Sleep Habits and Routines

Actually, we have the similar topic in our forum (Bagaimana agar anak mudah tidur / tidak rewel? / How to make your children easy to sleep?).

The typical new-born to 2 months old babies sleep randomly from 16-20 hours in a day. According to MayoClinic.com, many babies sleep up to 5 hours during the night by the age of 3 months, and become 9 to 12 hours by age of 6 months.

Even though babies have the same biological clock to sleep at night as adults do, these young humans still can not tell the difference between day and night. Therefore, we should create a regular sleeping habits and routines for our baby. A simple example of this habit is, our home shall be a stimulating place for learning and other activity during the day, and shall be a quiet place at night. Also, putting your baby into bed when he/she is sleepy (but not asleep yet) and dimming the light during nights will certainly help the baby to learn to differentiate day and night, as well as to develop a more consistent sleep habits. These are routines that my family do at home.

It is important to establish a consistent sleep habits and routines for your baby, and to stick to it. The more regular your baby’s sleeping hours are, the more likely he or she will be able to sleep well throughout the night.

Please remember that there will be no way to avoid irregular sleeping habits with your baby. There are times when your baby simply wants to be awake when other family members want to sleep. However, your baby will begin to adjust to your family’s consistent sleeping habits and routines if you can indoctrinate this sense of well-ordered. You should not let the baby to arrange his or her sleeping habits. By establishing regular sleeping habits and routines with your baby, the transition into regular sleeping habits for your baby will be simple and easy.

What about sleep trainers or devices to help the baby sleep? Frankly speaking, we do not know about their effectiveness, nor familiar with this methods. Maybe the best device we can recommend now, is only a pacifier. We are not against it, but let us put it this way. Sleeping, is one of basic need as human, therefore we (as well babies) only have stimulate our own drive to sleep, without any need of external stimulator.

We find some interesting articles that cover broader perspective on how to make babies sleeps well in the following link:

• Baby sleep: Help your baby sleep through the night
• Baby sleep basics: Birth to 3 months
  
• Baby sleep basics: 3 to 6 months
  
• Baby sleep basics: 6 to 9 months
  
• Baby sleep basics: 9 to 12 months
• Three Tips for to get children with sleeping problems asleep