The Child Wakes Up At Night: Is This Normal?

There is a concrete name in medicine for babies who wake up multiple times during the night: normal babies. The sleep cycle of the little ones is sometimes a source of stress for the parents, but it requires only two magical ingredients: time and patience. The same one that serves as their brains mature. Here’s what to do if your baby wakes up at night.

Many parents believe they must “teach their children to sleep”. They need habits and routines to feel secure, predict what’s going to happen, and build associations to understand the world around them.

When it comes to sleep, we are faced with a biological instinct, a dimension that is still immature in infants and younger children. Only time and adequate development will be able to transform it into an uninterrupted rest that lasts between seven and nine hours in a row.

Why does the child wake up at night?

The dimension of sleep still remains a mystery today. There are studies that reveal that a 32-week-old fetus is already capable of dreaming while sleeping in the womb of the mother.  But there is something that science cannot explain: why some children sleep through the night and others are unable to rest for three hours straight.

It doesn’t matter that a baby just a few weeks old has only minimal life experience. In the brain is established the basis of a unique personality and exclusive needs that make it different from all others. Therefore it is necessary to be sensitive to these needs.

Anxiety and fear never sleep

If our child wakes up during the night, it will gradually create an atmosphere of anxiety and worry. We will ask ourselves if everything is okay, if he is sick or if we are doing something wrong.

• If he wakes up during the night it is completely normal.
• Real life does not always coincide with what you read in books. The formulas do not always work and children are not all the same.
• A newborn baby is completely dependent on us. The night, the turned off light and loneliness are a terrible source of anxiety and fear for many little ones. They fear for their survival, they do not know if you will return, if they will remain alone in the dark forever.
• Almost all of a child’s actions are instinctive. We can’t convince him that nothing will happen to him when we leave him in the crib. The only thing he understands is the safety of physical contact, the feeling of protection of the mother’s voice and arms.

Over time, this fear, like so many instinctive fears, will fade away. In the meantime, it only takes a great deal of patience and understanding.

How to deal with our son’s night watches?

Neurologists say that a child’s brain fully matures when he is about seven years old. All of her neural networks are surrounded by myelin, so her mental connections change until her sleep cycles are more regular and night terrors are reduced. If the baby wakes up in the night, then, there is nothing wrong with that.

Knowing that a child begins to rest regularly around the age of seven can be a shock to parents. The  first changes occur as early as three years old and, in general, there is a big difference from child to child.

What is the best technique for putting a baby to sleep?

Until recently, the “Estivill method” was fashionable, which recommended letting the baby cry alone in the crib until he fell asleep. Now the same author claims the opposite.

•  If the baby wakes up in the night it is not advisable to let him cry. It is an unnecessary source of stress for the baby that could be eliminated with a caress, a word or a hug with which to show him that everything is okay.
• There is no magic formula that applies to all children. Every mother must find the most effective method for her child, and she will find out over time, by chance or by habit.
• Finally, children should not be allowed to arrive very tired at the crib or bed. Naps during the day induce deep sleep, while games and luminous pendants activate attention. At night, it is better to take them off.

Be patient, it is not always easy to adapt to a world where suddenly the light goes out and your child does not know what happened and if you will return to him. Months, years and love will provide the answers to all his insecurities.