Glam By Amna: SLEEP AND BABIES

My baby girl likes to sleep more than her brother ever did.Here is some info I found on baby sleep.

How much sleep baby needs(source:)

Age	Nighttime Sleep	Daytime Sleep *	Total Sleep
1 month	8	8 (inconsistent)	16
3 months	10	5 (3)	15
6 months	11	3 1/4 (2)	14 1/4
9 months	11	3 (2)	14
12 months	11 1/4	2 1/2 (2)	13 3/4
18 months	11 1/4	2 1/4 (1)	13 1/2
2 years	11	2 (1)	13
3 years	10 1/2	1 1/2 (1)	12
*Note: number of naps

As the child grows his sleep time will be reduced and you will get even less time for yourself.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE:

After having gone through it myself i can not stress the importance of a good sleep routine enough.Its very very very important for the baby and for the parents as well.
You see babies have more trouble going to sleep then adults so if you try to put them to bed soon after play all you will get is a tantrum throwing baby...and may be a few kicks and a lot of hair pulling.(trust me I know what I am talking about).Out of sheer exhaustion I tried to do that when my girl was born, that is putting toddler to sleep without the preliminaries and every night,we both went to sleep crying ,big fat tears rolling down our cheeks...pathetic huh.

Then,I tried to adjust his routine by trying these new methods:

1..Reduced his day time nap to 2 hrs instead of usual three.

2.Got very punctual about his day nap.At four pm he went to sleep and woke up at six.

3. At least TWO hours before bed time I switch off the tv(the hard part for me).

4.Dim lights and no activity.Parents just pretend to sleep.

And there you have a full of energy toddler toned down to angelic sleep.

The most important point is that there should be NO toys in the bedroom and if there are SMUGGLE them out unnoticed.From the above mentioned episode I learnt that you can not reason with a two year old and you most certainly can not make him do something.