26.02.2019
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Your baby is almost 5 weeks old and you remember how the first month was filled with new emotions, doubts and discoveries for you and your baby? But now you understand your month-old baby better and strive to organize a comfortable daily routine for your child. “What is important to consider at this age? How many hours of sleep and wakefulness is enough for a child?
How to properly organize an approximate feeding schedule for a newborn this month?” - Frequent questions asked by young parents. Let's figure them out together!
Newborn skills in the first month of life
During the first month and the beginning of the second, the newborn demonstrates the ability to concentrate attention on certain objects. In the first month of life, the nervous system actively develops, and the process of synthesizing and differentiating external signals begins.
Physical activity
At 1 month, the child’s motor activity does not have clear coordination, but is already quite well manifested. The muscles are in physiological hypertonicity - fingers in fists, legs bent at the knees. It is important for parents to learn to recognize their baby's body language. Clinical studies in pediatrics have proven that curling of the toes often indicates pain. With the development of colic and bloating, the newborn often actively waves its legs, creating knocking movements.
Visual system
The baby's eyes, as an organ of the visual system, are already fully formed, but vision is not clear enough. The infant has difficulty focusing on objects and can barely see images with their eyes. However, bright, light objects encourage the child to look closely at them. By the end of the fourth week of life, reflexive eye movements appear, and the ability to distinguish the shape and size of objects gradually develops.
Auditory sensory system
In the first month, the newborn develops conditioned reflex reactions to sounds and is already able to recognize the mother’s voice. You can see how a child smiles during a conversation or stops crying when he hears a familiar voice. The external auditory canal in infants, unlike in adults, is located vertically and rather narrow, consists of cartilaginous tissue, which gradually ossifies.
For the first month of life, the child has the following skills
:
- tries to focus his gaze on a person/object;
- notices bright objects, reacts to light;
- if you put a toy in your palm, the baby will quickly grab it and instantly let go;
- knows how to distinguish the mother by the timbre of her voice and smell;
- expresses discomfort, hunger or thirst through crying;
- responds to warm, sensitive, physical contact and care.
1 month old baby's daily routine
The sleep of a newborn baby causes concern and anxiety among young parents. The baby can sleep all day long and be awake at night. Or not sleep at all, “neither day nor night” - waking up at short intervals, demanding the breast. Chaos, the absence of any predictability or routine is the norm for a baby in the first month of life.
In this article we will cover:
— about the peculiarities of sleep and wakefulness of a newborn baby (a child’s daily routine at 1 month)
— about how to navigate the sleep-wake cycles
- what daily routine is optimal for a newborn?
— about what affects the quality of a baby’s sleep
— is there a relationship between the mother’s condition and mood and the baby’s sleep?
Features of a newborn's sleep
Newborn babies sleep a lot, but chaotically! This happens due to the physiological immaturity of the brain.
In the daily routine of a one-month-old baby, the total number of hours of sleep during the day is about 8-9 hours and about the same at night. In total, the baby sleeps 16–18 hours a day. Babies' sleep is very superficial, since 50% of sleep is the active phase, and the synthesis of their own “sleep hormone” melatonin will improve only by the 3rd month of life. For the same reason, children in the first month of life do not distinguish day from night. There is no clear daily routine for babies from birth to 3 months.
It’s too early to talk about clockwork, early bedtime, and specific times for waking up and eating.
What we are used to calling the daily routine in older children, in newborns is more likely the rhythm of sleep and wakefulness - a change in the cycles of feeding and sleep. In a newborn, this cycle is 2-3 hours.
Child's waking time
From birth, a child's waking time can be 20-40 minutes. By the end of the first month, waking time increases and can be up to 60-90 minutes.
It is very important not to overtire your child and watch for signs of fatigue. And remember that the baby’s waking time in the first month includes active and quiet wakefulness, preparation for sleep, ritual and falling asleep.
Quiet wakefulness is very important during this period! Try to avoid visiting noisy and crowded places with your newborn baby. The protective reaction of the nervous system of newborns is to “shut down” at the moment of excessive external stimulation of the nervous system. In noisy places, babies “switch off.” Outwardly, it looks as if the child fell asleep. And parents most often perceive these situations as “nothing special is happening, the child is just sleeping.” But such a dream is not healthy. The child’s nervous system simply cannot withstand the load - light, noise, many people around and “turns off”, and the child does not rest properly.
Child's diet
A newborn’s diet includes only breast milk (for babies on breastfeeding) or formula (for babies on IV).
— The baby’s feeding regimen during the day is feeding once every 1.5-2 hours, if we are talking about breastfeeding
— At night, the baby can wake up about 3 times a night to eat. The stomach is still too small and the baby cannot eat enough to sleep through the night without waking up.
3 feedings per night are enough for the baby to receive nutrition. In practice, babies wake up much more often. This happens because in addition to milk as the basis of nutrition, the baby also needs a mother - her warmth, hugs, smell, voice.
The baby cannot yet be without his mother for a long time, and the baby cannot fall asleep on his own without her - the nervous system is still very immature and the baby needs his mother’s help and her presence.
VIDEO LESSON
Baby sleep from 0 to 3 months
More details
What will help your baby sleep better in the first month?
The baby still cannot calm down on his own, and the parents’ task is to help him with this. The most soothing remedies for a 1 month old baby are sensations reminiscent of the mother’s womb: darkening, “white noise”, slight rocking and squeezing, the proximity and smell of the mother’s mother – breasts, hands, voice
- Close the curtains. The baby does not yet have his own melatonin, but dark curtains allow him to avoid irritating the nervous system with bright light. And also build the association “we sleep in the dark - we are awake in the light”
- Use white noise. Heartbeat, wind or wave noise, you can use a recording with the mother's voice (singing or shushing) if the mother cannot always be present when the child falls asleep and dreams.
- Lightly rocking your baby will help him relax and fall asleep. Just don’t overdo it, too intense motion sickness is dangerous and can damage the baby’s brain.
- Swaddling, if done safely, helps reduce involuntary flinching and improve sleep.
Mom's presence is the most important and most calming association. The first 3 months of life can be considered the “fourth trimester” - full-term pregnancy. Therefore, the mother and her closeness are what the baby really needs both while he is awake and during his dreams.
In addition to a soothing sleep environment, it is very important to maintain a wakeful time and avoid over-exertion. The biggest enemy for a 1 month old baby's sleep is overtiredness. A baby who has “overstayed his welcome” may become overtired, and the cortisol released into the blood will interfere with calming down and falling asleep, it will be difficult to put the baby to bed, and subsequent sleep will be superficial and anxious.
As a guide, use the wakefulness norms for babies at 1 month. But depending on the condition of the baby, time of day, weather conditions, the waking time may change. It is very important for parents to be flexible and take into account the baby's signs of fatigue when putting him to bed.
The condition and mood of the mother greatly affects the baby
Mother and baby are in a very close relationship, this is especially pronounced in the first months of the baby’s life.
The mother is sensitive to her child:
— Mother’s milk can adapt to the baby’s needs, changing its composition.
“The mother’s sleep also changes, becoming seismic - so the mother is always “on the alert”, she can keep an eye on her child even in his sleep.
The baby, in turn, is exactly the same attuned to his mother:
— Any changes in the mother’s condition, physical or emotional, affect the baby.
“When a mother is stressed, her cortisol is passed on to the baby. Cortisol is the main antagonist of melatonin and will interfere with calmness. While the mother’s calm state, the soothing, “endorphin” voice will lull the baby to sleep.
It is very important for a mother to take care of herself and involve loved ones in helping, if possible. When a mother is a resource, she will have much more strength, energy, and warmth to help her baby and be in contact with him. And then her presence alone will not only contribute to the baby’s quality sleep, but also strengthen the attachment between mother and baby. And this is the most important task of the first year of a child’s life.
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DaytimeSleep FrequentWake UpEatingSleep NormsSleep TimeWake ConditionsSleep AssociationsSleep SignsFatigue SignsFatigue SafetySleep JointSleep
