Have you ever wondered where the phrase “sleeping like a baby” comes from? We’re not sure either, but let’s venture a guess and say it came from someone who has never tried to help a fussy baby fall asleep.

Of course, babies sleep a lot. Newborn infants average anywhere from fourteen to eighteen hours of sleep per day. Still, that sleep comes in brief two to four hour spurts, so it can feel like a lot less to parents who have spent the majority of their lives sleeping for eight hours at a time.

Of course, newborns have a very good reason for waking up so often. Their little tummies just can’t hold very much. Combine that with an ultra fast digesting liquid diet, and you have a formula (no pun intended) for a hungry infant who needs attention on a regular basis. Breast fed babies especially need to wake up often, as breast milk digests even faster than commercially produced formula.

As your newborn grows, so will her stomach, and she will gradually be able to eat enough at one setting to stay satisfied for longer periods of time, allowing her (and you) longer rest and sleep periods. Babies differ as far as their sleep patterns go, but generally speaking, your baby should be able to start sleeping through the night somewhere between six months and one year of age.

Of course, five hours of uninterrupted sleep is considered “sleeping through the night” for babies. We’re still trying to figure out who came up with that number. To be sure, though, by the time your baby is sleeping five hours or so at a time, it will feel like a full night’s sleep comparatively.

Until your baby is three or four months old, there really isn’t much you can do to help her sleep for longer periods of time. The most important thing is to take care of her needs. Change her, feed her, burp her, and take care of any other needs she may have, and then rock her back to sleep. The best thing you can do for yourself during this time period is to take as many naps as you can while the baby is sleeping.

Your baby’s crib is perhaps the most important piece of safety equipment you will have in your house. You need to make sure that crib is safe and secure, and that it’s a comfortable place for your baby to rest her head at night.

You need to recognize just how important that crib is. Here are some facts about your baby’s sleep habits and his time in the crib you might not know:

• Your baby is going to sleep an average of 16 hours a day for the first two months. That adds up to 960 hours, and the vast majority of the time is going to be in the crib.
• The following four months – from age three months to age six months – that sleep amount drops slightly to about 14.5 hours a day. That gives you another 1,300+ hours, much of which is crib time.
• The remainder of the first year gives you an average of another 2,500 hours of sleep time.

All told, you’re looking at nearly 5,000 hours of sleep in the first year. Assuming ¾ of that is in the crib, you’re talking about 3,250 crib hours. Now, you can begin to see why the crib needs to be safe, secure, and comfortable.

Here are some things you can do when buying a crib to help baby be safe:

• If you’re buying a used crib, check out the Consumer Products Safety Commission to make sure there hasn’t been a recall on that particular model. Crib recalls are common, so do the homework before you buy used.
• On any crib, the slats should not be any greater than about 2.5 inches apart. If you can put a can of pop through the slats, your baby can probably get his head stuck in there.
• Corner posts should not have the potential for snags that can catch your baby’s clothing or blanket.
• Headboards and footboards should not have cut-out designs.
• Make sure the crib’s dropping side has a minimum of two locks so that your baby – as she gets older – isn’t able to accidentally release the crib side.
• When your baby begins climbing, consider switching to a toddler bed as soon as possible.

Swaddling is something that parents have done for ages. Many cultures throughout the course of human history have swaddled their babies. Interestingly enough, there is modern research that shows that this ancient custom may actually have some very specific benefits for your baby.

Swaddling your baby helps to create a soothing feeling. This can help him to fall asleep easier, and it can help him to sleep more soundly. Swaddling helps insure that your baby sleeps on his back, which can help reduce the risk of SIDS.

Swaddling also keeps your baby from moving around. By about the age of two months, most experts recommend that you stop swaddling, or that you at least loosen the folds of the blanket gradually to allow some additional movement.

Experts aren’t entirely certain why swaddling is so beneficial for babies. There is the idea that swaddling more closely represents the closed, comfortable environment of the womb, where baby has spent the majority of her developmental time.

Here are the steps to swaddle your baby:

1.      Lay a square receiving blanket out on a flat surface in a diamond shape.

2.      Fold down the top blanket corner, just around four inches.

3.      Place your baby on the receiving blanket. His head should be where that fold is. It’s important not to cover baby’s head.

4.      Fold the right corner over across baby’s body, and tuck it underneath her. You will tuck her right arm, and leave her left arm free.

5.      Fold the bottom of the blanket up onto your baby’s chest.

6.      Now, fold the left corner across baby’s body. This should contain the left arm and keep it from moving. Tuck this fold.

7.      Check your work. The swaddling should be snug, but it should not be so tight that it cuts off circulation or causes pain at all.

As you can see, swaddling is a fairly straightforward process. It doesn’t take much time or effort, and it can help your baby sleep better, and feel more comfortable at those times when she may be overly tired or just simply fussy.

One of the basic truths when it comes to babies is that they want to do things their way, and on their own schedule. You struggle with your baby’s sleep patterns, for example. Once you think you’ve got her figured out, she switches things all around. Often, it isn’t so much that your baby has just decided to make a change as it is the fact that there’s something else going on in your baby’s life that is causing this change.

One thing that can create inconsistent sleep for your baby is a change in his eating habits. When you introduce solid foods to his diet for the first time, for example, it will most definitely affect the way that he sleeps. The same is true if your baby happens to develop a food allergy of some sort or another; it’s just likely to mess with his sleep.

A cold is another common reason that your baby might have inconsistent sleep. She might get sick and not feel well at all, but it can be two, three, or even more days before she starts to show any symptoms that you can see. She just doesn’t feel good.

Obviously, addressing the root cause of your baby’s inconsistent sleep is the key to getting things back to normal. If your baby’s sleep patterns have changed because he’s started to eat solid foods, that means you’re just going to have to wait it out. If it’s because she’s ill, it means you need to treat the symptoms of her illness so that she will feel better.

What makes matters especially frustrating in this regard is that your baby, through the first couple of years of life, is still trying to establish sleep patterns. Something like a cold or a change in feeding habits can change that schedule, and make it harder for your baby to establish those patterns.

The best thing you can do when your baby has inconsistent sleep issues is to recognize what’s at the root cause. Try to be patient with your baby, and do what you can to resolve the underlying issue.

One of the most frightening things for a new mom is to experience postpartum depression. When left unchecked, postpartum depression can have disastrous consequences. Even if it isn’t terribly severe, it can rob you of some of the joy you ought to have with the new baby around. Postpartum depression can lead to feelings of guilt and anxiety, and can cause problems with your relationships with your partner, friends, family and even your new baby.

There are a number of risk factors for postpartum depression. Some of the most common include:

• A family or individual history of depression. If you’ve experienced depressive episodes in the past, you may be at a higher risk of experiencing postpartum depression. The same goes if you have a genetic predisposition to being depressed. If you have a family history of depression, it doesn’t guarantee you’ll have postpartum depression but it can increase the chances.
• The lack of sleep. Every parent of a newborn knows that sleep comes at a premium. Even if your baby is an ideal baby and is able to sleep through the night by about six weeks of age, the sleep that you lost at the end of your pregnancy and during those first few weeks after birth can cause problems. In fact, even for women who haven’t just had a baby, lack of sleep is a significant risk factor for depression.
• Youth. Young mothers tend to be at a higher risk for postpartum depression than moms who are a little bit older.
• Situation factors. Having a baby really creates an upheaval in your life. Usually, it’s a good kind of upheaval. However, the stress caused by these significant life changes can cause undue amounts of stress, which if left untreated become a risk factor for postpartum depression.

If you think you’re experiencing symptoms of postpartum depression, get help. Start by talking to your doctor, therapist or counselor. Postpartum depression is very treatable, and when left unchecked it can cause serious problems for you and for your new baby.