his parents.

However, these expectations have no scientific basis. We must realize that continuous sleep throughout the night is a false expectation for infancy and early childhood.

So first we must understand the physiology of sleep. Each sleep cycle consists of:

However, infant sleep differs greatly from adult sleep and this is related to the frequency of the REM – non REM cycles. REM. Each sleep cycle lasts about 60 minutes in newborns (a time that also coincides with the usual time for digestion and emptying the stomach from breast milk), while in adults it lasts about 90 minutes. Adults start with a short period of light sleep and quickly fall into deep sleep.

In contrast, infants immediately fall into light sleep (REM) and after 20 minutes into deep sleep (non-REM). In fact, in the first 3 months or more, more than half of the infant’s sleep time consists of light sleep (REM), which is extremely important for the rapid development of the brain, as important brain processes are carried out during it. During this sleep, we may see the baby moving restlessly, twitching, his eyelids fluttering and his breathing being irregular.

Babies, therefore, are biologically programmed to wake up frequently. These awakenings are essential for the survival of the infant. The baby, as an imperfect organism, needs short sleeps that mainly include the REM phase, which contributes to optimal brain development, but also frequent feeding, skin-to-skin contact and emotional connection with the parent (mainly the mother).

Another basic knowledge is that the circadian rhythm, i.e. our 24-hour internal clock, which controls changes in body functions during the day, is not fully developed until the age of 3 months. It is completely normal for a newborn to sleep irregular hours without separating day and night. After 2-3 months, babies begin to sleep for a longer period of time at night, perhaps 6 hours.

It is also possible for a baby to wake up more often at night at the ages of 4-6 months and 9 months and this is related to developmental leaps that occur at these ages.

We do not need to base our child’s daily routine on various tables that are circulated regarding how much a baby should sleep depending on their age. These are based on specific samples of babies and specific conditions. There are great differences from baby to baby, in biorhythm, needs and behaviors.

The most important thing, however, is to accept the situation of night wakings as completely normal and not a problem. At least 80% of babies wake up at 6 months and at least half at one year of age.

However, there are some things we can do on our part to help the baby achieve the most peaceful and uninterrupted sleep possible.

Most of the tips below apply to babies over 3-4 months old.

• We emphasize daytime naps. We generally keep the baby well-rested, as insufficient sleep during the day can release stress and overstimulation hormones. If the baby does not sleep well during the day, he may constantly show anxiety and whining, and his nighttime sleep may be restless and with many awakenings.
• We put the baby to bed when we see the first signs of tiredness, that is, when he starts to yawn, whine, rub his eyes and lose interest in environmental stimuli. If we escape from them for a long time, then it is likely that the baby will show overexertion and achieving calm and sleep will be difficult.
• We adopt a relatively fixed bedtime, which is good the shorter the the child’s age, the earlier it is.
• We adopt a relatively stable sleep routine, which may include bath, pajamas, brushing teeth, reading a book and/or singing-lullaby-story. Once children understand the consistency in the routine, they feel calm and secure.
• Breastfed babies usually sleep at the breast. If you want, as they grow older you can release sleep from breastfeeding.
• In the last 1-2 hours before nighttime sleep, we reduce intense stimuli, intense games, limit the many changes of rooms in the house and dim the lighting.
• After the first months of life, a “transitional object” can be introduced, such as a soft-textured toy or other soft objects that the child can access. With the transitional object, the baby creates a bond through which he receives pleasure, is reassured and comforted, as it constitutes a link with the mother.
• During nighttime awakenings, we keep the lights off, we make it quiet, we do not move the baby from the room where he is and we keep meals simple and short, in order to minimize interference with the child’s sleep.