Getting Your Infant To Sleep

That mix of trepidation and excitement of taking your new baby home for the first time... ("What do you mean there's no instruction manual!?").

One thing you know is that you're going to need your sleep! In order to better understand the how-to’s of getting you and your baby to enjoy going to sleep and staying asleep, here are some important principles of sleep that every new parent needs to understand.

1. How you sleep.

After getting ready for bed, most adults get into a state of relaxation for sleep by performing various bedtime rituals: reading, listening to music or watching TV. As you drift into sleep, your higher brain centres begin to rest; enabling you to enter the stage of deep sleep called “non-REM” (non-rapid eye movement -- NREM), or deep sleep (also called quiet sleep). Your mind and body are quietest during this stage of sleep.

After about an hour and a half in this quiet sleep stage, your brain begins to “wake up” and start working, which brings you out of your deep sleep and into light sleep or active sleep, called rapid eye movement or “REM” sleep. During this stage of sleep your eyes actually move under your eyelids as your brain exercises. You dream and stir, turn over, and may even adjust the covers without fully awakening.

It is during this sleep stage that you may fully awaken to go to the bathroom, then return to bed and fall back into a deep sleep. These alternating cycles of light and deep sleep continue every couple hours throughout the night, so that a typical adult may spend an average of six hours in quiet sleep and two hours in active sleep. Thus, you do not sleep deeply all night, even though you may feel as though you do.

2. How infants get to sleep.

You’re rocking, walking, or nursing your baby and her eyelids droop as she begins to nod off in your arms. Her eyes close completely, but her eyelids continue to flutter and her breathing is still irregular.

Her hands and limbs are flexed, and she may startle, twitch, and show fleeting smiles, called “sleep grins.” She may even continue a flutter-like sucking. Just as you bend over to deposit your “sleeping” baby in her crib so you can creep quietly away, she awakens and cries. That’s because she wasn’t fully asleep. She was still in the state of light sleep when you put her down.

Now try your proven bedtime ritual again, but continue this ritual longer (about twenty more minutes). You will notice that baby’s grimaces and twitches stop; her breathing becomes more regular and shallow, her muscles completely relax. Her fisted hands unfold and her arms and limbs dangle weightlessly. We call this “limp-limb” sign of deep sleep. Baby is now in a deeper sleep, allowing you to put her down and sneak away, breathing a satisfying sigh of relief that baby is finally resting comfortably.

Phew! Time to put the kettle on! Unless....

Unless its the middle of the night.

In this case, you tip-toe back to your bedroom, you ease your way back into bed, gently, gently. When all of a sudden, "creak, twist, spring"... your dear old metal spring mattress wakes your deep-sleeping (yet sleep-deprived) partner, with both the creaking of the springs and the motion transfer across the bed.

This is when you know it's time to invest in a memory foam mattress and DORMEO can help. Click here for more information.