Sleep problems in a baby

Unfortunately, sleep problems can occur not only in a young mother, but also in a child. It is very important to see the line between pathology and the norm, because the baby's body is different from an adult's. In addition, the child is just learning to understand this life and its rules. And this means that whether the child will have sleep problems or they can be avoided depends primarily on the parents.

Let's return to the issue of pathology and norm. A newborn's sleep takes up 18 out of 24 hours a day, while the concepts of "day" and "night" do not exist for him in the first month of life, so he can sleep during the day and be awake at night, which is not a sleep disorder at all. The child learns to distinguish the time of day gradually, and by the age of 1.5 years, night feeding is no longer so important for many children, since the child does not want to wake up in the middle of the night. At 3 years old, there are already two thirds of such children, and at one year old, only 10 percent want to eat at night. And daytime sleep is gradually becoming less and less necessary. By the age of 1-2 years, children sleep only once a day.

But we are only interested in night rest. What is the norm? The weak crying and whining of a baby in his sleep, which frightens many parents, turns out to be considered a completely physiological manifestation, allowing the child to get rid of the burden of emotions accumulated during the day and check if his parents are nearby. It is enough for the baby to just understand that mom and dad are nearby, and he will calm down.

But if you worry about this and pay too much attention to the baby, he will definitely have problems with sleep. The child will constantly demand attention to himself at the slightest awakening, this will not benefit either the child himself or his parents.

Sleep problems in infants

Waking up a baby at night during the drowsy period or REM sleep phase is also not a disorder. A newborn's sleep phases change very often, and accordingly, he will wake up more often than a one-year-old baby. In most cases of such awakenings, if the child is dry and well-fed, he will soon fall asleep on his own, and parents should not interfere with this. At night, small children need to be given the minimum necessary attention, which will allow them to get used to the daily routine, when they need to sleep at night and communicate with their parents during the day.

A healthy child should learn to accept his "loneliness" and calm down independently. This will help to avoid various sleep disorders and disruption of biological rhythms, which are in the process of formation in childhood.

A child's twitching in his sleep should also not be a cause for concern if the baby does not show excessive anxiety during the day. A twitch usually accompanies the transition from one stage of sleep to another, and the immaturity of the inhibitory mechanisms of the central nervous system in young children results in such an unusual symptom.

Sleep problems in infants and young children manifest themselves in most cases as insomnia, which is manifested by difficulties falling asleep in combination with night awakenings. As in adults, insomnia in a child can be both primary physiological and pathological. In the second case, perinatal disorders of the nervous system are most often the cause of insomnia in children under 1 year old.

It should be said that most small children do not sleep well because of illness. Sleep disorders are most often caused by the wrong attitude towards sleep of both the baby and his parents. Moreover, sleep problems are unlikely to have negative consequences for the child, he will have time to get a good night's sleep in a day. But for parents, nightly "concerts" can become a real nightmare.

As we have already said, a baby can wake up several times during the night, after which he will fall asleep again, but only in the conditions to which he is accustomed. If the baby is regularly rocked before sleep, sat next to him, or the child falls asleep in the parent's bed, at night he will demand the creation of the same conditions to which he is accustomed and feels comfortable. A child who has had enough sleep during the day can demand his own at night for an hour or two, which will result in constant sleep deprivation of parents, who will have worries both day and night.

It is necessary to teach a baby to fall asleep in his own crib from the very beginning, without rocking and the constant presence of parents. Falling asleep with a bottle of milk is also considered an incorrect attitude. The child develops an association of the process of falling asleep with feeding, rocking, the obligatory presence of parents, etc., which in the future will result in sleepless nights for relatives.

To prevent the baby from feeling lonely, you can put a favorite toy or a diaper with mom's scent in his bed. If the baby wakes up and can't fall asleep for a long time, you should definitely go to him, but only to check if everything is okay, change the diaper or diaper if necessary, caress the baby and calm him down. There is no need to walk kilometers around the room with the baby in your arms if the child is healthy and is just capricious. The baby should in any case learn to fall asleep and sleep on his own.

Children over one year old, more cunning and inventive, have new excuses not to sleep. When a child has learned to walk and can express his discontent not only by screaming and crying, it will no longer be so easy to keep him in bed, as well as to put him to sleep. If the baby regularly plays around and drags out time so as not to go to bed at the set time, and then constantly asks to go to the toilet, for water, to eat, etc., it is time to think about the child's sleep disorders.

If the previous example was about the time of falling asleep, then we will talk about the problems that arise with the sleeping place. It is clear that a child feels less lonely and protected next to his parents, so small children very often try to defend their right to sleep in bed with their parents, especially if they were taught this in infancy. It would seem that there is nothing terrible in this, but the older the child gets, the more difficult it will be to wean him off sleeping with his parents. Even if you put the baby in his crib in the evening, in the middle of the night he will run to his parents' bed.

Such night "journeys" can be caused by the baby's fears or ordinary whims. In any case, the situation requires attention. If the child is afraid to sleep alone, you need to figure out what the cause of these fears is and do everything to make the fears go away, even with the help of a psychologist. Whims will also have to be dealt with if the parents do not want the child to violate their personal and rather intimate space in bed.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account that in the parent's bed the child will fall asleep instantly and wake up in the morning very happy and well-rested. But it will be much more difficult for the parents, their sleep is more sensitive, and it will not be so easy to fall asleep, especially if most of the bed is occupied by their child (children can do this!).

It is much easier to accustom a child under one year to a certain daily routine, or rather nightly routine. With older children, you will have to compromise in order to maintain good relations in the family. We are talking about certain agreements about sleep time, rituals preceding sleep (fairy tales, lullabies, etc.), the child's behavior during the night.

There is nothing shameful if parents, in order to maintain their own and their child's peace of mind, demand obedience in exchange for some benefits in the future, but within reasonable limits. After 1-3 weeks, the child will develop the habit of going to bed at a certain time in his own bed, and stimulation will no longer be needed.

With the child's relatives, who sometimes have the child stay overnight, it is necessary to agree on observing the waking and sleeping regime. Even when visiting, the child should have a separate sleeping place and go to bed at a time determined by the parents.

In addition to the disruption of associations and sleep settings for time and place, there is another problem that causes sleep disorders in the child and his parents. This is incorrect eating behavior during sleep. Ideally, a baby should eat in the evening, play a little and fall asleep. Up to 3-6 months, the baby can wake up at night 2-3 more times to eat. Older children no longer require night feedings, which means that there is no need to feed them during awakenings in the middle of the night.

Some parents do not understand this or simply make life easier for themselves by giving their baby a bottle of food every time he cries at night. Yes, the baby will fall asleep quickly, but in the future he will not be able to fall asleep without food. This will lead to tooth decay, because no one will rinse their mouth at night, inflammation of the inner ear (the result of feeding in a horizontal position, when liquid food can get into the Eustachian tube and further), eating disorders (lack of rest for the gastrointestinal tract, consumption of excess food, excessive weight gain).

Another nuance. For a child to fall asleep quickly in bed, it is not at all necessary that he be tired. Little children are already active enough that their body needs a night's rest. But this will be a natural need.

It is not worth stimulating sleep with active games and overly emotional events. This will have the opposite effect. An excited baby is unlikely to want the "festivity" to stop, so bedtime may drag on for more than one hour.

The psychological environment in the family is also very important for a child's peaceful sleep. If parents constantly quarrel and express dissatisfaction with each other in front of the child, the baby will constantly wake up at night and cry, he will develop night fears, enuresis, somnambulism and other sleep disorders may develop.

As we can see, the cause of sleep disorders in a child is most often the parents themselves, creating the wrong attitudes and not thinking about the child's mental health. Sometimes, behind their ambitions, moms and dads can overlook more serious sleep disorders than those described above. After all, a child's poor sleep can be due to illness, not whims. And in this case, the baby simply needs to be shown to a specialist, because not only the illness itself can cause harm, but also the lack of a full night's rest caused by it.

This applies to both toddlers and school-age children, for whom adequate sleep is one of the main conditions for good academic performance. In addition, at this age, self-esteem begins to form and any sleep disturbances can play a cruel joke in this regard.

At school age, the daily routine is especially important. However, it is not enough to allocate enough time for sleep. It is also necessary to correctly plan the time before the night's rest and the child's nutrition. A schoolchild should not overeat at night (a light dinner should be 2 hours before going to bed), study lessons until lights out (9-10 pm), play active games before going to bed. The air in the room where the child sleeps should be cool (about 18-20 degrees) and sufficiently humidified.

All these requirements will help to make the sleep of a younger schoolchild full and comfortable. But with the onset of adolescence, new difficulties may arise.

Sleep problems in teenagers

Adolescence is a special milestone in the life of every adult. Negativism and unwillingness to adhere to the framework accepted in society and the team are intertwined with a depressive state and the first love experiences. What a child looked at calmly a year or two ago now causes a lot of stormy emotions that deprive the child of peace during the day and do not allow sleep at night.

It is especially hard at night, when all the daytime experiences fall on the fragile psyche, which is also weakened by hormonal changes. Parents may not know for a while that their growing son or daughter tosses and turns in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep. And only over time do the symptoms of nocturnal insomnia make themselves known through difficulty waking up, morning and daytime sleepiness, lethargy, deterioration of memory and attention, decreased academic performance, irritability, conflict, and frequent headaches.

Some parents don't even realize how many different factors can affect a high school student's sleep. A teenager may have sleep problems with the following:

• Failure to adhere to a daily routine, especially on weekends and holidays, when a teenager prefers to go to bed and wake up later than usual, which disrupts their biological rhythms.
• Heavy mental loads during the educational process can lead to overstraining of the nervous system. As a result, sleepiness at lunchtime. If a teenager does not manage to rest normally during the day (and after all, he needs to do homework, attend clubs, etc.), problems with sleep at night are possible. But if the child sleeps during the day for a long time, he may also have problems falling asleep at night.
• The main reason for insomnia in adolescence is anxiety. Hormonal imbalances and puberty make these experiences even more intense. Attractiveness to the opposite sex is questioned by many teenagers, and against this background, the experiences can be especially strong.

Low self-esteem, conflicts with teachers about academic performance, first love, etc. prevent a teenager from sleeping peacefully. But this is all normal for adolescence, parents just need to try to find a common language with their growing child, help and support him in a difficult situation, teach the teenager to cope with problems without sacrificing a night's rest.

• Hypodynamia is no less harmful to teenagers than to adults. In adolescence, children become less active. Intellectual work at school prevails over physical work, but during breaks and after classes, teenagers no longer run around like kids, and they don’t play active games. Often, you can’t even get them to leave the classroom.

But physical activity can reduce mental stress and vice versa. In this way, a balance is created between the various loads on the body, helping to avoid overfatigue. The lack of physical work at school should be compensated for by active activities outside of it (housework, walking in the fresh air, sports games and sports).

• Confrontation with various taboos (alcohol, drugs, smoking), innate curiosity and the desire to quickly become (or at least seem) an adult lead to the fact that a teenager tries to experience everything that was not allowed to him before. But what is harmful even for an adult organism cannot but harm the health of a child. One of the consequences of the negative impact of substances harmful to the body is their negative impact on the central nervous system, and as a result, neurological disorders and sleep problems.

But not only alcohol and nicotine are famous for their stimulating effect on the central nervous system, but also drinks such as coffee and energy drinks. Drink such a drink before bed, and insomnia is guaranteed. And many children begin to be interested in adult drinks in their teenage years, without thinking at all about the rules for their use.

• Early sexual intercourse is another reason for insomnia. A teenager can spend hours going over all the details of sexual intercourse in his head, worrying about how it all happened and how his parents will react to it, etc. These are strong experiences that not every teenager will dare to share.
• The problem of the modern world – widespread computerization – has a particularly strong impact on teenagers. Not only does the computer replace live communication for them, but this communication has no time frame. In online networks, kids can communicate for almost days, staying up until 1-2 am, and then scrolling through the details of active communication in their heads. After all, any communication is an exchange of information that the brain needs to “digest”. And this takes time, even at night, because you can’t leave such important moments for the morning, when the intensity of sensations is dulled.
• Another nuance related to the Internet and television is the bright light coming from the screen, which does not contribute to the production of the sleep hormone melatonin, which is already produced late in teenagers (a scientific fact related to physiology). Neither bright light, nor active communication, nor online games, nor intellectual work near the computer contribute to falling asleep quickly and sleeping soundly.
• The diet also plays a major role in maintaining the body's biological rhythms. A late dinner, overeating at night, too spicy and fatty food, snacks before bed tell the body that it is too early to sleep, because the digestive system is in a state of active work. Therefore, the brain does not associate this period with the night, when all systems should rest, i.e. work, but without stress. For example, if you have dinner at 9 p.m., then the body may want to sleep not at 10, but at 11 o'clock, and from 10 to 11 you will have to toss and turn in bed.
• A place to sleep. It is no secret that the lack of one's own room, an uncomfortable bed, too much lighting in the sleeping area, loud noises only aggravate the problem of teenage insomnia. In addition, it is very important to teach a teenager the correct rituals of falling asleep.
• For example, a teenager should understand that a bed is a place for sleeping, where a laptop, tablet or phone have no place. Lying in bed before going to sleep, you can read light prose or poetry, listen to pleasant music that promotes relaxation and quick falling asleep, but nothing more. Communication on the phone or the Internet should remain outside the bed, and ideally outside the bedroom.
• Psychological situation in the family. It is clear that constant quarrels and scandals of parents affect the psyche of a teenager no less than personal experiences. And if the teenager himself became a participant in these scandals, he is guaranteed a restless night.

Clarification of relationships and heart-to-heart talks, even quite friendly ones, are better done during the daytime, and not before going to bed. After all, the teenager will think about the conversation in bed for a long time, which will significantly reduce the number of hours of night rest, which at this age should be at least 8-10 hours.

It is not for nothing that adolescence is considered a very restless period, because despite the seeming calm and indifference of teenagers (and they like to put on such a mask), in the souls of these grown-up children truly Shakespearean passions boil, which do not let them sleep at night. And a teenager who has not had enough sleep is like a time bomb, sluggish and apathetic, but at any moment ready to explode with a multitude of different words and emotions, mostly negative. And it is unlikely to bring relief to anyone.

Consequences

Problems with sleep in a child are a special topic. Frequent awakenings and nighttime trips of the baby from his bed to the parents', to the toilet, to the kitchen, etc. become the cause of sleep disorders in the child's parents. In the evenings, the child does not allow them to fall asleep on time, and at night makes them constantly get up, interrupting their sleep. But it is not so easy for the excited brain of mom or dad to fall asleep after such awakenings, if it concerns their beloved child. And in the morning it turns out that the nervous system is at its limit, and physical strength is running out, i.e. there was no rest as such at all.

Sleep disorders in healthy infants do not pose a danger to them. After all, a child can rest peacefully at any time of the day. When the baby gets older and it is time to go to kindergarten, sleep problems gradually begin to remind of themselves in the form of drowsiness, lethargy and apathy of the child, decreased appetite and interest in communication. But such children still have the opportunity to rest during the day.

But when the child starts going to school, serious problems arise. A sleepy baby is not able to fully absorb the information that the teacher gives him, which means that his academic performance will be low. The child will quickly get tired of studying, and he will not keep quiet about it. Whims, stubbornness, failure to comply with the teacher's requirements will be a reason for a serious conversation with the parents and a visit to a psychologist.

In adolescence, declining academic performance will be accompanied by constant conflicts with teachers and parents, an exacerbation of personal experiences, and the addition of depression, which, against the background of hormonal imbalance, quite often leads to suicide attempts.

But this is only the psychological side of the problem. And if we talk about physiology, then sleep deficiency will definitely affect the work of various organs and systems, which will work to the point of exhaustion even against the background of small loads.

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