Hi Mums and Dads. My name's Emma.
I'm a paediatric occupational therapist and mum to two gorgeous children.
So you've got a newborn baby, which is very, very exciting. But oh my gosh,
can it be overwhelming.
Particularly when you're thinking about sleep and there's so much information
out there.
So today I'm going to share with you what your newborn sleeping pattern should
look like.
And if you're wanting some tips and tricks on how to get your baby to sleep,
if they're just not sleeping. Check out my video,
which I'll link in the description box below. Which covers some tips and tricks,
which will help your newborn sleep through the night or during the day in their
cot. Before we get into it,
I just want to let you know that there's a free PDF document in the description
box below,
which you can print out and refer to in your baby's first year of life,
as it covers the developmental milestones that you should be expecting. Also,
if you're hearing about baby development and some parenting tips and tricks,
which will make your life as parents easier and give you a baby the best start
to life.
Make sure you subscribe to my channel and hit that bell button to be notified
when I release a new video every week. And if you like this video,
give me a thumbs up.
So let's dive right in and talk about what you can expect in regards to your
newborn's sleeping habits or patterns. So initially in the first few weeks,
your baby's going to sleep a lot.
So they'll sleep anywhere from 17 to 20 hours a day.
And this will actually gradually decrease. And by two to three months,
they'll be sleeping 14 to 17 hours a day. Now you might be thinking,
this is amazing, my newborn baby's going to sleep so much.
But that's actually not true. And it's definitely not going to feel like it.
And that's because newborn babies will wake up frequently throughout the day and
the night. They have no awareness about nighttime.
So they're going to be waking up just as often in the night and it's going to be
very, very tiring. So your newborn,
baby's going to wake for one of three reasons. So all three at the same time.
So they might be hungry. And that's because they have a really,
really small stomach they're going to need to feed quite regularly.
So that might be frequently as two to three hourly initially.
And then it will gradually increase over the three months.
The other reason they might wake is because they've been, they're uncomfortable.
So that could be for a number of reasons.
That might be because they're wet or soiled.
Generally a baby won't wake if they've wet their nappy.
But if it has leaked out through their clothes they would,
because they are now cold.
The other reasons they might wake because they're uncomfortable,
is because they're hot or cold.
Or they've been woken up by a loud noise or a sudden movement.
And the third reason is because they're no longer tired.
Generally newborn babies will be awake anywhere from 45 minutes to about 120
minutes.
And that's generally just enough time for you to feed your baby,
change their nappy, and maybe have a little bit of playtime. Um,
the length of time that they're awake will depend on how long they nap for.
So if they only have a short nap, so around 40 minutes,
some of them might even be as short as 20 minutes,
then they you'd be expecting them to only stay awake for 45 minutes.
But if they've had like three hours,
you might be expecting them to stay awake for that full 120 minutes. So,
newborn babies, their naps, which is really the killer,
it actually changes all the time.
There's no such thing as a routine at this age, which is really,
really hard for us as parents.
But basically your newborn baby might sleep for 40 minutes and have a 40 minute
nap. Or they might have a nap, which is as long as four hours, which is amazing.
So when newborn babies sleep, they have sleep cycles, like all humans.
Their sleep cycle is around 40 minutes and they have two different stages of
sleep. So the first stage they enter into with sleep,
is the light sleep. And this is where you think that your baby's awake.
So they're making lots of noises in their sleep.
Their arms are moving around and their legs are moving around and you'll see
that their eyeballs are moving underneath their eyelids.
So this is the REM stage of sleep. In comparison to adults, babies. Um,
their bodies aren't like paralyzed, which is what happens when we're REM sleep.
But with babies, it's not yet so that, um,
they're constantly moving and making lots of noise.
So parents will accidentally think that the baby's still awake in this stage of
sleep. The other stage of sleep that they go through is deep sleep.
And this is where the baby is still.
Their breathing is nice and deep. And as parents,
I know I've done it so many times. This is when you creep up to you, baby,
really, really slowly. Cause you think,
you want to check that they're still breathing.
And you kind of put your hand on their chest to make sure,
because you can't really hear them that well. So that's the deep stage of sleep.
They don't have that sleep a lot.
So generally they spend the majority of their time in the light sleep.
Which we need to be aware of because babies in light sleep are
more easily able to be woken up in this sleep.
So at the end of each sleep cycle,
your newborn baby will come into wake.
Like they will wake for a short period of time. And we all do that.
We all have sleep cycles and we wake up, but if nothing's changed,
we'll go back to sleep. So withi your newborn baby,
when they come into that wake period in between sleep cycles,
if they're not hungry and they're not uncomfortable and they're still tired,
they're going to go back to sleep. But if you go in and think, oh my gosh,
they're awake and pick them up,
then you're actually going to bring them into full wake and then they will wake
up at that point. So when your newborn baby's stirring,
just kind of hold off for a little while and just see what happens.
Your baby might go back to sleep.
But if you know that they are awake because they start crying,
then I would go and pick them up and um,
start feeding and changing and doing that routine. So in regards to bedtime,
what we're really talking about in the newborn phase.
So the first few weeks is really just a really late nap.
So bedtime for newborn babies is around, it could be it's quite late.
So it's 10, 11 or 12 o'clock at night.
And generally the baby will go down for a sleep.
If you're an extremely lucky parent,
your baby might sleep for four to six hours before needing a feed,
which is amazing. Well done. If not, that's totally normal.
Your baby will wake again when they're hungry.
And so that might be that you put them down at 10 or 11 or 12 o'clock and then
they wake three hours after that for a feed.
And they're going to wake regularly throughout the night for that feed because
their tummy so small and they need to feed regularly.
So by the time your baby's around three months of age,
they will have that first part of their sleep,
at night time when they go to bed, is going to be longer.
So it will be about four to six hours before they need a feed and their bedtime
will shift earlier. So that's it Mums and Dads.
You now know what your newborn's sleep patterns should look like. It's very,
very unpredictable. It will get better as they get older,
which is going to be amazing. Um, but until then,
just keep going with it.
If you want some tips and tricks on how to kind of get your baby to sleep,
if they're refusing to sleep or they're only sleeping in your arms,
make sure you check out my video,
which I will have linked in the description box below.
The other thing is just a heads up at around two weeks of age,
your baby's going to go through a whingy period in the afternoons and evenings
where they won't want to be put down. Um,
so if you want information on how to survive that time of the witching hour,
people call it or the purple crying period, check out my video that I've made.
And again, that will be in the description box below.
And if you want some activities to do with your newborn baby,
when they're in that content period, when they're awake, check out my video,
which I've covered activities that you should be doing with your baby to ensure
that they have the opportunity to develop those gross motor,
fine motor and communication skills. So if you've liked this video,
make sure you give me a thumbs up. Also subscribe.
If you want to hear more tips and tricks on how to make your life as parents
easier and give your baby the best start to life.
And hit that bell button to be notified when I release a new video every week.
Thanks so much for listening. I hope to see you next week,
where I can try and make your lives easier.