Perhaps, there is not such a young mother who would not have dreamed at least once to sleep through the night without waking up. But this opportunity is not often and only rare lucky ones, the rest suffer from lack of sleep and try to adjust the child to their usual regime, that is, to make the baby sleep at night for at least 6-7 hours in a row. A child who sleeps a lot is a dream of young parents, but this is not always a good sign.
In the newborn period, there are two main components of health, growth and development of the baby - a healthy sleep and a full meal (ideally - breast milk). When an infant in the first weeks of life sleeps a long time and a lot - it's quite normal. However, one should pay attention not only to the comfort of parents, but also to weight gain by the child, his appetite, frequency of bowel movements and general condition in general. The fact is that the newborn's ventricle does not exceed the size of its fist and milk is digested in it literally within an hour. That is, literally an hour after feeding the stomach is empty again and the baby is hungry. Therefore, if a child sleeps for a long time at night or in the day, not waking up for feeding, eats a little and reluctantly, this can provoke a number of problems:
- constantly sleeping, poorly eating crumbs, receives less immunoglobulins and nutrients, the concentration of which is especially high in early maternal milk;
- there is a risk of dehydration - the child becomes passive, calm, he simply loses strength. Drowsiness in the child is also a sign of dehydration, thus, a vicious circle is formed - because of prolonged sleep, the child has impaired, leading to an even longer sleep;
- if drowsiness of the baby is accompanied by excessive sweating, vomiting, fever, disorder of the stool, you should immediately consult a doctor and find out why the child sleeps a lot, perhaps the cause is a disease that needs to be diagnosed and treated.