Yesterday claimed the normality of babies who sleep through the night, a fact of sleeping at a stretch that is not as strange, from a certain age, as it may seem. But just as there are no problems in a baby waking up several times at night, we were wondering if there is any problem in the baby sleeping all night.
First of all, it should be noted that newborns do not sleep all night long or often, unless they have a health problem. In the first weeks of the baby's life there is no established long sleep pattern, and there are continuous awakenings and sleep states throughout the day and night.
Gradually these babies will differentiate the day-night cycle and establish longer sleep patterns. Therefore, by saying "babies who sleep all night" we mean the little ones who, once they reach three or four months of age, when the fastest sleep regulation occurs, they have developed enough to sleep several hours at night.
This does not mean that after a couple of months they start waking up again, something that is also normal. Actually, it should be clarified that, as happens to adults, these babies who sleep so much wake up several times throughout the night, although not enough to realize it.
A baby who sleeps all night is calm, does not need to feed and rest. So, can there be anything harmful in the fact of sleeping so many hours in a row?
What is the problem with sleeping all night?
Against all odds, it seems that there may be some inconvenience in the fact that the baby sleeps all night. I have already commented that my two daughters have been examples of babies who usually sleep all night, starting around four months of age. Even before, they already established very long night sleep cycles.
But there came a time when I began to worry because my daughters slept at a stretch, many hours from a very young age. The reason was that by four to five months of age they stopped gaining weight, a considerable break of several weeks.
Both were breastfed on demand (the little one still is), but they didn't wake up to breastfeed. There seemed to be no problem throughout the day in their shots, except in the last shot of the day, at night (at 9:22 p.m., 11 p.m., 24 p.m. ... they weren't "watch"), when I began to notice that they were staying hungry, they demanded more chest and cried.
Less night shots, less milk
Well, as we are seeing these days, there are certain reasons for a child not to get enough breast milk, and among them is the low frequency of feeding (hence the recommendation that breastfeeding be on demand) or that The baby does not take night shots. A lower breast stimulation, lower milk production.
A posteriori (and a priori, I attest) it is very difficult to know if that insufficient increase in weight of my daughters during those months was because they slept all night, and it is not easy to find a solution to avoid it, just in case it was.
I asked myself several times to wake up the girls so they could breastfeed, but, apart from the fact that I was very sad to see them sleep so peacefully and interrupt their sleep, the times I did it, they barely caught their chest, falling asleep and not sucking in a short time. . Nor will they be very hungry, I thought ...
We can say that during those months, they slept all night with me, in the cradle next to the bed, and it was I who made the awakenings, until the complementary feeding began, other problems were ruled out as an infection, and they began to gain weight
However, despite all the above, it is also possible to find sources that ensure that the fact that a baby does not breastfeed all night does not have to affect breastfeeding, since it is regulated to offer what the baby you need throughout the day, in the rest of the shots (in fact, it is logical to think that if the baby does not breastfeed at night it is because he does not need it).
Definitely, if there is any problem in the baby sleeping through the night This would be that the production of breast milk can decrease as there is no stimulation of suction and the discharge of oxytocin during these night hours. In addition, it is with the night shots when more prolactin is secreted and milk production increases, which is very beneficial for the baby to suck at night.
Photos | Peat Bakke and Christy Scherrer on Flickr More information | Aeped, Kidshealth On Babies and more | The continuous waking of midnight, The phases of baby's sleep, It is healthy for babies to wake up at night (Part One), When do babies sleep all night?
