Do Naps Help Babies Sleep Better at Night?
Many parents worry that too many naps in a day will make it difficult for their baby to sleep at night. While this seems like an intelligent notion, it is largely untrue. There are conditions in which napping can interfere with nighttime sleep. Ensuring your baby is not over-tired is an important factor in getting her to sleep through the night.
Other People Are Reading
-
Newborn Naps
-
When baby is first born, he has no sense of time. Thus, any sleeping is probably a nap. A newborn may sleep for three to four hours at a time during a 24-hour period. The eventual goal is to have your baby sleeping for shorter periods during the day with a long stretch at night. Do not be discouraged when your newborn sleeps for the same amount of time, whether it is day or night. After a few months you can encourage daytime naps and longer sleep periods at night.
Helpful Naps
-
Sleeping is important to your baby's growth and brain development. Learning new skills and being stimulated by the environment can wear a baby out. Catching a quick nap rejuvenates a baby and helps her to maintain a happy mood for play and learning time. Napping also keeps a baby from getting too tired to sleep. As your baby gets older, she may require fewer naps during the day. In fact, she may stop taking short naps and start taking one or two long naps. Around this same time, she starts to require long stretches of sleep instead of brief periods. This is good news for her parents, as it means she will be sleeping through the night. Sleeping through the night is defined as five solid hours.
-
Napping Too Much
-
Most babies should wake every three to four hours to eat during the early months of life. Your pediatrician may recommend waking your baby if he sleeps past the normal feeding time during the day. After a few weeks, letting the baby sleep longer than three to four hours at night is okay in most cases. If the baby was premature or underweight, your pediatrician may recommend waking the baby for eating even at night. If a baby sleeps for long stretches during the day and does not sleep well at night, it may be time to wake baby up. In these situations, a nap really will hinder nighttime sleep.
Over-tired
-
It is not uncommon for a new parent to think that keeping the baby awake during the day will help her sleep through the night. This sounds like a good theory, but it will actually work against you. Letting your baby rest for reasonable amounts of time during the day will prevent her from becoming over-tired. An over-tired baby struggles to sleep and may wake more frequently. Because your baby has not had a nap, she may dislike any activity that you encourage. This wakeful time for baby will be wasted on fussing and crying. It is best not to keep your baby from sleeping when she seems ready to sleep.
Over-stimulated
-
When a baby has been awake for long periods of time, she has been taking in a large amount of new information. This over-stimulation can make her restless and have trouble settling down for bedtime. Allowing her to nap during the day will not only give her the rests she needs, but it will also give her a break from the stimulation. An over-stimulated baby can be fussy and fight sleep. An over-stimulated baby may give hard-to-read cues that she is tired. Try to decrease the time between naps if you find that your baby seems to struggle to get to sleep. Be sure to put her in bed when she is awake but sleepy.
-
References
- Photo Credit Flickr
