Needless to say, the importance of sleep for babies. During this precious time, the baby's body grows and develops. As a rule, parents face difficulties in children's sleep. Few can boast that the baby does without lulling in his arms.
There are many factors that affect a child's sound and restful sleep. Colic, bloating, teething can cause various problems. But with the correct position of the child, these problems are easily solved.
Adult muscles also adapt
This method is often used to allow babies to sleep deeper rather than from uncontrollable sleep twitching. This reflex, however, is very important for the development of the child. In addition, scientists suspect that sleep cramps do more than just affect infant development. In fact, even adults seem to benefit from it. Bloomberg suggests that even adult bodies can adjust their sensorimotor system by twitching in sleep. “We are all growing, we are taking off, we are training in strength and learning new skills,” Bloomberg says. "All of this requires a recalibration of our sensorimotor system."
Sleep conditions can also be a major factor. If the crib and bedding comply with the basic sanitary requirements, and the humidity and air temperature of the nursery is normal, you should pay attention to how you taught your baby to fall asleep. It is much more difficult to deal with the bad habits of your baby, those habits that his parents awarded him. Lulling, rocking, carrying, using toys and pacifiers, falling asleep in an upright position only at the initial stage bring joy. Every day your baby is rapidly gaining weight and carrying in your arms is already becoming a problem.
What to do?
The next time you watch your baby while he holds his hands in his sleep, you can be sure that your baby is just learning to move again. That the little ones, as long as they get acquainted with their movement, have a sweet dream, cannot be ruled out.
My baby is not sleeping - what should I do?
Is your child not sleeping or passing? When kids stay up at night and find it hard to rest during the day, it's a stress test for parents. You can learn how to help your baby sleep.
Always ready - baby don't sleep
The fact that a newborn does not sleep is completely normal: in the first few weeks, your baby does not have a normal daily rhythm. He wakes up when he is hungry and goes to sleep when he is tired. Babies rarely sleep more than 5 hours at a time during this time.The child falls asleep only in his arms: advantages and disadvantages
Your baby has a phenomenal memory for things related to you. Mother's smell, facial features and body warmth are so necessary in the early days in an aggressive environment. If for nine months the baby communicated only with his mother, then in our world the most comfortable and safe place for him is near his mother. Therefore, sleep in your arms comes very quickly and for a long time.
The reason is that their stomach is still very small and they are hungry again after 5 hours. First of all, still grandmothers are starving again because mother's milk is digested faster than bottled milk. Only after the third month of life, your child begins to get used to the daily rhythm.
Good conditions for healthy sleep
Find out what you can do here. In order for your child to fall asleep quickly and find the right rhythm, the following prerequisites must be met. Fatigue can be recognized by the fact that the child turns his head, has red eyes, or yawns. If such signs are not detected in time, children do not have time to fall asleep and get tired and irritated. Often gently stroking the head or hand on the abdomen so that the child can fall asleep again. A regular routine with rituals and routines helps babies get used to the day and night rhythm. She is tired. At night, you should only put on subdued lights, speak softly, and don't want to miss out on fun and games. Sleep like a music cabinet or sleep member will help your baby fall asleep gently and help him sleep. You must give up rituals that you cannot bear in the long run.
- In this state, it is very difficult for them to sleep.
- In the first few weeks, your baby needs a lot of attention, even at night.
- This does not mean that you have to wear it all night.
This type of sleep also has its benefits:
- The most correct and comfortable position for your baby.
- The baby falls asleep quickly, you do not waste time lulling him to sleep.
- Psychological aspect: in addition to a sense of security and comfort, the baby is in close contact with his mother. What can affect the early development of your child.
But in communication between mother and child, there is a line that should not be crossed. The consequences can be unpleasant for both parents and the baby.
Help your child develop normal sleep and the rhythm of awakening. Bloody mistakes and sleep rituals are very important orienting aids. Examples of meaningful sleep rituals that are independent of parents are: a music box that can be completed or that starts and stops again in the event of an appropriate noise, a handkerchief that is chewed, turning one's own hair, Familiar sounds and smells from the apartment, from the parents' neighborhood etc. such sleeping rituals from the very beginning in the sleep process make it easier for the baby to sleep so much.
The disadvantages of "lulling on hands" are obvious:
- Mom's health: the weight of the baby gradually increases, which leads to a load on your back. Closer to the year, women who practiced "sleeping on their hands" had problems with the spine.
- The longer you use this type of sleep, the more difficult it will be to wean the baby from the arms. the more likely in further development"Children's fears" and the child can "settle" in your bed for a long time.
- Motion sickness, sleeping on your arms affects the development of the vestibular apparatus and turns into a bad habit over the years for your child.
The negative aspects of this type of sleep are very convincing.
In case of rapid awakening Environment familiar and does not need the help of parents to feel familiar. Choose sleep rituals that you can keep while you sleep, because when you fall asleep, children are very dependent on constantly repeating, constant ones. Everything in the dormant, rapidly changing, only confuses. If your child is used to these rituals, you certainly don't have to change them all the time.
Equally important is that the child can get used to his permanent sleeping place. The light in the bedroom should be significantly humidified at night. When the baby is crying, try to calm him down without taking him out of bed first. Keep lights off and avoid loud noises.
Good to know: with the advent of small dick families, a huge burden falls on the fragile women's shoulders. Physical and emotional overwork, lack of sleep can lead to the development of various psychosomatic diseases.
In the first days of life, mothers just want not to let go of their baby, to cuddle and hug, to give all the warmth of feelings and love. It is in this short term the baby becomes dependent on your hands. What to do if the habit is firmly rooted in your child?
Never play with your child at night. Commonly practiced tricks are driving in a car, feathering before falling, moving to the parent's bed, preventing the baby from developing a sleep strategy on its own. When a child begins to mix sleep with certain activities, it is difficult for him to do without them. He needs you like sleep.
We rarely consciously experience these brief phases of awakening consciously and then quickly fall back asleep. A child who cries in his sleep does not need to be fed. Sometimes it is enough to bite the child's head and show him that his parents are close, and he can sleep again.
The child sleeps only in his arms: what to do?
By following simple rules, you can avoid the problem of "sleeping in your arms":
- A separate sleeping place for a child from the first days of life is a prerequisite. For sleep, put the baby in the crib. At first, be with him. Put your hand, the baby will feel the warmth of your body and calm down.
- Stroking the baby, the presence during sleep on early stages necessarily. Over time, reduce the interval of stay near the crib, increase the distance between you and the baby. Mom is enough to be in the same room with the child.
- The cry of a child. As soon as the baby cries in the crib, in no case take it in your arms. Come up, talk in a calm and affectionate tone, stroke, try to calm the baby without picking it up. If within 7 minutes the crying does not stop - take it on your hands.
- Lactation. baby after breast milk sleeps very well. It is important to put the baby in the crib immediately after feeding and stay close. If your baby falls asleep in his arms for several days, the weaning process will become more and more difficult.
How to wean a baby from hands:
- Use a sling, gradually the baby will get used to falling asleep outside of your hands.
- By wrapping the baby in a thick blanket, you can avoid waking up when shifting to the crib. But remember, during sleep, the baby should be in free space. Therefore, already in the crib, straighten the blanket.
- Stay close to the baby and tactile contact facilitate falling asleep. The weaning process can be carried out in several stages. Experts recommend that you first put the baby on your stomach, after a while (for example, the next day) place it next to you, then put it in the crib and sit next to you, stroking the baby. After a few days just sit around. It is important that the baby hears your voice and feels his mother nearby.
- Motion sickness on a fitball is recommended for those mothers who want to prevent spinal diseases. Fitball helps to distribute the weight correctly throughout the back. This option will not wean the child from falling asleep in his arms, but will help make your work easier.
- Usage special soap and a decoction of herbs for bathing the baby. Natural ingredients will help calm the baby. Thus, the baby falls asleep faster.
Of course, you should not ignore your baby's crying. You should always make sure your baby is healthy, hungry, or in need of fresh diapers. In case of bad misses and misses, try to establish the same day and night rhythm as possible.
If your child is drinking more than 230 ml of fluid at 6 months of age or should be breastfed several times longer, you should talk to your pediatrician. In some children, parents find that their child is rocking or falling rhythmically. It is supposed that in this way the children calm down, as when wearing. Even if these children sometimes hit their heads against the railing or the head of the bed, which is frightened by their parents, they almost never get sick. Our protective instinct ensures that we do not harm ourselves.
There are a lot of ways to wean your baby from falling asleep in your arms. Be prepared for a long process and be patient.
Important: experts in the field of pediatrics and child psychology do not recommend accustoming a child to hands.
But mother's love takes precedence over common sense and we purposefully help in the development bad habit. Thus making your life more difficult.
Therefore, you should not line baby cribs with soft nests. This is a risk because the baby could "bury" the head in the nest and thus fall into a state of overbreathing or rebreathing. From about four years of age, compared to most children, the darkening "in sleep" is reduced.
Violent, prolonged screaming bouts of discomfort in the child and crushing of the new parent, especially when they occur over and over again for several weeks. Symptoms usually begin 2 to 3 weeks after birth, often occur between a week and a week, and disappear within the third month of life. Inadequate withdrawal, too hasty drinking, or overly deliberate colloidal nutrition can lead to typical young child symptoms in addition to increased intestinal gas, high-grade stomach acid, or psychosomatic causes.
Rocking a baby in her arms or not is the choice of every mother. But forgetting about your health, you also complicate the life of the baby. Remember, children need healthy parents.
Video what to do if the child falls asleep only in his arms
Only in rare cases is a real allergy to cow's milk hidden behind complaints that often occur at the end of the day or in the evening. It is much more common for a baby to swallow too much air with the food when bottle fed.
It is recommended to use special bottles with valve cleaners, store the milk carefully and let it stand out a little so that the air escapes. Breastfeeding mothers should discuss the problem with a pediatrician, midwife or nurse. Perhaps with a change in care technique, the baby can be prevented from taking in too much air.
A newborn eats and sleeps almost all the time - these are his main “duties”. And in both situations, you can’t do without a mother, who should feed the baby and put him to bed.
If you cannot make any improvements with these simple recommendations you should definitely contact your pediatrician. Today, however, it must be seen that this is somewhat more differentiated, because behind the "permanent scythe" one can hide a not entirely unpleasant anxiety. When the acid contents of the stomach enter the esophagus and further into the larynx, irritation of the laryngeal nerve can lead to airway occlusion.
For example, the child cries again after eating in the flat storage and slips well in the child's seat or in the child's rocker, thus, with the upper body raised, it is good and longer. Everything but no sleeping position! Please do not put your baby on your stomach for sleep or stomach pain, even if your pediatrician has recommended it. A warm surface is absolutely prohibited due to the risk of violating children's rights. Cherry pickets are a good alternative. However, never use it in sleeping babies, because it overheats during sleep due to such a warm-up.
But what should a tired woman do if the baby falls asleep only on the arms and immediately wakes up as soon as she is in the crib.
Mommy can’t have a normal rest, do homework or do her own things, and constantly thinks about how to wean the child to sleep in her arms and why the baby is calm only next to the mother’s body.
To solve this problem, it is important to get the advice of experts.
When a child is awake, a bag of cherry stone can be a blessing for an agonizing "bloom". Diluted cumin, fennel and anisel are used to rub the abdomen. Also teas such as fennel, cumin, anise and lemon balm sometimes provide relief because they have spasm. Plant-based alcohol products are not suitable for children.
We need to understand a few things when talking about a sleeping baby.
If your child has a fever, vomiting or diarrhea, or signs of a gastrointestinal tract, contact your pediatrician! A child may wake up for many reasons during the night: he may be hungry, begging for love because he is uncomfortable or in pain, but also because he is awake, wants to go back to sleep and does not know how to do it alone. It is clear that families have many different circumstances that can make the best choice, and ideal conditions can be called optimal. First, the instinctive way babies sleep involves their parents in their ritual.
Immediately after conception, the baby creates the closest physical and emotional bond with the mother, which lasts all nine months of being in the stomach. It is not surprising that the baby requires the continuation of maternal intimacy after childbirth. It is this completely natural need that underlies the desire to fall asleep in my mother's arms. 
Especially if you take milk on demand, mother. But there are situations when parents need to rest in order to change this instinct. One of the most common causes is the start of the mother's work after the end of maternal leave. In Spain, this fall is clearly too short. The recommended item should at least have arrived by 6 months.
Before that, there are those who say: "The priority is the well-being of the child, and the parents - to sacrifice." But please, let's be a little less radical and understand that if the parents do not get the minimum amount of rest, it will negatively affect the child. Many still prefer to say that the best way is for the parents to sacrifice themselves, because the alternative in Spain has been quite aggressive for many years.
- It is not in vain that a monthly baby strives to constantly touch mother's skin, to be near her breasts, to feel her warmth. Experts are confident in the benefits of such a dream, because, according to scientific data, a baby who had such a close relationship up to 6 months develops better, grows up to be a more successful and self-sufficient person.
- For a newborn, the whole universe is in the mother. The baby, accustomed in a few months to feeling one with the mother, experiences real stress when moving into a completely unknown environment. The refusal to fall asleep in the crib is due to the fear of the newborn, and the desire to constantly be near the desire to feel the voice and warmth of a woman.
- In the abdomen of the baby, various “incidents” occur all the time - colic, swelling. And at 6-8 months, the baby is faced with the first teeth, you must admit that during such periods he quite reasonably does not want to let his mother go day or night. That is why a child, at a month, and at three months, and at six months, falls asleep only when mommy shakes him in her arms, and wakes up only when he finds himself in a crib.
There is also an opinion that the baby gets used to this way of falling asleep, if you constantly hold it in your arms in the first weeks after birth, rocking it and laying it next to you.
So, we found out that the newborn calms down, feeling the mother's scent, feeling her skin. That is why the habit of falling asleep in your arms is formed very quickly and for a long time.
Experts are in a hurry to reassure the mother, who has a “tame” baby settled in the family.
Turns out, similar dream has certain advantages:
- Being in the "cradle" from the mother's hands, the monthly baby takes a comfortable position, repeating the one that was in the female stomach.
- When breast baby is in the arms, then falls asleep much faster than in the crib. This means that a woman does not need to waste time lulling her to sleep.
- In addition to feeling safe and comfortable, newborns get close contact with their mother. This has a very positive effect on the development of the baby.
And yet, in the interaction of mother and little one, there is such a border that should not be crossed.
If you do not pay attention to the fact that the child sleeps only in his arms, there may be unpleasant consequences for the baby and mother.
The disadvantages of falling asleep in your arms are probably familiar to every woman who finds herself in a similar situation:
- The body weight of the baby is constantly increasing. If a child weighs about 4.5 kilograms per month, then at four months the weight is already approaching 6.5 kg. By the age of one, women who practiced “manual” sleep begin to suffer from back and stomach pains.
- If you rock the baby both day and night for several months, then it will be extremely. The baby will smoothly move from your hands to the parent's bed, and a new "epopee" of accustoming to the crib will begin.
- Constant motion sickness can adversely affect the formation of the vestibular apparatus.
In addition, constantly lacking sleep, a woman gets a whole "bouquet" of psychosomatic diseases, dissatisfaction with motherhood and problems in relations with her husband. This is not far from more serious problems.
In the first weeks, mothers often hug the beloved baby to themselves, do not want to put it in the crib, strive to give all their warmth and love. It is at this time that the child's dependence on motion sickness appears.
What should be done if the "manual" baby cries when laid in the crib?
A tired mother, day and night, carrying a baby, before putting him to bed, asks the same painful question: “What should I do - I put him to bed, and he immediately wakes up and cries?”
Psychologists do not recommend instantly limiting bodily contact with the baby, but advise providing communication in other ways.
- Try to take the baby on the arms more often during the day, during his activity. For this purpose, you can purchase a sling - a bandage for carrying a child. In such a "handbag" the monthly peanut is like in the stomach - it presses against the mother's body, feels her warmth. At the same time, its weight is evenly distributed along the maternal spine, so the load is not so high.
- Not quite unambiguous advice is co-sleeping with a baby. Newborns are more likely to calm down if they sleep next to their mother at a month or older. It is believed that the need for a constant presence in the arms is reduced when the baby falls asleep during the day, at night on the parent's bed.
- If, for some reason, falling asleep together with the child is unacceptable, it is necessary to design the children's bed in a different way. Forgo an overly large bed for an infant's body in favor of a compact bassinet. The baby in this case will feel as if in a mother's stomach.
- Another method is swaddling. In the mother's belly, the child lay in a special position, pressing his arms and legs to his body. Not feeling barriers and boundaries near him, the baby in the first month is worried, crying and is not able to fall asleep without strong mother's hands.
- Mother's clothes smell like breasts, milk, which is why experts recommend putting their things next to a child falling asleep in a crib. When the baby smells a familiar aroma, it closes its eyes much faster and wakes up less often. Of course, it is important to make sure that the clothes do not cover the baby's face, otherwise there will be a risk of suffocation.
Of course, the listed methods will not instantly relieve a woman from motion sickness of the baby at bedtime. However, they are able to free mother's hands, give her more time to rest, especially during the day.
Dr. Komarovsky considers the constant motion sickness of the baby to be a kind of parental masochism. month old baby can't help but fall asleep.
If he does not fall asleep for several hours, wakes up when you put him in the crib, then there are certain problems with the daily routine and the organization of the process of falling asleep.
You need to see what kind of pajamas he is calm in, at what temperature he closes his eyes faster. Then the situation will be resolved.
This is likely to happen, however, as other experts are sure, there are absolutely no positive aspects in such a situation.
A baby whose natural needs have been ignored for several months does not develop basic trust in the world around them, which, as a result, can come back to haunt much later.
If mommy firmly decided to use these recommendations and in this way wean the baby from falling asleep in her arms, you should definitely track the time and accustom the baby consistently and gradually.
You can not leave a tearful toddler alone with anxiety and fears for a long time. At first, five minutes is enough, then the baby should be taken on the handles and pressed tightly to you.
If the child sleeps only in his arms and you have absolutely no idea what to do with it, try to think for a moment about a simple thought - this situation is not forever.
The children outgrow the vast majority of their habits, they will definitely “grow up” from this “manual” position. And years later, the dissatisfied mother will begin to recall with nostalgia how the little peanut asked for her arms and tried to comfortably sit on her stomach.
Perhaps it is worth looking for some plus in this situation, of course, trying at the same time to resolve such a situation in soft ways?
Hello, I'm Nadezhda Plotnikova. Having successfully studied at SUSU as a special psychologist, she devoted several years to working with children with developmental problems and advising parents on raising children. I apply the experience gained, among other things, in the creation of psychological articles. Of course, by no means do I pretend to be the ultimate truth, but I hope that my articles will help dear readers deal with any difficulties.