The benefits of naps for babies, when, why and how to get babies to sleep
dawnsears.com - In general, babies up to 1 year old need up to 15 hours of sleep per day. By age 4, 50 percent of children are still following routine napping habits. After 5 years of age, they slowly give up the habit. Exploring the surroundings seems more exciting than taking a nap, while napping has many benefits.
According to Kim West, MD, author of Good Night, Sleep Tight from The Sleep Lady, when they sleep, babies will relive all the things they learned. This will make it easier to access the memory again when it is retrieved. Their development will be more perfect if they get used to snoozing and sleeping peacefully at night.
Curious about the benefits of naps? Look at the following points:
Helps brain development
Naps don't have to be long, an hour is enough to improve children's brains. A nap can help shape your memory and learning process. According to a study, children's visual spatial skills will also increase after naps.
A more stable state of mind
Babies who nap routinely will have a more stable mental state. They are calmer, less fussy, cheerful, and better at solving problems.
Helps the growth of the body
When you sleep, growth hormone is released. This is what makes children who take naps have optimal physical development compared to those who do not.
resting body
When taking a nap, the body's organs, both external and internal, can rest after half a day of activity.
Knowing these developmental benefits of naps, experts recommend that children aged three to five years have a nap schedule.
How much sleep do they need during the day?
Newborns - up to 3 months of age, babies are considered napping machines. They can sleep for up to 18 hours a day and usually only spend an hour or two awake at a time.
Babies: After the newborn stage, but before their first birthday, babies need two to four naps a day. They can rest between 30 minutes and 2 hours, respectively.
Toddlers: Babies this age should sleep 12 to 14 hours a day, including naps. Sometime between their first and second birthdays, most toddlers go from two naps a day to one, which usually happens in the early afternoon. When that happens, the remaining naps can be long - up to 3 hours.
Preschool: After age 2, not all children need naps, although 3- or 4-year-olds will benefit from one nap. Preschoolers need 11 to 13 hours of sleep per day, but it's more important for them to get a good night's rest than to take a nap. Therefore, if your child is unable to sleep at night on nap days, it may be time to shorten their afternoon naps. But be sure to compensate by pushing bedtime early.
School-aged children and older: After the age of five, most children do not need naps. But a midday break can do wonders for crawling kids and teens. Try to keep it short (about 30 minutes) and make sure she gets up in the late afternoon. This way, naps will not affect your sleep time.
Secrets for a better nap
Even if you know how good naps can be, it's hard to convince most babies to take time to sleep. To make napping easier:
set the mood. Babies thrive on routine, and regular relaxation rituals, such as a storyline followed by a back rub, can send signals that it's time for a break. It's also best to nap at around the same time and place each day, if possible.
Take it the right way. When you see that your baby is sleepy (ie yawning or rubbing his eyes), put him in a cool, dark room without any distractions.
cut short. Researchers studied how naps affect children's sleep at night and found that the longer a child naps and afterwards, the more difficult it is for them to fall asleep at night. If bedtime is often impossible, but your toddler or preschooler isn't ready to sleep forever, try shortening his or her rest time and changing it earlier in the day.