New born sleeping: a useful guide of knowledge for the parents

A new born baby usually spends most of the time in 24 hours sleeping only waking for feedings in every few hours. For the birth to first 3 months, they generally sleep around 8-18 hours a day. Then it gradually decreases to around 8- 12 hours a day as the baby grows older. 

Every baby sleep pattern can be different from that of other baby so the parents shouldn’t concern themselves with comparing the sleep patterns but if there is something unusual i.e., if the baby is sleeping longer than their usual routine, in that case it might be a signal to the underlying fever, illness or other health issues and the parents should seek proper medical attention.

Since a new born doesn’t know the difference between day and night sleep schedule or their brain is not developed enough to comprehend day and night sleep cycle, they sleep during both, the day and night. They usually start to get aware about this routine around 6 weeks and by the age of 12 months, they start to adapt to this routine. The parents can also help in this process by exposing them to the light and playing with them during the day and provide a quite environment for sleeping at night.

New-born babies are known to sleep known to sleep in short bursts, lasting around 2-4 hours at a time. They need frequent feeding and changing. 

New born sleep cycle 

 A new born baby have 2 different types of sleep cycle. These are

1. Active Sleep: During the active sleep, a new born usually show irregular shallow breathing, make noises and lots of movements. They can easily wake up during the active sleep phase. From the birth to around first 12 weeks, the baby usually spends most of their ‘sleeping time’ in active sleep. The amount of their active sleep slowly starts to reduce after that. 
2. Quite Sleep: During quiet sleep, a baby is still and shows deep and even breathing. They don’t easily wake up during the quiet sleep. 

A new born sleep cycle involves both active sleep and quiet sleep and these cycles are generally around 40 minutes. 

 Settling the new born: things to follow

After each cycle, a new born baby usually wakes up crying and the parents can settle them back to sleep by holding the baby in the arms or swaddling the baby in a receiving blanket and gently rocking, patting, swaying and singing before putting them in their cot for sleeping.