BaiBoo

Paik Ling wrote to us:

I’m a member of Baiboo. My son (now 17mths old) has never slept through the night since the day he was born. He stopped having middle of the night feeds since he was 6months old and is not using the pacifier. Every night, he would wake up 3 to 4 times and cry. I will have to pacify him by petting him until he falls asleep again. I do not know what the reason is. My husband even convinced me to pray to the ancestors as he fear that they could be “playing” with him, but even that didn’t work. Is there any other solution to this please?

Hi Paik Ling

Thank you so much for being a BaiBoo member.

First of all let us look at some of the most common reasons that cause a baby to wake up from sleep at night.

• Physical discomfort – baby is either too hot or too cold.
  Many new parents over wrap their babies for fear that baby will be cold especially if sleeping in an air-conditioned room. Once their body temperature goes up too high, the only way they can get help is to cry because babies cannot remove the extra clothes or bed covers themselves. When you attend to your baby you will remove some of the covers which give them relief from the heat so they go back to sleep and before you move away you may put the cover back on and the cycle starts again. If your baby is always sweaty at night, then this could be the problem.

  Nobody, whether babies or adults lie down and sleep in one position. Some babies are fantastic wrigglers and they can kick off any light covers that you put on them. If they sleep in an air-conditioned room and the temperature starts going down their feet become too cold and they cannot sleep so they wake up crying for help. If this is the case with your son, putting on a pair of socks may solve the problem.

• Over stimulation
  Nowadays, most parents work during the day and the only time they have to play with their children is at night just before the babies’ bedtime. If the baby is put to sleep immediately after a session of vigorous play and laughter, the brain did not have time to calm down and continues to ‘play’ during sleep then the baby is more likely to wake up crying. Always try and put the baby to sleep with soothing sounds like soft music, water flowing or lullabies.
• Separation anxiety During pregnancy, babies are cocooned in the mothers’ wombs and they feel secure and protected. After birth, some babies find it difficult to adapt to being ‘on their own’ therefore they can only sleep well when lying next to someone or something. This is why some babies need to hold a pillow, bolster or a favourite toy in order to sleep well. Then there are some babies who will only sleep if they are next to a human body, be it the parents or a maid or other care taker. My daughter belongs to this category and she will only sleep if she can feel someone next to her. Even though she is asleep, her hands will be searching until she touches someone and then she will relax.

I know it is very tiring for you and your husband with insufficient sleep but research has shown that:

Night waking has survival benefits. In the first few months, babies’ needs are the highest, but their ability to communicate their needs is the lowest. Suppose a baby slept deeply through the night and the stimulus for hunger could not easily arouse him, this would not be good for his growth and development. If baby’s nose was blocked and he could not breathe, or was cold and needed warmth but the sleep state was so deep that he could not communicate his needs, his survival would be jeopardized.

Night waking has developmental benefits. Sleep researchers theorize that light (REM) sleep helps the brain develop. In fact, during REM sleep, blood flow to the brain nearly doubles. (This increased blood flow is particularly evident in the area of the brain that automatically controls breathing.) During REM sleep the body increases its manufacture of certain nerve proteins, the building blocks of the brain which may use this time to process information acquired while awake, storing what is beneficial and discarding what is not. During the light sleep stage, the higher centers of the brain keep operating, yet during deep sleep these higher brain centers shut off and the baby functions on his lower brain centers. It is possible that during this stage of rapid brain growth (babies’ brains grow to nearly seventy percent of adult volume during the first two years) the brain needs to continue functioning during sleep in order to develop. Major developmental milestones, such as sitting, crawling, and walking may drive babies to “practice” their new developmental skills in their sleep.

As they grow, babies achieve sleep maturity and the age at which babies settle – meaning they go to sleep easily and stay asleep varies widely. Some babies go to sleep easily, but don’t stay asleep. Others go to sleep with difficulty but will stay asleep. Other exhausting babies neither want to go to sleep nor stay asleep.

Something that is interesting is a new research that shows allowing babies to spend plenty of time in daylight encourages babies to sleep at night. The researcher said one possible explanation for the link between light exposure and sleep is that higher light levels encourage the early development of the biological clock, which regulates a number of bodily functions, including the secretion of melatonin, an important factor in well-balanced sleeping patterns. Melatonin helps us sleep and it is well known that daylight suppresses it so that it can be active at night. Spending time in daylight would certainly help them learn this pattern of being awake during the day and sleeping at night. Maybe you could try having your son in a bright and airy room during the day to benefit from this research finding and also make sure that he gets at least one nap during the day.

I hope that I have not been too long winded and that this may help you with your situation. Please keep me informed of your progress.

Cecilia