The child does not sleep well at night. What to do if something goes wrong

child in once again didn't sleep at night? Are your nerves strained to the limit, and again you haven’t had enough sleep and are exhausted trying to calm your child? It's so familiar! Let's look at the reasons for poor sleep to find out why children under one year old may have trouble sleeping at night. What exactly is bothering your child and what to do about it? Find out the most common sources of sleep disturbance in children, and effective advice in order to fight this.

Why does my child sleep poorly at night?

• Intestinal colic. This unpleasant phenomenon often worries newborn babies: painful sensations in the abdominal area, bloating and discomfort. The child is restless, cries loudly, twitches his arms and draws his legs closer to his body ();
• Children's fears. They first begin to bother children after the first year of life. The child may be afraid to be alone in dark room, he may be frightened by extraneous noises or sounds coming from the street, fear that his mother is not around and she may not return;
• Premature placement in a separate large bed. Sometimes parents are in too much of a hurry with this. And the baby may be uncomfortable sleeping in a big bed alone, he is not ready for this yet;
• Teething. Many children do not cope well with the teething stage. The gums become inflamed, sore and itchy, and at night, when toys and games do not distract the child, these sensations intensify and cause more discomfort ();
• Not comfortable conditions. The nursery may be too stuffy or cold. It is possible that the mattress on the children's bed is too hard or, on the contrary, too soft ();
• Overwork and overexcitement. If the child was very excited and active in the evening before bedtime, then it will be more difficult for him to calm down in bed, and the sleep will be intermittent and not deep;
• Cold, fever or pain. Children have a harder time sleeping at night when they are sick. Due to the high temperature, the whole body can ache unpleasantly, and nasal congestion or cough does not allow you to rest properly at night, irritates and worries you;
• Meteosensitivity. Some children react sharply to changes in weather, to an approaching thunderstorm, or to the approaching full moon. With a sudden change in weather, the child may become lethargic, passive, and sometimes headache and blood pressure decreases. All this interferes with a good night's rest;
• New stages of development. A child can have bad sleep even after new achievements! For example, after a child began to sit or walk, roll over, crawl, etc., in general, he learned something new;
• An abundance of emotional experiences. Sleep problems can begin due to severe stress, nervous feelings, or large quantity emotions. Many children sleep poorly after meeting new people, moving, or even going to an entertainment center;
• Fear of losing mom. Young children may experience the period of their first independence in different ways. Some become very restless, cry and get scared, even if the mother goes into another room or into the kitchen for a short time. It is difficult for a child to sleep at night if his mother is not around;
• Breasts begin to sleep worse at night if the mother suddenly begins to reduce daytime feedings and attachments. The baby will require the breast longer and more often at night;
• Something is preventing the child from falling asleep. A running TV can disturb your baby's sleep. Having the light on will also prevent your child from falling asleep normally at night.
• With a lack of vitamin D in the child's body . A lack of this vitamin can also negatively affect night sleep. Necessary analysis can be taken at a children's clinic, and if the test reveals a vitamin D deficiency, the pediatrician will advise giving the baby special vitamin drops (usually they also contain calcium for better absorption).

How to achieve restful sleep?

We have familiarized ourselves with the main reasons, and now it’s time to learn valuable tips in order to normalize your child’s night sleep:

• Don't let your child become overtired! This always has a very negative effect on the duration and depth of night sleep. The child should be tired, but not overtired!
• It is very helpful to do the same steps every day before going to bed. This kind of ritual will help the child quickly tune into a calm mood and relax the psyche. For example, you can play calming songs for your child before bed, read children's stories, collect toys with him and put them in their place. You can choose or come up with an optimal ritual suitable for your child. It is important to maintain regularity and perform these steps every time before going to bed at night ();
• Pay attention to how your child behaves after an evening bath. If after washing he becomes cheerful and immediately runs to play, then soothing decoctions of healing herbs, aromatic drops and essential oils. For example, an infusion of lemon balm leaves, mint or chamomile flowers will help relax the child’s psyche and relieve overexcitement;
• It is important that the children's room has a comfortable temperature. And shortly before going to bed, it is worth ventilating the room so that the child has a deep night's sleep and can easily breathe fresh air (pediatric experts advise keeping the temperature in the room with the child within 18-22 degrees);
• Use deficiency prevention important microelements in the baby's body , give your child vitamin D drops once a day;
• Pay attention to the position in which your baby likes to sleep. Some children like to fall asleep exclusively on their stomach. By the way, this pose is great for reducing pain and bloating during intestinal colic!
• If small child worried about pain in the abdomen and intestinal colic , then you should give him special remedy before bedtime, so that the baby does not suffer and cry from pain at night. Espumisan children's drops helped us a lot, which effectively and quickly eliminated bloating ();
• The same applies to teething situations. Don't make your child feel uncomfortable. Relieve him of unpleasant sensations by anointing him sore gums special soothing and cooling gel. For example, Kamistad or Dentinox ();
• Make sure that nap the child had sufficient duration so that the baby does not get overtired;
• In some cases (especially if the child is afraid of the dark or reacts sharply to the mother leaving the room), you can offer the baby co-sleeping. Many children immediately calm down, feeling their mother’s presence nearby, and begin to sleep much more peacefully;
• Try leaving the child to fall asleep on his own, maybe you are the one distracting him.. Sometimes it is the mother who distracts the baby, preventing him from sleeping soundly!
• Don't force your child to overeat before bed, because full stomach often interferes with the process of falling asleep , the body cannot rest fully if it is forced to digest food!

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Sometimes you just need to be patient and wait until the cause of poor sleep goes away on its own. For example, teeth will come out sooner or later, and intestinal colic will go away on its own when the baby reaches the age of three months. You can help your child endure such unpleasant periods more easily and sympathize with him more. Provide all possible assistance for colic, placing the baby on his tummy more often.

And don't forget that it is very important to always put children to bed at the same time, observe Note to moms!

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If your child has difficulty calming down before bed, please contact special attention on what time you start laying it and how long it takes. Most children have difficulty calming down due to severe fatigue or hyperstimulation. Once you have established a bedtime and feeding routine for your baby, I strongly encourage you to help him learn to fall asleep on his own. It will be hard to listen to him cry, but the child will quickly learn to fall asleep on his own. You can't leave it for more than 15-10 minutes before checking how things are going. I have helped hundreds of parents whose children had serious sleep problems, and I can say that once a child learns to fall asleep on his own, he becomes happier and more relaxed. When you install proper sleep during the day, night sleep will also improve.

The following tips will help your child learn to self-soothe:

• Allowing your baby to fall asleep at the breast or with a bottle and then putting him in a crib is more likely to cause him to sleep restlessly. When, 35-40 minutes after falling asleep, he enters lung phase sleep, it will be more difficult for him to fall back to sleep without your help. If your baby falls asleep while feeding, place him on the changing mat and change the diaper. This should wake him up enough to go to bed half asleep.
• Extreme fatigue is the main reason why most children do not calm down and do not sleep well during the day. If a baby under three months of age is kept awake for more than two hours at a time, he may become so tired that he will resist sleep for another two hours. After three months, most babies will stay awake a little longer, sometimes up to two and a half hours at a time. After an hour and a half of being awake, children should be carefully monitored so as not to miss the desire to fall asleep.
• Another problem for young children is too much contact before bed. Everyone wants to cuddle the child a little. Unfortunately, this can cause your child to become agitated and difficult to calm down. Your baby is not a toy. Don't feel guilty about limiting contact with him in the first weeks of life, especially before bed.
• Overstimulation before bed is another reason why babies don't wind down. Babies under six months of age need 20 minutes to calm down before putting them to bed. With children older than six months, avoid games and activities that overstimulate them. With all children, no matter their age, try not to talk much before bed. Speak in a quiet, calm voice, using the same simple phrases: “ Good night, bear. Good night, doll. Good night". When you leave the room, don't keep coming back to check on your baby.
• Incorrect sleep associations can cause long-term sleep problems. The child should go to bed awake and learn to fall asleep on his own. If a child has already developed incorrect sleep associations, this problem can rarely be solved without crying. Fortunately, most children learn to fall asleep on their own within a few days if given the opportunity.

Early child awakening

All babies and young children enter light sleep between 5:00 and 6:00 am. Some calm down and fall asleep for another hour, but many do not. I believe that whether a child will wake up early depends on two factors. The first is the darkness in the nursery. I put a lot of emphasis on keeping the nursery very dark, but I honestly believe that's why most of my kids fall back asleep quickly when they enter light sleep at 5:00-6:00 a.m. When the door is closed in the nursery and the curtains are drawn, it should be so dark that even the outlines of books and toys are not visible. The sight of these things can be enough to wake a child from his nap and make him want to start the day.

How parents feel about early awakening in the first three months determines whether the child will then get up early. In the first few weeks of life, a baby who wakes and eats at 2:00-2:30 may wake up around 6:00 in the morning and be really hungry. But this feeding must be carried out as a night feeding. It should happen as quietly and quickly as possible, by the light of a small night light and without conversation or eye contact. Then the child must be put to bed again until 7:00-7:30. If possible, try not to change the diaper because this usually wakes up babies.

When a child begins to sleep and eat closer to 4:00, at 6:00 he usually wakes up not from hunger. This is the only situation where I recommend parents help their child fall asleep. At this point, the most important thing is to get him back to sleep quickly, even if that means cuddles and a pacifier, before 7:00.

Here are some tips to help prevent your baby from waking up early:

• Don't use a night light or leave the door open after you put your baby to bed. Research shows that in the dark the brain produces different chemicals getting ready for bed. Even the slightest ray of light can be enough to wake a baby as he enters the first stage of light sleep.
• Children up to six months old can wake up because the blanket has been thrown off. I can tell you from experience that at this age babies sleep better if they are properly covered and tucked in. The sheet must be laid across the crib so that there is at least 20 cm tucked in on the far side and 10 cm on the near side. I also recommend rolling up a small towel and placing it between the wall of the bed and the mattress on the near side.
• Babies who climb in and out of the crib will sleep better if they are placed in a lightweight 100% cotton sleeping bag and tucked with a sheet as described above. Depending on the weather, blankets may not be needed.
• Once your baby begins to move in the crib and learns to roll, I encourage you to remove the sheets and blankets and use only the sleeping bag. This will give your child the opportunity to move freely, and you won't have to worry about him getting cold at night. Choose a sleeping bag that is appropriate for the time of year.
• Don't stop feeding at 10:30 pm until your baby is six months old and starting to eat solids. If he gets his period rapid growth Before he starts eating solid food, he can be given more milk at this time. This reduces the chance of waking up early from hunger, which can happen if you stop feeding too early at 10:30 pm.
• Once your baby is over six months old and you stop feeding at 10:30 pm, he should be encouraged to stay awake until 7 pm. If a child enters deep sleep earlier, you are more likely to wake up before 7:00 am.

Child constantly waking up at night

Until the mother produces milk, the newborn baby may wake up several times during the night and should be fed. By the end of the first week, a baby weighing more than 3.2kg should sleep for four hours after the 10pm-11pm feeding if he has been eating well throughout the day. Smaller children will need to be fed every three hours around the clock. In my experience, all healthy, well-fed babies can sleep for one long period of 5-6 hours between four and six weeks of age. If you follow my regimen, this will happen at night. The main goal of my regimen is to help parents organize their baby's feeding and sleep during the day to avoid frequent night awakenings.

How long the baby will wake up for feeding at night is up to him. Some babies at six to eight weeks sleep through the night after feeding at 10:30 pm, others begin to do this between ten and twelve weeks. Some people need even more time. All children begin to sleep through the night when they are physically and mentally capable of doing so, if daytime feeding and sleep are structured correctly.

The following are the main causes of frequent awakenings at night in healthy children under one year of age:

• Too much sleep during the day. Even the youngest children need to stay awake for some time. After midday feedings, encourage your baby to stay awake for an hour to an hour and a half. By six to eight weeks of age, most babies are able to stay awake for up to two hours at a time.
• Not enough food during the day. To avoid frequent night feedings, the baby should be fed six times between 7:00 and 23:00. To be on time, the day must begin at 7:00.
• Insufficient portion at each feeding. In the first days, the baby should be held at one breast for at least 25 minutes. If the child weighs more than 3.6 kg, he should be given a second breast.
• Breastfed babies are more likely to wake up several times during the night if they haven't eaten well at 10:30 p.m. They may need additional feeding.
• Babies under six weeks of age have a strong Moro reflex. They may wake up several times during the night with a sudden start. Such children will benefit from being swaddled in a light cotton sheet.
• Older children wake up several times a night because they have knocked down the covers and are cold or have their feet stuck in the crib bars. A sleeping bag will keep them from freezing or getting stuck in the grill.
• The child has developed incorrect sleep associations. Between the second and third months, the sleep cycle changes and the baby enters the light sleep phase several times a night. If he's used to being fed, rocked to sleep, or given a pacifier to sleep, he'll need the same help getting him back to sleep at night.
• If parents leave the nursery door open or have a night light on, they are more likely to be woken up several times during the night.
• If milk is cut back too quickly when introducing solids, the baby will wake up at night with a real desire for milk.

Most of my first children managed to survive their first year without all the colds and coughs that constantly plagued my second and third children. By the time most of the firstborns I cared for caught colds, their sleep was already so regular that they rarely woke up at night. The situation is different with second and third children, because they usually get colds much earlier than their brothers and sisters, and sleep disturbances are inevitable. Babies under three months of age usually need help at night if they are sick or have a cold. A small child with a cold can suffer greatly, especially during feeding, because he does not know how to breathe through his mouth.

When a sick child needs attention in the evening and at night, everything must be done calmly and quietly. I believe that a sick child needs more rest than a healthy child. Large numbers of guests and vigorous activity in the nursery in the evenings should be avoided. When I have to care for a sick child who wakes up several times during the night, I find it much easier to sleep in the same room as the child. Thanks to this, I can quickly approach him and disturb the older children much less, so I read along the corridor.

I have accidentally discovered that an older child who no longer needs night feedings may wake up at night after recovery, seeking the attention he received during his illness. The first few nights I checked on him and offered him something cool to drink. boiled water, but when I realized that the child had fully recovered, I showed firmness and left him to fall asleep on his own. In my experience, parents who are not prepared for this usually end up with long-term sleep problems for the child.

If your child's cold or cough does not go away, no matter how mild the illness, you should consult a doctor. I have heard too often from frustrated parents about their children's lung infections that could have easily been avoided if the child had been seen by a doctor earlier. Too many mothers do not call a doctor to see their child, for fear of being branded as neurotic, but any issues regarding the child’s health, even the most minor ones, should be discussed with a doctor. If your baby is sick, it's natural for you to follow your doctor's advice to the letter, especially when it comes to feeding.

Children's afternoon nap

Afternoon naps are a fundamental part of my CP routine. Recent studies have shown that physical and psychological development benefits children under two years of age organized sleep in the middle of the day. As your baby grows and becomes more active, this nap becomes a time of rest and recovery from morning activities, and allows your baby to enjoy the afternoon with you and others.

Like many aspects of a routine, establishing an afternoon nap takes time, and you'll need to be patient and persistent until your baby gets into the habit. When this happens, the afternoon nap will be of great value not only to your baby, but to you as well. Many mothers I have worked with have told me over the years how life-giving the afternoon nap has been for them. In the first months of your baby's life, you can use this time for much-needed rest. Once your baby starts sleeping through the night, during his afternoon nap you can do some activities. homework, make the necessary phone calls or even start working, as many moms testify. This dream can persist into the second year of life, and in some children - into the third. If you've had your second child and your older one is still enjoying afternoon naps, this is invaluable.

In the first days of life, afternoon sleep may be restless; your baby refuses to fall asleep, even if you offer him food. 30-45 minutes after the child falls asleep, he enters the light sleep phase. Some children wake up completely, and then it is important to teach them to fall back to sleep on their own if incorrect sleep associations have been avoided.

Associations with sleep

During the first months of life, many babies tend to nap in a car seat or portable crib, which is great because it gives parents more options. Unfortunately, as a child gets older and more active, he is unlikely to be able to sleep soundly or long enough in a car seat. If this habit continues, it will be very difficult to put the child to sleep in his crib during the day. Sleeping in a car seat is unlikely to provide sufficient rest, and as your child gets older, he or she is more likely to doze in fits and starts and become tired and irritable after such sleep. The immediate result of this may be that the child does not eat properly at midday or falls asleep without drinking a full serving of evening milk. After this, he may wake up hungry at night, and the next day you will feel tired, and so the situation will get worse and worse. You need to start putting him to sleep in his crib, in the dark, as early as possible. If this is not possible due to your older child and school schedule, try placing your baby in the stroller in the quietest part of the house so he can sleep peacefully for as long as possible.

If your child has ingrained sleep associations, you will need to focus your efforts on getting your child to sleep properly whenever he or she does. This is called helping the baby sleep. Take him for walks in the stroller or car, or put him next to you in bed and let him get the 2 hours of sleep he needs. I usually find that if this is done over a period of a week or ten days, the baby's sleep cycle can be adjusted, and then it becomes easier to get him into bed without too much fuss.

Child's hunger

Babies who start weaning at six months of age may need more solid foods or more milk. A baby around nine months of age needs at least 600 ml of milk every day. After nine months, the baby still needs 500-600 ml of milk per day. By the age of seven months, the child should eat three times a day and begin to eat solid foods. If you have already weaned your baby by six months of age, you will need to quickly go through all the guidelines to find the right one. correct quantities food.

For small babies, you can move the 11:00 a.m. feeding to 10:30 a.m., so you can split this feeding and top up your baby just before bedtime. This way, you will be sure that the child is not hungry when he falls asleep.

Older children should have second breakfast at 11:00. You can return to feeding your baby just before bed with part of the 2:30 pm feeding. Try this for a week and see if it helps. If after a week it is obvious that the baby is really hungry, then you need to increase the amount of solid food per day, reschedule the second breakfast at the same time, and then stop supplementary feeding. Do this gradually over the next week.

If your baby has completely transitioned to solids and is no longer getting milk, he still needs drinking plenty of fluids during the second breakfast - water or diluted juice, as well as a drink in the middle of the morning. Thirst may be the reason your baby wakes up too quickly, especially in hot weather.

Children's naps

Monitor your child's morning sleep and make sure he sleeps at the right time. Try to ensure that babies fall asleep no earlier than 9:00, and older children no earlier than 9:15-9:30. If you see that your child sleeps too long in the morning, then it would be wise not to allow him to sleep too long in the afternoon. An afternoon nap is ultimately much more important because it is longer and corresponds to natural cycles baby's sleep. Somewhere between the ninth and twelfth month, most babies need to cut back on their morning naps, and some may need to eliminate them altogether, especially if they sleep until 7:30-7:45. Other children may need a 10-15 minute nap. To eliminate morning naps, try reducing them by 10 minutes every three or four days until your baby is sleeping just 20 to 25 minutes at nine months. If your child is very tired, you can move up the time of second breakfast and put your child to bed earlier.

What to do if something goes wrong

Your baby can't stay awake in the afternoon because he only sleeps for 40-60 minutes in the afternoon. In this case, it is best to let him sleep for 30 minutes after feeding at 2:30 pm, and then 30 minutes at 4:30 pm. Thanks to this, the child should not become overtired and irritable, and you can return to the 17:00 routine and put the child to bed normally at 19:00. If your baby slept between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm, he will be able to go back to sleep at 6:00 pm. With a small child you just have to accept it. I suggest you move the feeding from 5:00 pm to 4:30 pm and put him to bed at 6:00 pm. An older child may go to bed between 6:15-6:30 p.m., and I suggest you reschedule your afternoon snack and bath time accordingly. When your child gets older and can refuse the afternoon nap, you can put him to bed again at 19:00.

If you've adjusted his routine to allow him to sleep more by eliminating afternoon naps, you can follow my recommendations at the beginning of each routine for maximizing the amount of naps during the day. Always try to get your baby to wake up at 5:00 pm if you want to put him to bed at 7:00 pm.

Checklist

• Eliminate hunger as a possible reason for waking up.
• Check if your child is thirsty - offer him water before he goes to bed.
• Correct any sleep associations, such as falling asleep in a car seat, and ensure that your baby goes to bed in the dark when he or she is well fed. Try to have this happen at the same time - this way the child will develop good habits. You will need patience.
• Make sure the room is really dark and there is no light in it. If the older child's return from kindergarten or school at 12-12:30 means that the baby will not be able to be put to bed in the dark, then at least Try to place him in a car seat or stroller in the quietest part of the house.
• Rule out other reasons for waking up, such as noise or the blanket not being tucked in properly. Remember that babies under six months have a very strong Moro reflex, so it is very important to carefully tuck the blanket on your baby, even if he does not wake up on his own.

When you go through all the reasons listed in the checklist and give time for change to take place, you may find yourself among the few parents who continue to have problems. These babies are usually older than six months and have developed strong misassociations with sleep. I must stress that this is a last resort and should not be used in mild cases, and certainly should not be used without the advice of your doctor or health visitor, who can recommend a sleep clinic.

Night awakenings and teething in a child

In my experience, children who are accustomed to the regime from the very beginning early age and purchased healthy habits sleep, teething rarely bothers you. Of the three hundred children I looked after, only a few were worried at night because they were teething. In these cases, the main concern was only the molars and only a few nights. I have found that babies who wake up when they are teething are more likely to have colic and develop poor sleep habits.

If your baby is teething and wakes up during the night but quickly goes back to sleep with the help of a cuddle or a pacifier, it's likely that the real reason for the awakening is not his teeth. A child who really suffers from teething finds it very difficult to fall asleep again. In addition, he shows signs of discomfort not only at night, but also during the day. I would encourage you to read the section on constant night waking and waking up too early to rule out other reasons your baby may be waking up.

If you think your baby's night wakings are due to pain due to teething, I suggest you talk to your doctor about using paracetamol. While teething pain may lead to a few restless nights, it should never last for weeks. If your child looks unwell, has a fever and suffers from lack of appetite or diarrhea, be sure to take your child to the doctor. Don't assume these are just teething symptoms. Very often I saw that the ailment that parents attributed to teething turned into an ear or throat infection.

You can hear from almost every parent that your beloved child does not sleep well at night. Healthy good sleep vital for the baby. It is in a dream that a child grows, strengthens and restores his body and health. However, for some reason, not all babies sleep soundly at night, often waking up and demanding the attention of adults. Why does a child sleep poorly at night, what to do and how to deal with it?

Sleep disturbances in a child can be caused by a variety of reasons. Very often, pediatricians and neurologists, even though infancy baby, classify restless sleep as a type of nervous disorder, prescribing various medications as treatment. You should not rush to take medications, because in most cases there is no good reason for this. You may be able to improve your baby’s sleep on your own without resorting to measures that are risky to his health. It is important to correctly establish the cause good sleep.

Possible reasons why your child is not sleeping well.
Once born, the baby does nothing but sleep because he gets tired quickly. Each child has his own sleep schedule and it differs significantly from the sleep of an adult. During the first months of life, the baby rests seventeen hours a day, waking up only when he gets hungry. Night feedings, if the baby needs them (usually up to 6-12 months, but sometimes later (except for artificial babies)), are mandatory. Therefore, parents must be ready to meet the baby’s needs at any time of the day. Usually, after the baby has eaten, he sleeps soundly until the next morning feeding. In the fourth month of life, sleep time is reduced to fifteen hours, and after six months the baby only needs fourteen hours of sleep.

Among the majority of young and inexperienced mothers, there is a widespread belief that if the baby is very little awake during the day, then night sleep will be restless, which is far from the case. We can say that everything happens exactly the opposite. Having rested well during the day, the baby falls asleep easier and better at night. A lack of daytime sleep for a baby results in fatigue, rapid excitability and whims. As a result, the baby is unlikely to fall asleep at the appointed time of bedtime, and at night his sleep will be anxious and restless.

Wet diapers and excessive wrapping can also disrupt a baby's restful sleep. Cold and uncomfortable conditions force the baby to wake up and call for his mother. Today, of course, most mothers cope well with this problem with the help of modern diapers, which make life much easier for the baby’s parents.

Another reason that can disrupt a baby’s sleep is an unventilated room. Very often, for fear of catching a child’s cold, parents do not open windows and vents at all to ventilate the room. Meanwhile, stale air in the baby’s room negatively affects the baby’s sleep, not only at night, but also during the day. Therefore, the baby’s room should be ventilated at least every two hours. In addition, to improve your baby’s sleep, you should definitely take him for evening walks. fresh air. They will calm the baby's nervous system and help improve his health.

For some reason, it is generally accepted that babies sleep soundly all the time. However, there are very few such babies. Most babies under three to six months do not sleep well at night, which is due to the peculiarities of their sleep architecture. During this period, shallow sleep prevails over deep sleep in children, as a result of which they sleep restlessly at night and often wake up. In the future, depending on individual characteristics, some of the children may fall asleep on their own, while others still need help. However, if you and your child have had problems with night sleep in the first year of life, then it is not at all a fact that they will not appear at the age of one and a half to three years. This period is the second difficult stage in which sleep disturbances occur. This period is characterized by the emergence of various fears in children (fear of the dark, unrealistic book or cartoon characters, etc.), the manifestation of which also occurs in nightmares. At the age of five to seven years, children begin to have thoughts about death. As a rule, they do not talk about this openly with their parents, since this phenomenon appears to them as something incomprehensible and mysterious. But if during this period there is a loss of a loved one in the family, the children experience everything on a deep level, although they do not outwardly show or show it. In some cases, falling asleep itself begins to be associated in children on a subconscious level with the moment of death. At an older age, children develop a fear of the elements, which intensifies even more against the backdrop of disaster films shown on TV about earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc. At the age of seven, when school begins, children develop a different kind of fear: fear of an unsatisfactory answer in class, the teacher’s comments, the negative attitude of classmates, etc. The child is afraid of appearing funny, weak or stupid. If at this moment the parents do not help him in overcoming these fears, then the fear will become entrenched, against the background of which sleep problems will develop. He will subconsciously delay the moment (doing homework late, watching TV, etc.) when he needs to go to bed, because in the morning the school nightmare will await him again.

A child may sleep restlessly at night simply because he is tormented by nightmares, as a result of which he often wakes up suddenly. It has been proven that even in the womb, from 25-30 weeks of pregnancy, children dream. The reasons for the occurrence of such dreams are unknown, just as it is unknown what exactly they dream about and what impact this has on their development. According to one of the many theories, these dreams are genetic memory, which ensures that the brain is loaded with the necessary information and develops feelings and thinking. Poor sleep can cause physical and mental development child.

Problems with sleep at night may occur in a baby due to insufficient energy expenditure during the day, as a result of which he is less tired. All children, without exception, are very active and mobile. It will take a lot of effort to get them tired, and parents won’t get away with just playing with cars or dolls.

Very often, problems with night sleep occur in children with increased needs. Such children require a special approach, regardless of age. In the first year of life, they do not know how to relax and fall asleep on their own, and as they get older, they still sleep restlessly due to excessive impressionability and frequent nightmares.

Restless sleep in a baby may also indicate that something hurts. To do this, you need to establish the cause and try to eliminate it. The most common cause of restless night sleep in a child of the first year of life is abdominal pain that appears in the third week after birth. For some babies this will go away after about two months, and for some it will last up to four to five months. No one can pinpoint the exact cause of colic in babies. Presumably, cow's milk contributes to this. This usually applies to children who are breastfeeding, whose mothers consume more than half a liter daily cow's milk. Another cause of infant colic is believed to be the composition of infant formula.

Other reasons for a restless night's sleep in a child may be teething, rickets or vitamin deficiency, neurological disorders, otitis media or ear disease, weather changes in weather-sensitive children, dysbacteriosis, influenza, meningitis, high temperature(38-40 degrees), pinworms (which poison the baby’s nervous system with toxins).

Sleep disorders can be congenital in nature, which is caused by diseases nervous system(encephalopathy). Their development can be provoked by gynecological diseases in women during pregnancy, bad habits, as well as constant stress and overexertion.

Poor sleep in children at night may be a reaction to any serious changes in his life. In particular, this could be a change of place of residence, the appearance of another child in the family, or the child began to sleep separately from his parents. Experiences associated with such events can negatively affect the quality of sleep.

Mistakes made by parents themselves in the process of raising children can also cause restless sleep. For example, when parents put their baby to bed every day at different times(non-compliance with the regime), noisy games before bedtime, raising your voice at the child or shouting, etc.

Very often, a child’s sleep disturbances result allergic reactions for salicylates contained in aspirin, food additives (dye E 102) and some vegetables and fruits (tomatoes, citrus fruits, raspberries). Elimination this factor from the baby's or mother's diet (depending on age) very quickly restores sleep. However, before you change your own diet or introduce anything into your child’s diet, you should consult with your pediatrician.

Brain tumors can also cause poor sleep in children.

What to do?
The main thing that every mother needs to learn is to protect and protect the baby’s sleep. Don't wake up your baby just because it's feeding time. Believe me, nothing will happen to him if he is hungry for an extra thirty to forty minutes. But he will wake up on his own and be much calmer. Gradually, you will develop your own feeding schedule, focusing on the baby.

It is also worth noting that there is no need to remain silent while your baby is sleeping, walk on tiptoe, or talk in a whisper. The more extraneous noise there is in the room, the better and sounder the baby’s sleep will be. Speaking of noise, of course, we are not talking about beating drums, loud music etc. You can simply go about your business as usual, talking in a low voice.

Before going to bed, the child should be fed, watered, clean and dry. After all, the presence of such problems does not allow the baby to sleep, he cries, gets nervous, and often wakes up. The absence of these factors will calm the baby and ensure good sleep.

Establishing and accustoming a child to a certain regime is also the primary task of the parent. By about one and a half months, the baby begins to understand when it is day and when it is night. It is during this period that you should install correct mode, which will help him navigate. In the first year of life, the baby wakes up at night for feeding, which is recommended in complete silence, in the dim light of a night lamp. There is no need to talk to the baby. But during the day, on the contrary, feeding time can be made more emotional. You can talk to the baby, stroke him, kiss him, tell him stories, etc. This will reinforce in the baby’s memory that he can play during the day and sleep at night. Also, the time you put your baby to bed should be the same. It cannot be violated. It is necessary to plan your daily routine in such a way that no matter what, the baby goes to bed on time.

The baby’s room, as noted above, should be thoroughly and constantly ventilated, always before bedtime. In addition, the room where the crib is located should be wet cleaned daily and monitored for cleanliness and freshness. It is recommended to remove foreign objects from the room, especially those that absorb a lot of dust. The crib, bed, night pajamas are of great importance - everything should be made from natural materials and have neutral and discreet colors. In addition, the room should also not contain any objects that irritate or form a “scary” shadow when illuminated at night. The immediate location of the room where the child lives is of paramount importance. Agree, if there is a night restaurant under the windows, and the elevator is constantly making noise behind the wall, then even an adult’s sleep is unlikely to be restful, not to mention children.

From the first days of life, teach your baby to fall asleep on his own. Many pediatricians do not recommend giving a pacifier, rocking them to sleep, carrying them in their arms, or putting them to sleep in their own bed. However, some are not at all against such methods of calming the baby. Each parent, of course, chooses their own tactics, but you should remember that the child gets used to everything. Therefore, when choosing a method to calm your baby, be prepared that you will have to do this constantly.

From the first days of life, develop in your child the correct associations for falling asleep, by which we mean the situations and conditions under which he is accustomed to falling asleep. You should develop the habit of calming down and falling asleep on your own when waking up at night. A favorite toy placed nearby and a dim night light can help him with this. If a baby learns to suck a pacifier or be held in his mother's rocking arms before going to bed, he will always demand this until he gets it.

To prevent the child from having sleep disturbances due to overexcitation, active games, watching TV, the computer, and any kind of emotional shock should be excluded two hours before bedtime. New toy, the news that everyone is going to the circus on their day off, etc. It’s better to put all this off until the morning so as not to worry him. Everything and everyone in the house should be conducive to sleep. No quarrels, punishing the baby before bedtime or showdowns. The child should go to bed in a good mood, in a relaxed state, and should not worry or worry about anything. If it happened that you scolded your child for something or shouted at him for disobedience, you should definitely make peace with him before going to bed.

It is very important to always put your baby to bed in the same mood. Probably, many mothers have noticed that when they are excited, anxious or upset about something, the child takes a long time to fall asleep. This is a proven fact; children feel their mother’s condition and experience it with her.

Try to observe daily evening ritual going to bed the same way. It happens that you urgently need to rush somewhere or you are just tired, so in your haste you missed something and did not do what you traditionally do before going to bed. The child will definitely catch this, and it is on this day that he will fall asleep for an infinitely long time. Therefore, it is very important to put the child to bed the same way every day: calmly, measuredly, strictly following the established sequence of actions.

Correct behavior of mommy at night also has great value. If the baby wakes up at night and does not want to sleep, you should not shout at him, this has an exciting effect on the baby, as a result of which sleep disappears completely. Also, you should not run to him at the first rustle or call; he must independently learn to fall asleep again without your help. It is precisely because they were taught this way that the child wakes up several times a night and calls for his mother. To wean him off this, you can use one of the methods: when the child wakes up, do not rush and immediately approach him, wait a little time, and each time this time period should be increased. First, three minutes after the first call, then after five, six, seven, etc. In the end, he will understand that he should sleep at this time and not call his mother. According to experts, this will take approximately two weeks. But since all children are different, this method cannot suit everyone without exception. In any case, this method can be used no earlier than six months. In addition, it is necessary to make sure that the child is not wet and does not want, for example, to drink, whether he is cold or hot.

To improve sleep, it is not recommended to feed your baby later than an hour and a half before bedtime. In this case, dinner should be light and consist of a non-protein dish. In addition, you should not give your child a lot of drinks at night, restful sleep in in this case definitely won't happen.

As for feeding infants, according to many pediatricians, already from three months a child can easily go without food or drink for six hours. Even waking up at night to feed, they easily fall asleep again. According to doctors, from the age of six months, the baby must be accustomed to uninterrupted night sleep, otherwise they will ask for the breast, a bottle with formula or water for a very long time. However, it is worth taking into account the individual characteristics of children. There are children who do not wake up at night because their body does not need night feedings. And there are children who in this way try to make up for the lack of maternal attention that they experience during the day.

Parents should help overcome children's fears and worries that disrupt sleep. If a child is afraid and needs you, you should not brush him off with the words “shame on you, you’re already big” and the like. Trust your child. If suddenly he asked you to lie down with him in his room, although before this there was no fear of being alone, help him survive all his fears, be there.

If the reason for poor sleep lies in the child’s illness, you should not be surprised. As treatment progresses, sleep will also be restored. If it's not a matter of common illness(flu, dysbacteriosis, rickets, colic, teeth) you should consult a doctor, since sleep disturbances may indicate nervous disorders.

Folk remedies that improve sleep.
Add a teaspoon of dill juice and the same amount of honey to a glass of milk. Give to children warm, a teaspoon after meals. Store the product in the refrigerator for no more than a day, at room temperature - no more than half an hour.

Place valerian root wrapped in gauze at the child's head.

Pour one dessert spoon of chamomile flowers into 200 ml of boiling water and let it brew overnight. Then strain the infusion and give the child a teaspoon after meals five to six times a day.

Chop fresh dill, take a tablespoon and add two glasses of water. You can use dill seeds. Infuse the mixture, strain and give the children a teaspoon at night.

In conclusion, I would like to note that it is normal for a child to wake up at night. The only thing that matters is the number of cases per night and how the baby falls asleep after that. Basically, if the child is healthy and the parents are doing everything right, there will be no problems with sleep. Health to your children and good sleep!

A common reason for parents' anxiety is that the child does not sleep well at night. A child's sleep disorder disrupts the adequate sleep of all family members, as well as the child himself. But in this situation you should not rush to resort to medications– first you need to eliminate the cause of restless sleep, and not treat the consequences.

Causes of restless sleep in children

If in the infant period the child’s body adapts to external environmental conditions, in which the child often sleeps poorly at night, then closer to the year, after 9-10 months, the baby’s emotional background stabilizes, and the daily routine returns to normal.

However, sometimes, after a year, parents note with regret the difficulties of falling asleep and bad dream child.

The first reason is physiological

It is worth paying more attention to the child, and this reason will be easily eliminated. Its roots are as follows:

• uncomfortable sleeping position;
• uncomfortable bed or bedding;
• tight underwear;
• synthetic material for sleeping clothes;
• redundant physical activity before bed;
• restless nervous environment during the day;
• It is harmful to fall asleep on both an empty and a full stomach;
• distractions: unpleasant odors, bright lights, noise;
• unusual surroundings;
• change of time and climate zones.

During this period, the one-year-old baby takes his first steps, energetically explores the space of the rooms and therefore gets physically tired. Somnologists recommend adhering to the following daily routine: at night the baby sleeps for 7-8 hours, and during the day he takes two naps lasting an hour and a half each.

It happens that a child is capricious and refuses to go to bed during the day - there is no need to follow his lead, because in this case the child’s nervous system does not receive the necessary reboot. It’s better to take a longer walk in the fresh air in the first half of the day so that the tomboy runs around and gets tired.

The second reason is pathological

But if with physiological reasons Quite easy to cope with, sleep disorders due to illness require consultation and supervision of specialists. The reasons that one year old child sleeps poorly at night, wakes up often and cries a lot, the following diseases can cause:

• An uncomfortable condition in the tummy caused by an imbalance of intestinal microflora - dysbacteriosis.
• Tendency to constipation, which causes pain and a feeling of fullness in the abdomen.
• Spasmodic cramps and colic in the intestines - in some cases, these painful phenomena do not go away in children even after a year.
• Otitis – shooting pain in the ears does not allow the child to sleep peacefully.
• Itching in the gums and painful teething.
• Allergic manifestations accompanied by itching, congestion respiratory tract, swelling of the mucous membranes.
• Digestive and intestinal disorders - vomiting, diarrhea - the body, if measures are not taken, rapidly becomes dehydrated, the child becomes weaker and does not take food.
• Viral and bacterial infections.
• Appendicitis is a dangerous attack, characteristic features caused by fever, vomiting and painful sensations upon palpation in the right side.

If the child shows severe anxiety, spinning, writhing in pain, must be called ambulance. With appendicitis or an allergic attack, minutes count.

The third reason is psychological.

The psyche of a one-year-old baby is still extremely unstable; its excitement occurs much faster than the release of emotional stress. That is why a toddler, full of vivid or negative impressions before bed, tosses and turns for a long time and does not fall asleep. And his sleep will be light and restless.

Observing the child will allow mothers to record the line beyond which overexcitation of the little person’s nervous system can be traced. Following some recommendations will help avoid the problem of children's tantrums before bedtime and eliminate most of reasons for poor sleep.

1. Emotions, experiences associated with acquiring new knowledge and skills, meeting strangers, visiting doctors, and outdoor games are planned in the first half of the day. The child needs to “digest” the information received, and the second half of the day is just right for unloading. This is especially true for hyperactive children.
2. Familiar surroundings, familiar surroundings, and quiet games in the evening help you fall asleep quickly.
3. It’s good if the family has an evening ritual of going to bed. For example, give your child a bath, give him warm milk to drink at night, read nursery rhymes and nursery rhymes to him before bed, sing a lullaby, and put his favorite soft toy next to him. For the little one, these procedures will mean that it is time to go to bed.

But if, despite all the efforts made, the child is restless at night, sleeps poorly, often wakes up and jumps out of bed, the help of a pediatric neurologist is needed. Often this is a manifestation of neurological disorders.

In order to put your one-year-old baby to sleep calmly, without tears and whims, you need to spend the day with him correctly. Getting ready for bed will become expected and a pleasant procedure, if comfortable conditions have been created for this. Pediatrician Evgeny Olegovich Komarovsky shares his secrets.

• At least an hour and a half before bedtime, active, noisy games stop. You can keep your child busy folding cubes and pyramids, looking at pictures with him, drawing, sculpting.
• It is advisable to stop watching TV, even if it is funny funny cartoons - the toddler’s nervous system will undergo an emotional shock.
• The influx of fresh air after airing the room will allow you to fall asleep faster.
• A nightly bedtime ritual will set your child up for sleep. An affectionate conversation with the baby, tactile contact with the mother, dim lighting in the room - all this will create an atmosphere of comfort and safety.
• Pets, no matter how much a child loves them, should not be in his bedroom.
• Difficulties falling asleep can be smoothed out by using a bath with medicinal sedatives: decoctions of valerian root, motherwort, string (if there are signs of diathesis), chamomile.

By the age of one year, they try to wean the child off the breast and wean him off the pacifier. This is an important and necessary stage in his life. You just need to act gradually and don’t experiment overnight. It is better to distract the child during the day with games, conversations, and activities than to make the child nervous before bed.

Activities that make sleep problems worse

Often, parents, based on the best intentions and wanting to put the screamer to bed quickly, take actions that do not in any way solve the problem of sleep disturbance. On the contrary, one year old child Negative stereotypes of behavior are reinforced, and in the future it will be difficult to get rid of them.

1. Tactile contact is important for a baby, but you shouldn’t rock your baby in your arms at one year old to put him to sleep. In the future, such children experience difficulties in adapting to preschool institutions- nurseries and gardens.
2. Parents put restless and poor sleeping children to bed with a bottle filled with nutritional formula. The child sucks food when falling asleep and during night awakenings. Such snacks disrupt the little man’s biorhythms and disrupt digestive process. The child should be put to bed some time after dinner - not on an empty, but not on a full stomach.
3. You cannot scold and ridicule a restless person, especially when he is haunted by night fears and nightmares. If you drive a child into bed with screams and threats, scold him for tossing and turning for a long time and cannot fall asleep, then mental harm to the naughty child is inevitable.
4. The best option for one-year-old children is to have the baby's crib in the same room as the parents. But he must sleep in his own bed. When he wakes up in the morning, he can lie down with his mother in his parents' bed, but at night he should be put to bed separately. Closer to the age of one and a half years, the child is taught to sleep in his own room; especially impressionable children are moved out later, perhaps at 2-3 years of age.
5. It is unacceptable to leave a one-year-old baby alone in a dark room - this is where childhood fears and phobias arise. You need to sit with the child and wait until he falls asleep, so the baby will feel under reliable protection. The warm light of a night light will dispel the frightening darkness of the room; if the child wakes up, he will not be afraid in the twilight. These measures will serve well in the formation of a healthy children's psyche.

The period of a year is in many ways a turning point for children. At this age, habits, skills, and behavioral stereotypes are formed. The flexible psyche of a little man easily adapts to innovations and changes. It is worth thinking about what can be changed in the daily routine or family structure to normalize and complete sleep for your child.

Sleep disorder in preschool and adolescent children

At the age of 2-3 years, the baby is determined to kindergarten. New team, new social conditions, new mode day - all these factors turn out to be stress for the fragile children's nervous system. Difficulties in adaptation are expressed in insomnia (difficulty falling asleep), excessive tearfulness, constant striving being close to the mother, apathy or, on the contrary, excitability.

Changing the daily routine is also not easy for schoolchildren. Study loads, building relationships with classmates and teachers, and parental dissatisfaction often cause a child’s restless sleep.

Sleep disorders in adolescents puberty associated with hormonal changes in the body. At the age of 12-14 years, the production of melatonin (the main sleep hormone) decreases, the child goes to bed late, and therefore does not get enough sleep.

How sleep disorders manifest themselves in different age groups

An incorrect model of somnological behavior often manifests itself in the following deviations:

Children's night terrors

As a rule, they are observed in the preschool age category - from two to six years. The attack occurs in a half-asleep state - the child, without waking up, sits up in bed, screams and cries. The efforts of parents smooth out the anxious state. The next morning, the child cannot remember the reason for the fear and retell what he dreamed.

This behavior indicates overexcitation of the child’s nervous system; it usually goes away by the beginning of puberty.

Somnambulism (sleepwalking)

Unconscious sleepwalking. A phenomenon familiar and described since ancient times. A person, being in a borderline state between reality and sleep, moves around the room without bumping into objects; can perform simple actions and conduct dialogues.

It is believed that attacks of sleepwalking occur more often during the full moon. In this case, the moon is credited with a magical influence, although it is rejected by science. What you should absolutely not do is wake up a sleepwalker while sleepwalking, especially if he is in a dangerous place. The somnambulist may become frightened and harm himself.

Statistics show that 15% of children, mostly boys aged 6-12 years, suffer from sleepwalking. The nature of the disease is not fully understood, but doctors tend to attribute it to one of the types of nervous disorders.

Severe overwork and stress in adolescents can be accompanied by symptoms of sleepwalking. Children suffering from epilepsy, enuresis, and disorders of the central nervous system are predisposed to somnambulism.

Nightmares

The main difference from night fears is that the next morning the child remembers the contents bad dream. Nightmares overwhelm children aged 3-7 years, less often in the primary school period (10-12 years).

Every child experiences episodes of nightmares. They indicate the immaturity of the children's nervous system. Fatigue, bright light, noise in the sleeping person’s room little man, even full bladder can provoke a bad dream.

However, if attacks become frequent, you should consult a doctor, as they can become harbingers of impending mental pathology.

Grinding of teeth in sleep (bruxism)

According to persistent popular belief The cause of teeth grinding is worms in a child. This is a completely wrong opinion. Bruxism has its roots in neurology and is associated with the inability of the facial muscles to relax, even at night.

An incorrect bite can also cause clenching of the teeth, sometimes so hard that they crumble and wear out. tooth enamel. The pathology is characteristic of adolescents twelve to thirteen years old.

Enuresis (sleep urination syndrome)

Fixed in age group from 6 to 12 years. The reasons are due to: psychological factors, and diseases of the urological sphere.

Sleep phase shift

Teenagers lead the life of a typical “night owl”: the peak of active activity occurs at night, but waking up in the morning is difficult, schoolchildren “nod off” during lessons, they are lethargic and apathetic.

The reasons lie in teenage psychology - there are many interesting activities, the circle of contacts is extensive, studying at school takes a lot of time and effort.

Treatment of childhood sleep disorders

Before contacting a pediatrician and starting drug therapy, it is worth trying simple recommendations to improve the quality of a child's sleep.

1. Children's bedding is made from natural fabrics; synthetics are unacceptable, since they are not hygroscopic and breathable. The best material is calico, satin, poplin, chintz.
   
   Until the age of one and a half years, the child is recommended to sleep without a pillow, then it is used flat version. It is better to choose plant fiber as a filler - bamboo, for example.
2. In the bedroom you need to create a suitable environment for sleeping. It should not be stuffy - the optimal temperature in the room is 21°C, humidity is within 70%. It is advisable to keep the interior of the room in soothing pastel colors; choose thick, light-proof curtains. Good sound insulation is the key to a restful sleep.
3. Each sleep position has its own pros and cons. It is believed that it is useful to sleep on your back - it relieves the spine and normalizes the functioning of the whole body. However, if the child suffers from apnea, then it is in this position that the breath is often held.
   The position on the stomach is positioned as the most uncomfortable and harmful - restriction of breathing, squeezing internal organs, lack of support for the spine. Until one year of age, babies are not allowed to sleep on their tummy at all. But older children often fall asleep in just this position. True, in this case there is no snoring and breathing stops.
   The most natural and useful posture for sleeping - sleep on your side. Children instinctively assume the fetal position. It is better to fall asleep on the side. Of course, throughout the night, children toss and turn, changing body positions, and themselves choose a position that is convenient for them.
4. Children who are tormented by night fears and nightmares, as well as those suffering from sleepwalking and talking in their sleep, need to be woken up 10-15 minutes before the expected event. It turned out that attacks of sleep disorders occur at approximately the same time, usually 1-2 hours after falling asleep.
5. To protect the jaw during bruxism, mouth guards are worn at night. At neurological in nature pathologists prescribe sedatives.
6. If you have enuresis, be sure to go to bed with a bowel movement. bladder. It is important to detect the beginning of urination and wake the child. Then he will develop the habit of going to the toilet at the first urge.
7. Sleep phase disorder syndrome is corrected by shifting bedtime. In young children, bedtime hours shift to more early period, teenagers can go to bed later, but at the same time. Moreover, schoolchildren, even older ones, are not forbidden to take a nap during the day for an hour and a half, the main thing is not at sunset (between 16 and 17 hours).
8. Soothing teas with herbal ingredients are shown. They are even prescribed to babies: fennel, valerian root, chamomile, motherwort. Three-year-old children are prescribed Persen, a drug consisting of several herbal ingredients. For older children - preschoolers and schoolchildren - Glycine is prescribed. But all medications are taken strictly as prescribed by the doctor!
   
9. At the age of 2-3 years, children benefit from soothing baths with healing herbal decoctions. They are shown and younger schoolchildren during the period of educational adaptation. The accepted course of aromatherapy is 2 weeks every other day.

Calendula flowers (marigold), mint and oregano leaves are used as herbal additives for “sleep baths.” If all the measures taken have not been successful and sleep disturbances are accompanied by depressive moods, apnea, enuresis and do not stop within a month, a visit to the pediatrician is inevitable.

Gentle pharmacology to protect healthy sleep

Since the treatment of sleep disorders in children and adolescents completely excludes the use of synthetic-generated sleeping pills and sedatives, the modern remedy “Sonylux” is recommended as an alternative. The solution contains exclusively natural plant components, numbering more than 32 items.

The drug has virtually no contraindications, except for allergies to these ingredients. Can be prescribed to children from two years of age. Depending on the patient’s age, the dose of the medication and duration of administration are calculated.

Potential buyers should know that the product is not sold in pharmacies; it can be purchased on the manufacturer’s website.

According to parents, a course of taking Sonilyux relieved their children of problems with sleep disorders, because the drug not only treats the consequences, but also eliminates the cause of insomnia - nervous excitability and emotional stress.

Until recently, as a means of relieving the symptoms of restless sleep, homeopathic medicines. They also contain natural ingredients. But in light of the latest opinions of the Russian Academy of Sciences and evidence-based medicine, which declared homeopathy a pseudoscience, each parent decides for himself whether to use these remedies or not.

Helpful advice: to specify and identify the causes of somnological disorders, it is useful for parents to keep a “sleepy” children’s diary. It records your daily bedtime and morning awakening, and also record the hours of sleep breaks, their duration and the time of repeated immersion in sleep.

Lyudmila Sergeevna Sokolova

Reading time: 4 minutes

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Article last updated: 01/18/2017

Most parents are faced with the problem of poor children's sleep. It is especially difficult for them at night. Why is this happening? In the first year of life, babies are often worried about hunger, abdominal pain, discomfort from teething, the desire to feel their mother’s warmth nearby, and much more. Often the reason why a baby does not sleep well is the lack of a daily routine.

Why does my child sleep poorly at night?

Waking up at night is quite normal for a child under one year old. He is just getting to know this world and adapting to it. There are many new, incomprehensible and disturbing factors around. The baby grows, changes, develops, absorbs the information received. Many children do not sleep well due to overstimulation from what they have seen during the day.

Reasons why a child sleeps poorly:

1. Hunger. A newborn often wakes up due to the desire to attach itself to the mother's breast.
2. Disease. At night, the baby begins to suddenly and loudly scream, and it is not easy to calm down.

Intestinal colic. Associated with the formation of a large volume of gases in gastrointestinal tract. In order to calm the pain, you can massage the tummy, stroking it clockwise, put a heated diaper on it, use a gas tube (extreme caution is required here) or give the baby a colic remedy based on simethicone.

Teething. They are cut from 3 months to 2 years. Some babies easily tolerate this period, while others experience pain, fever and diarrhea. To improve well-being, use special gels for the gums, antipyretic (children's Nurofen) and antidiarrheal (StopDiar) drugs.

Cold. Probably, the baby does not sleep well at night due to the fact that he is suffering from a sore throat, nasal congestion, and fever. Medicines are purchased only after consultation with a doctor who will prescribe accurate diagnosis and prescribe the correct treatment.

1. The air in the house is too dry and warm. The baby is sensitive to temperature changes, tosses and turns and wakes up because he is stuffy.
2. Wet diaper. The child wakes up due to a full diaper. True, some children do not care about this, and they sleep peacefully, even when the diaper leaks.
3. Stressful situations. These are screams and quarrels of parents, moving to another apartment, the appearance of another child in the family, “moving” into a separate bed after sleeping with mom. The baby has trouble sleeping at night due to negative reaction body to the stress experienced.

There are other reasons why your baby may have difficulty sleeping at night. These include loud, sharp sounds (for example, the TV being turned on), uncomfortable clothing (getting in the way, pinching, pricking), etc.

Sleep and exercise

If nothing bothers the child, he is fed, healthy and in a dry diaper, then the reason why he sleeps poorly may be due to insufficient physical or emotional stress during the day. Regular physical activity ensures sound sleep. If the child already knows how to sit up, crawl, or is already trying to walk, then you will have to sit and crawl with him, help him walk, encourage him to move.

If the baby is still too small to sit and crawl, then physical activity do massage and gymnastics.

Emotional stress includes educational games, communication with relatives and other children of the same age. Children react to such stress differently: some get tired and quickly fall asleep, while others, on the contrary, become overexcited, cannot fall asleep for a long time, and sleep poorly. Parents should watch their baby to find out exactly how he reacts to emotional stress.

There should not be many toys in the bed of a baby who often wakes up at night. Bright, shiny, luminous rattles will also be excluded. They distract attention and prevent you from falling asleep.

Rules for sound children's sleep

Dr. Komarovsky claims that healthy children's sleep ensures healthy sleep to all family members. The child needs to be accustomed to the daily routine that his mother and father adhere to. The baby needs healthy, rested and loving friend friend's parents.

The child is prepared in advance for a night's sleep. To do this, determine the most optimal sleep hours (for example, from 22.00 pm to 7.00 am) and try to teach the baby to go to bed according to them.

Komarovsky says that parents must decide from the moment they arrive from the maternity hospital where and with whom the child will sleep. It is best when the newborn sleeps in a crib in the same room as the parents. This will make it much easier for mom to get up to him at night, feed him, and lull him to sleep. This way the baby can sleep for up to 3 years.

It is not recommended to put a baby to sleep in a separate room for up to one year. In such a situation, it is more difficult for the mother to control his sleep, and the risk of sudden infant death syndrome increases.

Another option is when the baby sleeps in the same bed with his parents. Today, many families sleep this way, but pediatricians do not recommend doing this. The child gets used to the fact that he sleeps with his mother and father, and as he grows up, it is very difficult to accustom him to sleep in his own bed. In addition, adults may inadvertently crush him.

It is recommended to put a child up to one year old to sleep in a crib on his back, turning his head to the side so that he does not choke if he burps. Sleeping on your tummy increases your risk of sudden infant death syndrome. The baby can block the access of oxygen to the lungs by burying his nose in a pillow (if there is one) or a blanket.

In his books, Dr. Komarovsky wrote that there is no need to be afraid to wake up children during the day if they sleep too long, so that they can sleep well at night. To do this, find out daily norm baby's sleep. Children under 3 months of age sleep on average 16-20 hours, at 6 months - approximately 14.5 hours, and closer to a year - 13.5 hours. Don't forget that these figures are averages, and each child has his own sleep needs.

In order for your baby to sleep soundly at night, it is necessary to optimize feeding. The newborn wakes up every 2.5 hours to satisfy hunger. At the age of 3 to 6 months, the number of night feedings can be reduced to 1-2 times per night. After 6 months, the baby no longer physically needs to be fed at night. But he wants to lie close to his chest and rock in his mother’s arms. He will continue to demand all this, since his mother fulfills all his demands. At the same time, there can be no talk of healthy children's sleep. Perhaps the mother should consider weaning. This process does not have to be stressful for the baby. They wean off breastfeeding slowly, gradually reducing the feeding time, replacing the breast over time with a bottle of water.

Komarovsky advises monitoring the condition of the sleeping area. The mattress for the crib is chosen to be smooth and dense, not sagging under the weight of a small body. It is not recommended to use a pillow for children under 2 years of age. Bed sheets You only buy items that are made from natural fabrics. It is washed with washing powder intended for washing children's clothes, and be sure to rinse thoroughly.

If the baby wakes up often, it is better to underfeed him at the penultimate feeding before bedtime, and to feed him as full as possible at the last feeding. But it is important not to overdo it: after overfeeding, your stomach hurts and sleep is disturbed.

The child must lead active image life, including daily walks, naps in the fresh air, physical exercise(no overload). After this he should sleep soundly. At night, activity is reduced. At this time, they read books, look at the pictures in them, watch cartoons and fall asleep to their mother’s lullaby.

The room should not be stuffy: the air temperature should not be higher than 20 degrees, and the humidity should not be lower than 50%. To do this, a thermometer and a hydrometer are installed in the nursery, the room is ventilated every day and wet cleaning is done.

If the child is already sitting independently, then he should be bathed in a large shared bathtub, and not in a baby bathtub or basin. This will make him more tired and hungry. Before swimming, you can indulge in massage and gymnastic treatments. A tired child after a bath should eat heavily and sleep soundly.

In his speeches, Komarovsky noted that one of the most important conditions for sound sleep is a high-quality disposable diaper. Parents need to find a brand suitable for their baby. The diaper should not press or rub, it should not cause irritation or diaper rash.

The goal of parents is to make their baby comfortable and calm, so that he feels needed and loved. A happy and loved child will play more fun and sleep soundly.