Five Elements of Healthy Sleep

Please note that this section contains my personal notes from my readings on this topic.

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There are five elements of healthy sleep for children:

1. Sleep duration: night and day
2. Naps
3. Sleep consolidation
4. Sleep schedule, timing of sleep
5. Sleep regularity

There are five turning points in the sleep maturation process:

1. six weeks (night sleep lengthens)
2. twelve to sixteen weeks (daytime sleep regularizes)
3. nine months (disappearance of night waking for feeding and a third nap)
4. twelve to twenty-one months (disappearance of the morning nap)
5. and three to four years (afternoon nap becomes less common)

As your baby’s brain matures, the patterns and rhythm of sleep change.  If you always adapt your parenting practices to these changes, your child will sleep well…

Baby’s biological need for sleep is always changing, so we have to be on our toes in order not to miss shifts in sleeping requirements.”

– Dr. Marc Weissbluth, M.D. of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (1987), page 13

“We know that the process of falling asleep and staying asleep is learned behavior, and that the learning will occur naturally, just like learning how to walk, if parents do not interfere. Difficulties in learning how to walk used to occur when walkers were popular, because they interfered with the natural evolution of a normal gait. Difficulties in learning how to sleep occur when parents do not respect and protect the child’s natural, periodic need to sleep. With practice, all parents will clearly see that perfect timing produces no crying!”

– Dr. Marc Weissbluth, M.D. of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (1987), page xxi

“Of course, children will spontaneously fall asleep when totally exhausted — “crashing” is a biological necessity! But this is unhealthy, because extreme fatigue (often identified by “wired” behavior immediately preceding the crash) interferes with normal social interactions and even learning. You should not assume that it is “natural” for all children to get peevish, irritable, or cranky at the end of the day. Well-rested children do not behave this way.”

– Dr. Marc Weissbluth, M.D. of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child (1987), page 5

Related Content:

• Sleep’s Impact on the Brain
• Sleep’s Influence on “Intelligence” and School Performance
• Benefits of Good Sleep Habits
• Sleep Tips
  
• Five Elements of Healthy Sleep
• Prevent Poor Sleep Habits
• Biological Rhythms