Unless your doctor or child and family health nurse has told you otherwise, there's no need to wake your baby for feeds. And at night, the best option might be settling your baby straight back to sleep after feeds, rather than trying to play.
New babies often get tired after being awake just an hour or two. The first few weeks, your baby will snooze about 16 hours a day, usually in 2- to 4-hour stretches, any time of day or night. Many will fall asleep while they're eating or sucking, and that's just fine.
Once the feeding is complete, you keep your baby awake until it's time to sleep. That could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours depending on your kiddo's age.
If you're breastfeeding, the milk is digested quickly. That means a baby can wake up hungry and ready to fill their belly. Hunger is a common reason babies wake during the night. Babies need to eat to grow, so it's not healthy to try and change this need or retrain it.
Another helpful strategy is to get your baby in the habit of falling asleep in their crib rather than while feeding. When you notice them getting sleepy at the breast or bottle, stop the feeding, burp them for a minute or so, and then put them down to sleep. The younger you start this, the easier it is to do.
What makes a baby sleepy? Recovering from birth: In the first few days, some babies are sleepy or uninterested in feeding. It's especially true for small babies, after a difficult labour or birth, or if you received drugs for pain relief during labour. Jaundice or an infection may make a baby sleepy.
Chronic sleepiness, though, can sometimes be a cause for concern. If your newborn is regularly sleeping for more than 17 hours a day and it's interfering with her ability to eat at least eight times per day, you should let your pediatrician know.
That's because overtired babies have a harder time settling down for sleep, sleep only intermittently and wake up more often throughout the night. The result? Overtired babies tend to sleep less and sleep less well, making them more tired, which continues the tired-overtired cycle.
Some research shows that infants tend to sleep more during the days when they're experiencing a growth spurt in length. But it's also common for babies to wake up more often to demand a feeding, and some babies can go through a sleep regression during this time.
Wake your baby every 3–4 hours to eat until he or she shows good weight gain, which usually happens within the first couple of weeks. After that, it's OK to let your baby sleep for longer periods of time at night.
While the cause of SIDS is unknown, many clinicians and researchers believe that SIDS is associated with problems in the ability of the baby to arouse from sleep, to detect low levels of oxygen, or a buildup of carbon dioxide in the blood. When babies sleep face down, they may re-breathe exhaled carbon dioxide.
SIDS has no symptoms or warning signs. Babies who die of SIDS seem healthy before being put to bed. They show no signs of struggle and are often found in the same position as when they were placed in the bed.
SIDS is most common at 2-4 months of age when the cardiorespiratory system of all infants is in rapid transition and therefore unstable. So, all infants in this age range are at risk for dysfunction of neurological control of breathing.
White noise reduces the risk of SIDS.
A relatively famous study (famous if you read a lot about baby sleep, so honestly you should be a little proud if you haven't heard of it) showed that babies had a significant reduction in the risk of SIDS if they had a fan in their room.
It may be because babies don't sleep as deeply when they have a pacifier, which helps wake them up if they're having trouble breathing. A pacifier also keeps the tongue forward in the mouth, so it can't block the airway.
Most SIDS deaths happen in babies between 1 and 4 months old, and cases rise during cold weather. Babies might have a higher risk of SIDS if: their mother smoked, drank, or used drugs during pregnancy and after birth. their mother had poor prenatal care.
SIDS is less common after 8 months of age, but parents and caregivers should continue to follow safe sleep practices to reduce the risk of SIDS and other sleep-related causes of infant death until baby's first birthday. More than 90% of all SIDS deaths occur before 6 months of age.
The peak incidence of SIDS occurs between 1 – 4 months of age; 90% of cases occur before 6 months of age. Babies continue to be at risk for SIDS up to 12 months.
SIDS and SUDI are rare and the risk of your baby dying from it is very low. The rate of SIDS deaths has declined in Australia due to safe sleeping campaigns. In 2017, 6 babies in every 100,000 died of SIDS. Most deaths happen during the first 3 months of a baby's life.
Overheating may increase the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) in babies one month to one year of age. Many experts recommend that the temperature in the room where a baby's sleeps be kept between 68–72°F (20–22.2°C).
Oftentimes, babies who succumb to SIDS have had a “minor infection” in the days before death. Infants' immune systems are immature, and breast milk helps to provide necessary antibodies to fight infections such as RSV, which can contribute to inflammation and lead to SIDS. Breastfeeding promotes safer sleep.
The amount of sleep an infant gets at any one stretch of time is mostly ruled by hunger. Newborns will wake up and want to be fed about every three to four hours at first. Do not let your newborn sleep longer than five hours at a time in the first five to six weeks.
A baby occasionally sleeping for longer than usual is not a cause for concern unless there are other symptoms. In general, it is uncommon for a newborn to consistently sleep through feedings or to sleep for longer than 19 hours per day unless they are ill or are having feeding difficulties.
Your baby's development at three weeks old
You could start with a bedtime routine: bath, feed, sing/cuddle and sleep at the same time each evening. Do the last feed with dimmed lights, and also the night-time feeds. Keep night-time feeds low-key with not too much eye contact or stimulation.