In this article you will able to know everything about sleep disorder in children. By the end of this article you can also find about its treatment.
How long should a child sleep?
If your children are energetic or playful during the day by getting good sleep at night, then that child’s sleep is considered adequate.
According to sleep experts a newborn baby sleep 16 to 18 hours, infants between 4 months to 1-year sleep 13 to 14 hours, children between 1 to 2 years of age sleep for approximately 12 to 13 hours and between 6 years to 10 years of age child sleep approximately 10 hours.
The number of hours the child sleeps does not matter much, it does matter that the number of hours the child slept should sleep well and be energetic during the day.
What harm can happen if the baby is not sleeping well?
A child of 2 to 4 years of age usually shows no symptoms of sleep deprivation. But some children may have a lack of sleep. That child becomes cranky and their strength decreases. There may also be difficulties in the growth of such children.
When children wake up at night, their parents face the most problem. Because by waking at night, parents also have to wake up, who are tired after working all day. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to children’s sleep so that you and your children can also get good sleep.
How to teach baby good sleep habits?
It is a habit of many parents that when the children wake up, the parents give them something to eat or their mother gives them a little touch with their hands so that the child does not cry much. It is called incentive.
By doing this, the child gets used to it and the child enjoys it a lot. Due to habit, he wakes up every night at the same time and he keeps crying until you give him something to eat or love.
So you do not have to do this. Whenever your child wakes up at night, you do not have to respond very quickly or respond after a while. If the child cries too much, do not pick him up and give him something to eat.
The child has to give him time to calm down and then try to make him sleep again. By doing this, your child does not get any reward after awakening. By doing this for a long time, the child realizes that he is not going to get anything when he wakes up at night and he stops bothering you.
Most Indian families have received good results by using this method. But in some cases, the child gets used to getting up every 1 or 2 hours.
In such a case, the parents get very frustrated and the next day they are unable to do their work properly and feel sleepy during the day. Due to the child not sleeping well at night, the next whole day’s work of the parents is spoiled.
To increase the quality of sleep of such children, they can keep them in a sleep center for a few days. At this sleep center, your child is given sleep training for a few days.
When the baby wakes up at night, he has learned external comfort and he knows that his mother is going to come, and comfort him or feed him milk. This process is called association.
Then the baby has become used to the mother’s contact, her hold, talking to him, feeding, and putting him back to sleep again.
What is sleep training?
In sleep training, the doctor tries to break this association. In sleep training when a child cries at night, mother does not immediately go to the child.
If the children cry more, then the mother goes and tries to comfort the baby by picking him up. When the child calms down then place him back on the bed and leave the room.
By doing this the child will start crying again and after 2 minutes go to him again, and calm him and place him back on the bed again and again exit the room as soon as possible.
The first time the mother goes to child after 2 minutes and the second time the mother goes to the baby after 5 minutes.
This means that the child is given time that he will cry for 2 minutes then 5 minutes but won’t be too frustrated because his parents are coming to him. This will give the baby time to self-comfort. Just like when the child cries for 10 to 12 minutes, the child learns on its own.
The first day it takes longer, sometimes 15 to 20 minutes to sleep train your baby. If this sleep training is done continuously then the child learns everything within 7 to 10 days.
The child realizes that it is night time, there is light music, the lights are also dim and parents are not going to come. So they learn to put themselves back to sleep again.
It may be a little difficult for you to do it first. But those who do it also get the result. And the overall satisfaction is quite very high.
Is it right to give medication to a sleep-deprived child?
Some children harass parents very much at night. So parents ask the doctor, if medication should be fed to the babies to help them sleep.
But doctors do not advise you to take medication. Because the sleeping medications are not safe for your baby. Because when you continue to give medicine, your child will keep sleeping, and when you stop giving medicine, then your child will start awakening again.
That is why if your child is not able to sleep well at night then you can sleep train your baby, but giving sedatives and sleeping pills to such as a small baby is not advisable.
In addition, you should also know that within 1 year of birth, the mother should not sleep in the same bed with the child, but you can put both beds in the same room and slept separately.
Discover the amazing benefits of sleep here.
Conclusion
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