There’s nothing in the world easier than telling a new parent to keep her chin up and stay positive. It’s entirely more difficult when you’re the one actually going through that newborn stage, when it seems like it’s been weeks since you’ve last been able to get a solid night’s sleep and you are trying to soothe a baby who just refuses to be consoled.
Even still, we will say it. Stay positive. This time you have with your infant son or daughter won’t last long, and before you know it, he’ll be growing up and changing so fast it’ll make your head spin.
The most important thing to remember when you’ve been wakened for what seems like the ten thousandth time is that it won’t last forever. It may sound trite to hear it said to you, but it’s the truth. Treasure these sleepless nights, because they truly won’t last very long.
Babies usually wake up every two to four hours for the first three to four months of their lives. This is necessary because newborn infants need to eat this often. Their small stomachs don’t hold much, and the liquid diet they’re on digests very rapidly, causing them to become hungry very quickly.
By the time your baby is four months old, she will be eating considerably more at each feeding than she did when she was first born. You may also begin introducing her to solid foods at four months. AS baby begins to eat more at a time and especially when she starts to eat solid foods, her stomach will stay satisfied for longer periods, and she will be able to sleep longer at night.
Of course, every baby is different, and there’s no guaranteeing your baby will start sleeping through the night at five to six months old. But most babies begin sleeping for longer periods at about that time, and many parents have success sleep training their babies after they have turned four months old.
Until then, do your best to get plenty of rest while the baby is sleeping and make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. Keep a positive attitude towards night time parenting and remember that it won’t last forever. Before you know it, you’ll be looking back fondly at these times and remembering when your children were this age. Who knows; maybe you’ll even be telling someone else with a newborn baby to keep their chin up and stay positive.