Funny Sleepy Baby Video: Infant Sleep Habits

As usual, I had my feet up after dinner, looking at funny YouTube videos with my feet on my lap, and I came across this little gem.

In the video, this adorable little boy dozes in his high chair, obviously snoozing through the noises of a family dinner table and the antics of his family members. The boy wakes up and laughs at the end, and it looks almost like he was playing a trick on the family – baby’s first joke!

There’s no way to know whether this little one was playing a trick on his family – or whether he really was just too tired!

Baby Sleep Habits?

Newborns tend to have “day/night confusion,” where they may have long periods of uninterrupted sleep during the day and wakeful periods at night, according to Marc Weissbluth’s book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. But their sleep is effortless – they signal that they’re tired with unmistakable crying, they sleep when they need to sleep, and they wake when they’re ready.

But as infants grow over the course of a few months, as they begin to interact with the people around them, their sleep habits begin to change. They want more and more to be involved with the world around them and can begin to fight sleep. Dr. Weissbluth writes that healthy sleep habits don’t develop naturally; it’s up to the parent to help a baby learn how to be comfortable in her own bed, so she can sleep.

You can help your baby develop healthy sleep habits by:

• Creating a regular, relaxing bedtime routine – tooth brushing, pajamas, a bath and/or a song can have a soothing effect.

• Putting the baby down before he or she is asleep. When a baby is drowsy and relaxed but still awake, he associates his bed with drowsiness, warmth, and comfort – and begins the process of learning to “self-soothe,” or return to sleep after waking in the night.

• Allow a few minutes before you go to your baby’s room if she wakes at night. Don’t leave a wet, hungry, or panicked child alone – but give the child a minute or two to return to sleep alone before you pick her up, waking her fully. Many kids will fall asleep again within less than a minute if given the opportunity.

There’s so much conflicting information when it comes to how babies sleep. Even researchers have found that parents are frustrated by the many opinions on infant sleep.

In the long run, no one knows your child, her temperament, and her sleep habits as well as you. Make your own decisions about how to handle putting your child to bed, but make sure that he or she gets to bed. A child who gets enough sleep is a child who can be fully awake – and whose body has the time and energy to mature fully and healthily.

Does your baby get enough sleep?

Author Bio: +Michelle Gordon is a sleep expert who researches and writes about sleep and health, and is an online publisher for the latex mattress specialist Latexmattress.org