The birth of a child brings major changes to the daily routine of parents. A serious burden of caring for a baby is added to everyday worries, especially in the first months. Sometimes, instead of the joy of the birth of a baby, young parents experience stress, constant fatigue and lack of sleep. The experiences of the mother are transmitted to the baby, creating a vicious circle of endless troubles, irritation and whims.
To avoid negative emotions and succeed in everything, you need to think about how to accustom a newborn to a regimen from the first days of life.
The importance of a routine for young children
The daily routine is a well-thought-out constant regimen of feeding, sleeping and fulfilling the physiological needs of the newborn. The mode plays an important role in the formation of immunity, a stable psyche and the overall full development of the child. The mode helps parents to plan daily activities, combining caring for the baby with caring for other family members.
Four benefits of a clear daily routine from a physiological point of view:
- Daily feeding at the same time helps to quickly debug the baby's digestion processes. The body, accustomed to the intake of food at the appointed hour, produces enzymes, gastric juice in a timely manner, and salivation improves. All this greatly facilitates the digestion of food. Well-digested food is easier to digest. Familiar to infants and quickly disappear;
- Compliance with sleep and wakefulness allows you to balance the psyche of the child. In the first months of life, the baby learns a huge amount of information. If you teach the baby to wake up and fall asleep at a given time, this will evenly distribute the load: during sleep, the previously received information is assimilated, after waking up, the baby is ready to learn new skills;
- The baby living according to the regime has a deeper one. A fully rested baby is less naughty, does not require excessive attention from parents;
- A clear daily routine helps the child's body to balance its work, increase the efficiency of all life support processes. As a result, immunity is strengthened, health improves, energy is released for active games and exploring the world.
How to create a sleep and feeding schedule for a newborn?
Accustoming the baby to the regime begins in the maternity hospital. The daily routine in it is common for everyone, without taking into account the individual characteristics of the child. It can be taken as a basis, but such a regime is more of a recommendation. When drawing up an individual schedule, you need to focus on the biological rhythms and characteristics of a particular baby.
In Soviet times, it was customary to do everything strictly by the clock. Pediatricians insisted, for example, that the breaks between feedings are exactly three hours, which must be observed, despite the crying of the child. Modern medicine approaches the issue of regimen more flexibly.
Doctors now recommend paying more attention to the daily sequence of activities: getting up, exercising, feeding, sleeping, walking, massage, bathing, and so on. Minor deviations of 20-30 minutes for each item are allowed, you do not need to do everything “minute by minute”. It is much more important to accustom the baby to the chosen mode without unnecessary scandals and worries. Some doctors, such as Yevgeny Komarovsky, believe that up to six months the regimen depends only on the wishes of the child.
Immediately after discharge from the hospital, take a closer look at the baby to understand his natural biorhythms. In the first three weeks, the baby only eats and sleeps. On average, newborns are applied to the breast 8-10 times a day at regular intervals. Starting from the feeding regimen, you can build the basis of the general daily routine and decide how to accustom the child to his personal schedule.
By the end of the first month, the child has the first periods of activity. Night sleep becomes longer, periods of daytime sleep are gradually reduced. As you grow older, introduce new activities into the baby’s daily routine during the intervals when he is awake: massage, fees for a walk, educational games.
Approximate mode of activity of a newborn
| Age | Peculiarities |
|---|---|
| 0-1 month | There are practically no periods of activity. Sleep is a total of about 20 hours a day, feeding 8-10 times a day at approximately equal intervals of 2-2.5 hours. |
| 1-3 months | Sleep is reduced to 16-18 hours a day, feeding up to 5-6 times. The duration of night sleep gradually increases, daytime sleep is reduced to 4-5 times a day. A newborn is awake for about 1-1.5 hours a day. |
| 3-6 months | The duration of sleep is reduced by another hour, eating up to 5 times. The intervals between feedings are 3.5-4 hours. Activity lasts up to 2-2.5 hours a day. |
| 6-9 months | Sleep from 14 to 16 hours a day, during the day the newborn sleeps 2-3 times, is awake for 3-4 hours. |
| 9 months-year | It takes 13-14 hours to sleep, of which 2-3 hours for daytime sleep after dinner, the rest of the time the baby sleeps at night. Feeding 4 times a day. 5 hours or more is devoted to games and development. |
How can you help your child stay on schedule?
- Any going to bed is best accompanied by a small ritual. This will help the newborn to calm down, set himself up for rest. As a ritual, use relaxing procedures: massage, evening, soothing music, subdued light, herbal infusions;
- When observing the feeding regime, keep in mind that in some cases the child asks for breasts not for the sake of food. Mother's milk and the smell of mother act on a 2-3-month-old baby as a sedative. When something bothers him, he is applied to his chest to feel protected. Such moments happen when the weather changes, intestinal colic or malaise after vaccinations. Do not confuse them with complete feeding;
- If in the first weeks of life the baby is too active in the evening and at night, it means that he cannot get used to the new sleep pattern after intrauterine development. During pregnancy, the fetus is more mobile at night, after birth the regimen changes. Help your child to distinguish between night and day, smoothly shifting the alternation of sleep and feeding in the right direction;
- Formula-fed babies are less likely to need nutrition, as formula milk is denser and more nutritious than mother's milk. Baby food is harder for the body to digest, so it takes them longer to digest;
- If you feel unwell, the periods between sleep may become shorter, a weakened body needs more time to recuperate, a sleeping child recovers faster;
- An important item of the routine is daily walks. Walking with a newborn is recommended from the 4th week; some pediatricians believe that you can walk from the first day. The first walks last no more than 10-15 minutes, then the duration gradually increases;
- In inclement or too cold weather, a full walk can be replaced by sleeping on an open balcony. This will allow you to maintain the regime without depriving the baby of fresh air;
- Do not be afraid to walk with your baby in winter. With properly selected clothes, the cold is not terrible for him, but there are fewer bacteria in the frosty air. Temperature standards vary depending on the region of residence. In the south, the temperature allowed for walking is -10-12°C, in the northern latitudes it can reach -20°C;
- Up to 8 months of age, it is convenient to combine daily walks with daytime sleep. Closer to the year, it is better to choose the time for walking during the period of active wakefulness;
- The duration of the walk and the permissible temperatures for weakened premature babies should be discussed separately with the pediatrician;
- For hygiene, it is important to choose the right time so as not to form a persistent dislike for washing or massage sessions in the child. These procedures should be carried out when the child is fed (but not immediately after eating, give time to digest food), does not want to sleep, nothing bothers him;
- When compiling a daily routine for a newborn, it is important to think about how to accustom an infant to the regimen of the whole family without violating the general schedule (the time when the mother escorts older children to school, feeds the family, and buys groceries). If necessary, the mode of sleep and wakefulness can be gently adjusted: wake up a little earlier in the morning or slightly reduce daytime sleep so that the child sleeps longer at night. You can adjust the baby to the family no earlier than 4 months after birth. It is important to do this gradually, avoiding stress and sudden changes in the usual rhythm.
When compiling and observing the daily routine, adhere to common sense. The exact daily routine is important, but you should not arrange a strength test for the sake of it. Mode is just one of the rules that can sometimes be broken.
Treat the daily routine as a tool that helps you plan your day properly, allocating time for all family members. And then with the advent of the crumbs, your life will not turn into a race to the bottom.
