The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) states that babies this age should get 12 to 16 hours of sleep every 24 hours, including a long sleep period that they jerk at night. The average time a baby sleeps in daylight hours is approximately three to four hours.
How Should Babies Sleep?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends room-sharing with the baby without sharing a bed with him until his first birthday or at least six months old.
Room sharing with your baby consists of putting your baby down in a crib, crib, or bassinet in his parents’ room, rather than letting him sleep in a separate room. This allows the baby to be close at night and facilitates feeding and the possibility of comforting and supervising him at night.
Although sharing a room with your baby is safe, putting your baby to sleep in the bed next to you is not. Sharing a bed with a baby increases the risk of SIDS and other sleep-related deaths.
Follow these tips to keep your little one’s sleeping environment safe:
- Always Put Your Baby On His Back (On His Back) To Sleep; never put him on his stomach (on the abdomen) or his side. The SIDS rate has dropped a lot since the AAP introduced this recommendation in 1992. Once the baby learns to roll over, going from face up to face down and vice versa, it is okay for them to remain in the sleeping position that he has to choose.
- Be On The Lookout For Other Dangers. Avoid items with cords, twine, or ribbons that can wrap around the baby’s neck and objects of any kind with sharp corners or edges. Take a good look at objects that your baby might touch while sitting or standing on the crib. Mobile phones hanging over the crib, wall decorations such as paintings and tapestries, and blind cords can be dangerous if they are within the baby’s reach.
How To Help Your Baby Sleep
They may have already started a routine for your baby’s bedtime and are following it to the letter. If you haven’t started it yet, now is a good time to start. Calming activities that guide you to the night and rest can help your baby relax. A hot bath, followed by a story or a song, will signal the end of the day; and you can use the same activities for years to come.
You want your baby to fall asleep on his own. That means you should apply the routine of putting him to bed and leaving the baby in the crib while he is sleepy but still awake. If the baby cries, stay away from him for a few minutes. You may calm down on your own and go to sleep.
If he continues to cry, go back to him and calm him down without removing him from the crib. This can be repeated several times until your baby realizes that crying is not working for him; that is to say, it is not useful to be taken out of the cradle. This can be hard on parents because they dislike having to listen to their babies cry. If you know that your child is safe (not hungry, not wet or dirty, and not unwell), it is okay to leave him alone for a while to calm down.