Dr. Komarovsky about what to do if the child confused day with night
There are such children who in the afternoon please their loved ones with their calm, smiling, sound sleep and angelic views. But with the arrival of the night, as in a horror film, a cute little tot turns into a tyrant. He screams, needs attention, and absolutely does not want to understand that Mom and Dad, too, need to rest. Such a child in a few days is able to bring the whole family to a nervous breakdown and moral exhaustion.
The child confused the day with the night, they talk about such a baby grandparents and sigh sympathetically. The famous doctor Yevgeny Komarovsky tells what to do if this happened, and how to establish a normal daily routine in an infant.
This is not uncommon
About one in six babies confuses day and night. At the same time during the daytime there are no complaints, hysteria, anxiety. And at night - pronounced activity. Such a regimen does not cause any problems to the child himself, this is not reflected in his health. But the kid needs healthy mom and dad, and only therefore the problem should be solved without delay.
Why is this happening
The need for sleep in a child is great, it is much higher than that of an adult. But children's sleep becomes of high quality only when several important factors coincide at once:
- The higher the activity during wakefulness, the higher the energy consumption. Sleep is stronger and better;
- The stronger and better the baby slept in the previous period a few hours ago, the less likely it is that he will also fall asleep this time;
- The more satisfying the crumb ate before bedtime, the faster he falls asleep.
Thus, the reasons for which the crumb does not sleep at night or sleeps restlessly are obvious - he spent little energy, was not tired, he slept during the daylight hours, or he was hungry. About the latter reason, says Komarovsky, everything is ambiguous. Sometimes children refuse to sleep because of the opposite of overeating. If the crumbs are overfed, his stomach can "become swollen", and then there is clearly no time for sleep.
Sleep badly a child may be due to the fact that in the bedroom (and usually, this is the parent’s bedroom, where they put the crib) stuffy. The window leaf is closed in it (after all, there is a baby in the house!), The heater is working, and besides the toddler, Mom, Dad, and the cat actively breathe. For a good night's sleep, you need fresh cool air.
If for some of the above reasons the child did not manage to sleep properly in one of the nights, then this will surely lead to the fact that the shortage of sleep will quickly compensate the sun by the light of the sun. And if parents allow this to happen, then such an inverted mode will become commonplace for the baby.
All the rules of children's sleep, including the topic when the children are confused day and night, Dr. Komarovsky will tell in the next video.
How to fix a violation of the regime
Even the most modern pediatricians can not offer anything to parents in order to return the child to the correct mode. There are no pills, powders, drops and potions that could regulate the sleep time of the crumbs. No sedative, herbal teas with a sedative effect will help, Komarovsky says. But this does not mean that the parents themselves will not be able to cope with the problem.
The first thing parents should do is to visit a pediatrician, who will give an answer to the main question - does the child have any pain. If the child is healthy, then you should go to the second point - the creation of optimal conditions for a healthy sleep.
All carpets and stuffed toys that accumulate dust are removed from the room.more often, wet cleaning is done, the air temperature is 18-20 degrees, humidity is 50-70%. In such a climate, it will be much easier for a child to fall asleep and sleep soundly all night.
Then hell begins for the mother, who will have to wake up her baby mercilessly in order to prevent him from sleeping in the daytime. No matter how sorry the baby is, it must be done! For the crumbs of the first year of life it is quite enough if he sleeps 2-4 times (depending on age) for 2 hours. The rest of the time, the child must be actively entertained so that he does not fall asleep from boredom.
During the day, the child must lose as much energy as possible. For this you need to walk more, do gymnastics, move. In the evening, the penultimate feeding should be done lightly, so that the child only slightly "frost up the worm", and at the last meal you need to feed the baby from the soul before bedtime.
Evening bathing should be a mandatory procedure. It is better to bathe the baby in a large bath, and not in a small bath filled with cool water (according to Komarovsky's method), before bathing, make an easy relaxing massage, and after - feed and send to the cot.
Usually, if all these recommendations are observed, it is possible to deal with the problem of confused days and nights in 2-3 days. Many babies are enough and one day to begin to sleep at night and stay awake during daylight. If you continue to feel sorry for the crumb, letting him sleep in the afternoon, make each feeding dense (after all, you cannot underfeed your own child!), Then the problem of the entangled regime can take years.
