Your Baby: Sleeping Problems and Cures

Of all the things that happen when you have a baby, sleeping problems are the most complained of. You worry that she sleeps too deeply, or too lightly, that she might be prone to SIDS, that she doesn't seem to sleep at all and is giving YOU sleeping problems. Fortunately, a large part of what you might consider to be a sleeping problem is perfectly normal for your baby.

Infant sleep patterns

are very different from those of an adult. A baby starts life sleeping up to 20 hours a day, and half that time is spent in REM sleep; compare that to the 20% of sleep time spent in REM by adults. Up until the age of four, babies need plenty of sleep during the day as well as during the night, and much of that sleep time is spent in active dreaming states. You might say that your baby lives as much in dreams as she does in her waking life.

The most serious baby sleeping problem is SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. This terrifying disorder happens when your baby sleeps too deeply, in essence sleeping herself to death when her brain forgets to breathe. This, thankfully, has become a much rarer problem since the "back to sleep" campaign was started by pediatric nurses; babies who sleep on their backs are much less likely to enter that too-deep sleeping state. Interestingly, babies who co-sleep with their parents have zero incidence of SIDS.

A few infants have trouble with sleep apnea. This baby sleeping problem is marked by snoring and mouth breathing while sleeping (babies' mouths and nasal passages are shaped in such a way that nasal breathing should be more than adequate). Most babies who have this sleep apnea also have feeding problems, so if you have one, watch for the other. When this baby sleeping problem is undiagnosed and untreated, it can lead to developmental delays and AD/HD later in childhood.

Most infants don't have serious sleeping problems, but childhood sleep disorders can become a problem by the time she's two. Night terrors, for instance, can have her awake and screaming in bed for no reason she can verbalize. These, if they don't come frequently, are normal; they are thought to be the result of an immature nervous system overreacting to rouse a child from deep sleep. If she has frequent night terrors, it might be time to speak to a specialist.

Among other pediatric sleep disorders is childhood insomnia. This disorder does not seem to be caused by the same things as adult insomnia, but rather is most often caused by either psychiatric problems or - more often - lax bedtime routines that lead to a child's failure to go to sleep. A little one who repeatedly gets up to ask for water is not an insomniac; one who wets the bed and wakes up irritable the next day likely is. If you've worked on regulating the bedtime ritual and you still have a child who does not sleep well, it's probably time to see a specialist about it.