The sleep of children, especially very young ones, can become a big problem for parents .
Newborns often sleep little at night or wake up frequently and, when this condition lasts over time, can create a lot of nervousness in the whole family. The point is that the situations in which children do not have a regular sleep are many more than those in which, instead, they sleep all night long since they are very young.
Promote children's sleep
The publications on the sleep of children are really numerous and are divided essentially into two categories: those that invite to find a drastic solution leaving them essentially cry to educate them to a sort of autonomy of sleep and those that, instead, point to the natural aspect of the failure regularity of sleep in children and invite mothers to stay close to their babies.
Then there are many books that ironize about desperate parents looking for a little peace; sometimes finding the ironic side of things helps to play down and take it with philosophy ...
We all have a natural ability to sleep (as well as a natural need to do so), since very young; children therefore simply need to be accompanied in the achievement of a regular sleep-wake rhythm; sooner or later everyone indulges their natural need for sleep; sooner or later, therefore, all the children sleep .
Sometimes, however, the wait is long, as it may happen that they gain the ability to sleep all night not before the age of 3 or 4; it is an eternal time for a parent who has to get up in the morning to go to work, but - perhaps - knowing that it is only a matter of time can help ...
This does not mean that you should not take those small tricks that favor children's sleep, such as trying to put them to bed at the same time, creating a sleep ritual, letting them rest in a silent and shady place, educating them to use the lect as place to sleep and not to play and follow all those common sense rules that can help little ones sleep; it only means that sometimes the conquest of a regular sleep-wake rhythm can be complicated and that, in the meantime, we must find a solution, often very personal, to prevent the child 's insomnia from becoming a problem for the health of the parents.
The physiology of children's sleep
But why don't the little ones sleep at night? The answer is in the physiology of children's sleep, which is different from that of adults.
If it is true that we all need sleep, regardless of age, it is also true that, more or less up to 3-4 years, it is normal for children to wake up frequently during the night. It does not always happen and every case is different; in fact, there are children who sleep more and children who sleep less, just as there are adults who sleep more and others who sleep less. In general, however, children have a greater tendency to wake up at night than adults because, physiologically, the REM phases, ie those in which sleep is lighter, are predominant over the phases of deep sleep.
And why do children often not calm down until a parent arrives? The answer is very simple: man puppies need contact with their mother (or even their father); often, therefore, it is useless to try to make them go back to sleep in their own bed. The point is that we have to make a choice between a low-care education, in which we try to favor the early autonomy of children, and a greater, and more natural, care, in which, instead, the contact between mother and mother is favored. small child, even during the night, through, for example, nightly breastfeeding or bed sharing .
Very often the key can be to satisfy the desires of young children and their need to stay in close contact with their mother.
Obviously, with the rhythms of life required by the western lifestyle this is not at all simple and every family must therefore find its way to avoid being overwhelmed by the stress that can lead to lack of sleep. However, perhaps reflecting on the natural needs for caring for children can be very useful .
