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Sleep Concerns
Help Baby Get a Good Night's Sleep
By Kelly Burgess
It takes becoming a parent to really be able to laugh at the term "sleeping like a baby." Dr. Ari Brown, author of Baby 411: Clear Answers and Smart Advice for Your Baby's First Year (Windsor Peak Press, 2003), says the No. 1 most frequently asked question she gets from new parents has to do with some aspect of sleep or, more accurately, the lack thereof.
Dr. Brown says much of the problem is not the baby, but, rather, it's the parents. Sometimes sleep problems stem from unrealistic expectation on their part as to what the baby is capable of at that particular stage. Sometimes it's because the parents have inadvertently instilled bad sleep habits that need to be reversed. Whatever the case, Brown has seen it all, but she's never seen a problem that can't be solved.
- 0 to 2 months: Not capable of much of anything. Often referred to as "the fourth trimester," this is a period of adjustment for babies. They've been living for nine months in a dark womb, taking their biological cues from their mother's circadian rhythms. After they're born, they have to establish their own. As a result, newborns have short sleep cycles of about 60 minutes in duration. In addition, they need to eat frequently. Brown says a parent might get lucky and have a baby that sleeps for three to four hours at a stretch, but experts who claim your baby can sleep through the night at this age are wrong.
- 2 to 4 months:
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