What is the reason why babies don’t sleep well?

Many people hope to have a good sleep after a day's work. But once you have a baby, taking care of the baby to sleep at night becomes a difficult task for many friends. Because many babies often wake up after sleeping for a while at night, which will also make adults sleep poorly. So, let’s take a look at the reasons why babies don’t sleep well.

1. Why do babies wake up? Because they should wake up...

Peter Fleming, professor of infant health and developmental psychology at the University of Bristol, said the idea that babies should sleep through the night was a 20th-century tradition and that it was normal for them to wake up spontaneously from time to time. Parents always think that sleep is the best way for babies to grow, but babies do not need to sleep for a long time. There is no clear evidence to show the correctness of this view, although this is not a view that most parents can accept.

2. In fact, even adults find it difficult to sleep through the night.

Darcia F. Narvaez, a psychology professor at the University of Notre Dame, said parents have a misconception that "people usually get eight hours of sleep," but they just forget they woke up in the middle of the night. Adults can sleep eight hours at night because they are busy working during the day, but if you look back at history you will find that this view is wrong. For example, ancient people only slept two hours a day when they were hunting.

3. Compared with other animals, human babies are "premature" in their development process. They need close contact with the external environment or an external womb to complete their own development.

"Human babies are born prematurely compared to other animals," Narvaez said. Unlike other animals, which are able to walk on all fours and start eating soon after birth, human babies are unable to do so. Therefore, human babies need a quiet environment after birth to complete the development of the remaining 75% of their brain. They need an environment like their mother's womb to smoothly develop the rest of their brain.

4. Babies who wake up easily usually have higher intellectual development levels and better mental states.

Fleming discovered that "infants with higher developmental and intellectual abilities tend to wake up more at night." And Narvaez said that infants who interact more with their parents at night grow up to be more loving, self-disciplined, and kind. Other studies have shown that such babies have stronger cognitive abilities when they grow up and are less likely to suffer from depression.

▼It is not necessarily a good thing for a child to sleep through the night.

5. Babies’ sleep cycles are shorter than adults’.

Fleming said adults typically have sleep cycles of 90 minutes, after which they wake up and fall asleep again quickly. In fact, we will wake up two or three times briefly before we are fully awake, but we may not realize it. Babies only have a 60-minute sleep cycle, which means they wake up more often than we do and have a harder time falling asleep again than we do. This makes it difficult for babies to get a full night's sleep, and this is perfectly normal for babies.

6. Parents should remain calm and not try to stop their babies from crying, as they sometimes cry just to release their own stress.

A 2011 study showed that when parents let their babies face night wakings alone through "sleep training" and "self-cry control", although the babies will eventually stop crying, the stress on the parents is reduced, but the babies themselves are more stressed. Narvaez explained that babies' bodies go through a cycle when they sleep. First, they feel comfortable, but then their body stress increases due to the increase in hormones. At this time, they need their parents' calm company to train their self-control ability to keep their emergency response ability at a stable level. If the parents are not with their children at this time, it will affect the baby's sympathetic nervous system and lead to extreme psychological development. The baby may become an anxious person or a psychologically dark person.

7. The baby wakes up in the middle of the night just to get the parents' attention.

Fleming said that babies usually like to sleep during the day, and 6pm to early morning is the time when they stay awake. In fact, this is a big advantage compared to other species. Babies can get more attention from their parents by doing this, and the level of attention is much higher than at other times. From a biological point of view, what your baby is doing is normal and reasonable, it's just not what we expect.

▼The baby may be crying just to get the attention of his parents.

8. Parents should never be away from their baby, whether in another room or in the same bed.

Fleming explained that if we look back at human evolution history, we will find that babies and mothers are inseparable, and infants are always kept by their mothers. Fleming has done a lot of research in Africa and other places. The local babies are cared for by their mothers at all times. Babies cared for in this way will sleep when they should sleep and wake up when they should wake up. They will not stay in sleep for a long time, and such close care is also conducive to breastfeeding. This is also true for babies in many other parts of the world who do not sleep for long periods of time. On the contrary, babies who are kept alone in a room are much more likely to suffer from sudden infant death syndrome than babies who are accompanied by their mothers.

9. Sleeping next to your baby is a form of care that is used all over the world. Babies will cry when they don't get attention, but many parents don't know this.

Countries around the world agree that sleeping with your baby is the right thing to do; and those who say that sleeping with your baby is wrong and that your baby waking up during the night will lead to lack of sleep are simply unfounded nonsense. After 500,000 years of evolution, 90% of human babies can get enough sleep on weekdays. Fleming also advises that it is difficult for parents who are busy at work to maintain close companionship, but they should stay with their babies as much as possible.

10. Although your baby's crying when waking up at night may wake you up and make you anxious, this is normal.

Fleming said that babies need close supervision from their parents throughout the night and timely feeding, and doing these things is not beyond our ability. Parents should understand that the development of society is much faster than the evolution of species. The biological pattern that has been maintained for 500,000 years cannot be changed immediately, and sudden changes are not conducive to the baby's own development.

In fact, there are many reasons why your baby doesn't sleep well at night. If the baby is frightened during the day, he or she will not be able to sleep well at night. Parents should also pay more attention to their baby's sleeping habits, and not ignore finding solutions just because it is a small matter. If the cause is found, it will be of great help to the baby's sleep.