Many young parents are frightened by the fact that the baby has a restless sleep. In addition, mom and dad themselves can not rest normally due to a sleeping child. In this article, we will analyze the causes of insomnia in young children.
Kids can grunt and cry if something disturbs them. Among the causes of restless sleep in an infant, it is worth highlighting:
- constipation;
- air in the stomach;
- crusts that are stuck in the nose;
- neurological problems.
Why are babies groaning and pushing?
Does the baby have a restless sleep and groans? Perhaps he just wanted to go big. In children under one year of age, an option for the norm is to empty the intestines after each feeding. This is especially common in babies who are breast-fed. Since the rectum of the small one has not yet been fully formed, and the baby’s stool is very soft, it can make sounds during an act of defecation, and the child may groan.
It is necessary to worry and consult a doctor if the child is not sleeping, and the following symptoms are observed:
- increase in body temperature;
- streaks of blood and mucus in feces;
- cramps.
It can also be uncomfortable for a baby if the room is too hot or cold. Next, we will tell you how to understand what is happening with the baby, and what pediatricians recommend in such cases.
Gastrointestinal difficulties
If the child has recently eaten and does not fall asleep at all, but groans and pushes, then most likely, during the meal, he swallowed air. Follow him. Perhaps he spits up and makes sounds like "grunts"?
To avoid this trouble, after eating, keep the baby upright for 20 minutes. Then all the excess air will come out. To put to sleep a child who has just eaten, for safety reasons, should be on a side. Use a rolled-up diaper or towel as a support.
If this seems unreliable and unaesthetic to you, then on sale you can find a special mattress. It is impossible to lay the child on his back, as there is a risk that he will burp in a dream and choke on milk.
To eradicate the problem of swallowing air, purchase a bottle for the artificer with a special valve for venting air. When breastfeeding, make sure that the baby takes the nipple correctly. This happens when the chin of the baby rests on the mammary gland of the mother.
Colic
Even more often, restless sleep in infants is observed due to colic. A child has a cramping pain in the tummy. As a rule, they begin to torment infants at 2 weeks and stop at three months. In some, pain can occur up to a year.
How to determine that a child has a restless sleep precisely because of colic? If the baby has problems with the tummy, then he cries a lot with anguish, squeezes the legs. Also, the child has manifestations of flatulence. The baby has a swollen and dense tummy, in which gases accumulate.
When a child has colic, he most often refuses to eat. He takes the breast, only to calm down, and uses it as a nipple, but does not want to eat. As a rule, during this period the child either does not gain weight or his growth stops. Even if the baby falls asleep, he whimpers in a dream. From the gastrointestinal tract, such troubles appear as regurgitation, vomiting, green stools.
How to solve the problem?
First of all, mom needs to calm down, as her excitement is completely transmitted to the child. This is a physiological state that will pass by itself, even if you do absolutely nothing. The digestive tract of the child will ripen, and the torment will stop. But if the baby suffers too much, then mother, of course, wants to help him.
Tips for Artists
If the baby is breast-fed, then purchase special bottles that are equipped with valves for bleeding excess air. Pick up a special mixture with probiotics and prebiotics, as well as lactulose. Such nutrition contributes to good digestion and normalization of stool. Give the child Espumisan in drops and other pharmacy drugs. There is also a mass of special herbal teas and dill water on sale.
Tips for breastfeeding babies
If you are breastfeeding, then this is highly commendable. To prevent colic, a nursing mother should adhere to a diet at least in the most acute period (from 2 weeks to three months). It is strictly forbidden to use: soda, legumes, cabbage. You should also refuse products with a high content of chemistry: a variety of snacks (chips, crackers, salted nuts).
Do not eat smoked meats, fried foods, canned food. A nursing mother herself can also use dill water and special herbal teas that prevent colic. After all, if a small child is completely breastfed, then pediatricians do not recommend dosing the child up to six months. The medicinal components of the tea pass through the milk through the milk.
The recommendation of doctors not to stop children is only feeding on demand. This is when a child is constantly with his mother and can use his mother's milk to satisfy not only hunger, but also thirst.
Problems with bowel movements: the child does not sleep, fidgets, groans
Does the baby have problems with bowel movements? Naturally, they can cause restless sleep in a child. You can talk about constipation if the child cannot be emptied for a long time, the feces become very hard, the child weeps tearfully. If you close your eyes to the problem, then the consequences can be very deplorable. Do not ignore her. Show the baby to the doctor and follow his instructions.
Doctors usually prescribe glycerin suppositories to soften feces. You can also use enemas. But you should not do this too often, as a new problem called “lazy intestines” may arise. This is a situation when a child cannot be emptied without special means. The intestines of any person quickly get used to such help and no longer wants to work. Then constipation can go into a chronic form, which is very bad, because it leads to general intoxication of the body and constant pain.
How to prevent and prevent digestive problems?
A nursing mother should follow a diet. If the baby is fed breast milk, then the mother should be fed 5-6 times a day in small portions. If there is a fact of constipation, then you need to include dairy products, prunes in the diet. Refusal should be from nuts, sweet (especially condensed milk), fresh pastries, hard-boiled eggs, cabbage, cucumbers. You can take in small portions of plant fiber.
The doctor will prescribe an artificial mixture for a while with a special mixture containing lactulose. It improves the intestinal microflora in the intestines of the child. Do not forget to give the baby, which is on artificial feeding, some water. It is very important! Lack of fluid is a common cause of constipation in infants.
Massage and gymnastics
Do you want to forget what a restless sleep in a baby is? Do massage and gymnastics for your child. Tummy massage consists of stroking clockwise. You should drive around the navel.
Do not forget to spread the crumbs on the tummy. Just do not do this immediately after eating. For these purposes, it would be good to purchase a special big ball - fitball. It is very convenient for children, and this brings a certain element of the game. Also on fitball, you can do many exercises that strengthen the abdominal muscles.
Nose crusts
Each person periodically has such a nuisance in his nose. An adult or an older child may just blow their nose or flush the nasal passages with water. The kid alone can do absolutely nothing.
It is necessary to clean the nose of the baby constantly, that is, every day. To do this, you can prewound the flagella of cotton wool. Let them be at your fingertips. To use cotton buds for such purposes is convenient, but unsafe. An exception is special safe sticks for newborns. They have a large round head. But, unfortunately, they will not be able to completely clear the nasal passages.
So, take a flagellum and dip it into a saline or boiled water. You can also use boiled vegetable oil or baby body oil for these purposes, only odorless. The flagellum must be inserted into the nasal passage and rotate. If necessary, use a few until the latter remains completely clean.
Why do children startle in their sleep?
Restless sleep in a small child may be accompanied by twitching. They most often scare young mothers. The child fell asleep and then suddenly makes an arbitrary movement, for example, throws up his arms sharply up. It can manifest itself at any moment, even when the child only sinks deeply into sleep.
Causes of Wince
Children, like adults, have dreams. And they also have a REM sleep phase. At this time, the crumbs may change facial expression, move the eyelids. He can cry, move his legs, throw up his hands, roll over. The child’s breathing can become intermittent, he can snort from something. This is all a normal situation. It is necessary to show the child to the doctor if the child wakes up more than 10 times a night. At the same time, the baby looks scared and crying angrily.
Reflex Moro
Another cause of flinching is the Moro reflex. This is the built-in survival mechanism that nature has endowed with infants. The fact is that for a newborn that he left a cozy house, his mother’s tummy is a lot of stress. There, he felt the support provided by the walls of the uterus.
Reflex Moro is an attempt to find support and balance. The space around the crumbs is too vast. The kid may dream that he is falling. Therefore, he starts and very sharply raises his hands to the sides, can scream at this moment. For mom, it looks creepy. This phenomenon may be accompanied by restless sleep in infants at 1 month and up to three. As a rule, after this period, this phenomenon disappears. No wonder the first three months are called the "fourth trimester of pregnancy." The baby can also tremble with noise, pain, bright light.
Important! If you notice a convulsive movement in the child during the entire period of sleep and the baby cries without waking up, this may be a sign of a health problem. Be sure to show the baby to the doctor. The cause may be a metabolic disorder, a lack of calcium, high intracranial pressure.
How does a baby sleep in 1 month?
If you are worried about restless sleep in an infant at 1 month old, you should know what kind of regimen a baby should have at this age.
The kid is still very small, and most of the day he should rest. In the daytime, the baby should sleep for 2 hours about 4-5 times a day. Night rest should be about 8 hours. Naturally, the baby will wake up to feed on demand.
Restless sleep in infants at 2 months
The baby is growing, and its development is leaps and bounds. It’s becoming more and more interesting for Kroha to watch the world around him and to sleep less and less. He realized that being awake was a lot more interesting. Now it is especially important to monitor the quality of his sleep. Indeed, for an active pastime you need a lot of strength.
How do children sleep at 2 months
Children at two months of age still give up sleep most of the day. They sleep about 16 hours. In the afternoon, as a rule, 5-6 hours, at night - about 10 hours. While awake, play with your child, do massage, wear it around the house. Children at this age begin to consider the faces of adults. For them, this is the best toy. If the baby is not sleeping well at 2 months, then take a closer look at the baby. You may notice one of the symptoms described above.
Three-month sleep
Baby at this age should sleep per day for about 15-17 hours. If a child rests a couple of hours less, then this is also a variant of the norm. Do not take this figure as an axiom, each organism is unique in nature. Focus on the well-being of the child.
A baby can spend about 5 hours on daytime sleep for three months. A child usually plunges into the kingdom of Morpheus for 40-90 minutes 3-5 times a day.
Night rest should last 10-12 hours. Naturally, a child on natural feeding wakes up to satisfy hunger or thirst as many times as his body requires. Artists are fed every three to four hours. At this age, some children begin to endure without food and drink for about 5-6 hours and give their mother a good night's sleep.
5 months restless baby sleep
At this age, children sleep at night for about 9-11 hours. They wake up several times to eat. Breasts can get up quite often - every three hours. Children who eat the mixture can sleep for about 6-8 hours. This is due to the fact that the digestion of artificial baby food takes longer and the child becomes hungry later. Are you worried about the baby’s restless sleep as he wakes up every hour? This situation is abnormal, because it does not give a full rest to either mom or the child.
You can not understand why the baby sleeps restlessly , tossing and turning in his sleep? Perhaps he is disturbed by noise from the street, too bright a flashlight or lighting in the room. If you find such interference, then eliminate them.
Also, dry air in the room can interfere with a full night's rest. This is especially pronounced in winter, when the central heating is working or you turned on the heater additionally.
Heaters burn out oxygen in the room, and the mucous membranes of the nose dry out. The child cannot breathe normally through his nose and therefore tosses and turns in his sleep. He may also wake up and cry. If the baby wakes up, then give him a breast or some water. Drizzle the nose with baby droplets of sea salt. It is advisable to turn on a humidifier in the room. If there is no such unit in the house, then simply place a bowl of water near the heater.
Remove interference and tune in to a healthy sleep
The inconvenience to the crumbs at any age is brought by tight clothes, a blanket too warm. Also, children at 5 months are already quite emotional. You should not play too active games before going to bed. Do not plan to receive guests in the evening or do it when you put the child to sleep at night.
On the contrary, give your baby a massage, bathe him in herbs that promote sound sleep. In the bath you can pour a decoction of mint, lemon balm, lavender, chamomile, thyme. Naturally, Mom’s lullaby perfectly influences a dream, a fairy tale told in a calm, quiet monotonous voice. These tips apply not only to five-month-olds. You can come up with your own rituals for sound sleep for babies from birth. He will get used to and will fall asleep faster.
If the baby has a restless sleep, it is first of all important to find out the causes of the problem, and only then look for ways to deal with it.