Desmond Morris in Babywatching reports that by the third week a 'typical" baby sleeps for 54 per cent of the daylight hours, compared with 71 per cent of the night-time. After six months the equivalent figures are 28 per cent for the daylight hours and 83 per cent for night-time. So instead of endless short bursts of sleep during day and night, Junior sleeps most of the night and is awake most of the day. Slowly he/she adjusts to normal human sleeping patterns. The daytime naps gradually merge into one fat morning nap and one fat afteernoon nap. The light at the end of the tunnel may never get any closer, but at least it is there.
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| After Giving Birth Symptoms |
DREAMS
What are they dreaming about? A baby's REM sleep is wonderful to watch, for those few moments before your rank odour awakes the young package. What is going on behind those eyelids? Are they dreaming of running and jumping and other things they cannot do yet? Or of the womb, where they were warm and happy for all those months? No one will ever know. Personally, I think it's breasts.
IT IS ONLY A PHASE
Never forget this. However bad it gets, it is only ever a phase. Every child's sleep goes through countless different phases. Four- to five-year-olds, for instance, go through a nightmare phase, and can become quite fearful of the dark and of sleep itself. For a little baby the phases are briefer and more random. Maybe your baby is waking every night for no reason at 3.30. Not unnaturally, you deduce from this behavior that he/ she will wake every night at 3.30 between now and puberty. And then one night it stops. It was only a phase. It is always only a phase.
Tragically, this applies to the good phases as well. When your baby suddenly seems to crack the sleep habit, and kips throughout the night without interruption, the temptation is to crack open a bottle of something expensive. Resist this temptation. It is only a phase. In two weeks' time, baby will do something else completely: scream for no reason at midnight or wake at five fully refreshed. Realizing that everything is only a phase protects you from the more crushing sleep-related disappointments.
TIREDNESS OLYMPICS
As the months pass, you and your partner will start to lose sympathy for each other's plight. So when one says 'Chris I feel tired,' the other will sigh grumpily and/or say 'Well, I'm tired, too.' These are the Tiredness Olympics, an ongoing competition so called because they last four years. My girlfriend was always tireder and more miserable than I was. When forced to get up, even though it was her turn, her sighs would virtually strip the duvet from the bed.
And as sympathy dies, so your determination to exert your human rights becomes stronger. If it was my turn for the lie-in, nuclear war wouldn't shift me. Worst sound in the world: crying child. Second worst sound: grunt of pleasure from partner going back to sleep moments after you have got up to answer worst sound in the world. Come to think of it, they may be first equal. To find out more, you can check out After Giving Birth Symptoms.