By
Grant W Stoecklin
The first few months after you bring your bundle of joy home can
be extremely trying. There's a good chance that one of you is probably
still working, and the household duties do not come to a stop just
because your little prince or princess has finally arrived. Sleep
deprivation is a serious thing that can have a profound negative impact
on you, your partner and your baby. Some of the consequences in the
short term could be:
Establishing good sleep habits as early as possible will help your child later in life as well. Children who get enough sleep learn better and retain more of what they learn. Adults who had a set bedtime as children are often self motivators and excel in their career fields. There are literally dozens of pediatrically approved methods that will help you teach your child to sleep through the night or help you, the parents, cope with your new sleep challenges. One method describes how to soothe babies to sleep with something as simple as white noise being played in the background. Another interesting tip relates to letting your baby cry it out which describes how to reduce the amount of crying before sleep by gradually increasing how long you wait before tending to the child.
So get it done, be safe and for Pete's sake get some rest!
- Decreased work performance and overall alertness is one of the first signs of sleep deprivation. Hard science shows you could lose as much as 32% of your alertness by just cutting out an hour and a half sleep time in one night.
- Your memory and ability to reason could suffer. This can be serious when you think that another, helpless human being is depending on you for feeding, handling and potentially medication
- Additional stress to your relationship can take place as well, particularly if you are not sharing the night time duties. With irritability being a factor in being sleep deprived, tension can build and something that normally would not be a big deal can become a huge issue.
- You could suffer a general loss of interest in activities. No more playing with the baby because you just don't feel like it. Nearly as importantly, the things you used to do for fun and to relieve stress seem to require more effort than you have energy for.
- The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates conservatively that each year drowsy driving is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities- baby seat or not, this is not something you want to have happen with your baby in the car.
- Increased irritability might lead to direct injury to your baby as well. Often behind every horror story involving an injured infant there's a story involving lack of sleep by the parent(s).
Establishing good sleep habits as early as possible will help your child later in life as well. Children who get enough sleep learn better and retain more of what they learn. Adults who had a set bedtime as children are often self motivators and excel in their career fields. There are literally dozens of pediatrically approved methods that will help you teach your child to sleep through the night or help you, the parents, cope with your new sleep challenges. One method describes how to soothe babies to sleep with something as simple as white noise being played in the background. Another interesting tip relates to letting your baby cry it out which describes how to reduce the amount of crying before sleep by gradually increasing how long you wait before tending to the child.
So get it done, be safe and for Pete's sake get some rest!
Getting a pattern of sleep established for your new baby as soon
as possible will pay dividends down the road. If you would like to read
about more tips and techniques to achieve this read about pediatrician
Harvey Karp's suggestions as well as other related articles here: http://conceiveababy.net/ Thanks for stopping by and good luck!
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