We continue with this post the topic started last week in which we tried to address the tips that are usually given for babies to sleep a little better (if it can be).
Tiring him a lot during the day to sleep at night
This is another one of the most universal recommendations and that less often works. When a child is excessively tired his brain and body are overloaded. This makes them irritable, tearful and it costs them more to relax and fall asleep.
Once they fall asleep, when doing so in a state of lack of relaxation, they usually have a restless sleep and with more awakenings than usual. In fact, many adults suffer these symptoms on our own skin the days we are excessively tired.
Let's say a little tired is fine (the usual tiredness of being awake and playing that every child needs), but not too much.
Dinner
Depending on what they take for dinner, the dream can be altered. This is because Some foods cause them to be more awake.
Protein-rich foods, such as meat or fish, activate dopamine, which makes sleep more difficult.
Chocolate or cocoa contains caffeine and theobromine, which are stimulating substances.
Foods that activate the secretion of serotonin such as bananas or tomatoes are recommended.
To avoid protein, they can also eat pasta, potatoes, bread, vegetables, ...
Fill your stomach at night
There is a recommendation, also very common, that says that filling your stomach as much as possible will sleep more and wake up less.
I intend to speak more specifically about this topic in an entry intended for it, but as an advance I comment that many of the awakenings of children over six months (when they could start eating cereals, which is the recommended food for such effect) are not due to hunger, but to sleep changes produced by the different brain phases.
Some children may sleep a little longer before waking up the first time, but they unbalance power on demand taking away from children the ability to handle their needs, there is a risk of altering the phases of sleep and many wake up even more by regurgitating excess food or by the same heaviness of their stomach.
As I say, I will dedicate an entry to talk about it.
Alone or accompanied?
The dream is a moment of disconnection with reality and therefore both adults and children we need to feel confident that nothing will happen to us.
We adults get that security by lowering blinds, noticing the silence of the night and locking the door of the house. Most adults even need to sleep accompanied (or prefer) before sleeping alone.
Well, in children the dream works exactly the same. They need to feel safe and sleep without fear. The simple fact of being alone generates fear, since not seeing, smelling, hearing or feeling the presence of a mother or father, they think they have been abandoned.
We know that it is not so, that we are in the next room, but babies do not understand rooms and everything that escapes their senses ceases to exist for them.
Physical contact activates the secretion of opioids and oxytocin, which induce sleep. Listening to our breathing also calms them. In fact, one of the recommendations when sleeping babies is to breathe as if we were asleep, slowly and deeply, so that they imitate our breathing.
Search for a strategy
Sleep is a human need that provides us rest and relaxation of the vital functions of our body. This means that the time of sleep should be pleasant and relaxing so that the nights are calm and the dream has a restorative effect.
Taking into account that sleeping accompanied generates peace of mind and security, we must look for a strategy that our little one likes, but that we like too.
Depending on age, it can be breastfeeding, rocking, singing, telling a story, keeping company, ...
Tiny babies usually like that that reminds them of the mother's womb: have it in your arms, wrap it with a blanket, rock it, ...
Later, when they have a few months, singing, rocking them or keeping them company can be good strategies.
About two years (or before), there are techniques that can become annoying for parents, such as sleeping in arms because of the considerable weight of the children. We should use new strategies to change gradually, since at these ages they usually settle for the company, with caresses and even with a relaxing massage before bed (highly recommended)…
About three years ago, that company we talked about may be of an older brother and they can fall asleep while we tell them a story or sing to them.
Evidently every child is a world and the one who knows her baby best is her mother. These are some strategies, but everyone should do the ones that best suit their customs and ideas (there are children who want to give their mother a hand, or stroke her hair, or touch her nose, or touch her ear himself ...) .
Next week we will end the topic by talking about the moment when the baby is already asleep and waking up again: do I take it, leave it, feed it, ...?
