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When a new baby arrives in the world it is the first time that he's been out of physical contact with
another human being. It is his first experience of being alone, the first experience of touching
fabric rather than skin, the first experience of being dry rather than wet, the first experience of
gravity without fluid to float in, and the first experience of being without the taste of mum's amniotic
fluid, delivering onion, garlic, cumin, and all the other clues to mother's diet!
Additionally, it's his first experience of bright light. Although some light does filter through to the
womb, bright light is something quite challenging to his not-fully-developed abilities of sight.
Likewise with sound, which until now has been muffled, much like you might hear as background
sounds in apartment living, apart from the whooshes and gurgles of mother's stomach and
intestines, and the familiar thud, thud of her heartbeat.
With all of this extraordinary stimulation, it's equally extraordinary that our newborn baby will
continue to sleep only a tiny bit less than he did at 32 weeks' gestation, around 85-90% of the time
- 20-22 hours each day.
With mother needing only 8, you'd be excused for wondering what could possibly go wrong, but as
most parents know, those precious 8 hours can seem painfully out of reach.
We already know that many babies are born with very disrupted sleep patterns (my second child
arrived doing 15-minute catnaps and this lasted for months), and this can be an indication of an
undeveloped nervous system, particularly where mother hasn't been able to eat adequately, or to
hold food down during the pregnancy.
Professor Evelyn Thoman has shown that mums who eat 3 or more serves of cold water fish (like
salmon, tuna, founder, haddock, herring and sardines) each week tend to have babies who are
calmer and sleep better than mums with lower levels of the DHA (a fatty acid) found in those
foods.
There is a lot we can do to rectify these sleep problems quite quickly (as you'll see in Chapter 6)
but first let's look at the mistakes that many of us parents make in the beginning that actually train
our babies NOT to sleep.
Common Mistakes
1 Overstimulation
In my years as a behavioural therapist, this is arguably the most commonly identified cause of not

2. only sleep problems, but of behavioural problems generally in children. We've become a world
where everything is a race, including developing and growing up, and it's sad to see some babies
placed in that pressure cooker even before they're born.
Although I have little respect for mother nature, this is one area where I believe there is evidence
that mother nature provides very well for the optimum development of the newborn and that our
job is NOT to stimulate in the early days, but merely to love and nurture.
Now, this doesn't mean that you have to have a quiet and dark home, far from it! It also doesn't
mean that you can't take your new baby out to the shops or the gym, or to have lunch or dinner
with friends. All of THAT stuff is just familiarizing your brand new baby with the ebb and flow of
your life, with the family environment that you've created for him.
What I'm talking about here are things like:
Special training programs for unborns or newborns, like music, sound or light shows
Mobiles in the crib or cot
Excessive handling by people other than the immediate family
An overly noisy or busy environment
Your baby will do best if he's allowed to slowly acclimatize himself to an environment which is so
different from the one he's enjoyed the last several months. That's how he'll learn to tell the
difference between sleep time and wake time, and that's how his nervous system and brain will
thrive the best. He needs to find the normal rhythms and patterns of a stress-free family
environment.
One of the worst things you can do for your baby or toddler is to contrive an overly-stimulating
environment - that is a recipe for mental ill health, and a young person who struggles to form
healthy sleep patterns.
2 Under-stimulation
Some parents go too far the other way, keeping the new baby in a deathly quiet and dark room.
This is all very nice because it does come fairly close to womb conditions, but it also doesn't allow
the baby's body clock to respond to normal light and dark patterns and move into family-friendly
sleep habits.
Have you ever taken a long flight Eastward at night, and then as you've flown into the rising sun,
despite being dog tired, been unable to sleep? That's the effect of daylight on the hormones that
govern sleep.
So you can appreciate that smart use of daylight and dark is one of the most powerful tools you
can use to help your baby develop better sleep patterns! Get into the habit of placing baby in that
quiet, darkened room from 7 pm to 7 am, and let him nap in the brighter, noisier area of the house
during the day. Go on with your normal life, playing your usual background music, watching
television, vacuuming, washing, enjoying normal conversation, just as you would normally and

3. reasonably do.
Although there are lots more tips to help your baby, toddler or older child to move into much better
sleep routines, these 2 tips will provide a lot of help!
If you've enjoyed this article, you'll find lots more help on BubHelp.com. Whether you have
questions about pregnancy, or would like help with your baby or toddler, you'll find great support
with your free membership of BubHelp.com.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Christine_Sutherland
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Discover this excellent resource for helping your newborn baby sleep peacefully through the night
http://newbornparents.com/go/sleeping_solution/
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