5 Simple Ways to Improve Sleep In the First 1000 Days to Help Build your Baby’s Brain.
Sleep can be brain building for your baby.
We all know sleep is vital for our health, but for young children, especially those in the first 1000 days of their life, it’s even more important!
The first 1000 days of a baby’s life lay the foundations for their body and brain to develop well, and sleep is critical for this development.
This is the time when learning is happening, synapses are forming, memories are being stored, and serious growth is underway. And all of this is exhausting!
Not only do babies and young children need plenty of sleep to ensure rest and recovery, but they also need sleep to set them up for proper development and growth.
Different stages of sleep
While you might think of sleep as downtime, it’s actually defined as a behavioural state.
There are 3 distinct states for sleep:
non-rapid eye movement (NREM)
rapid eye movement (REM)
wakefulness
Each of these three states is associated with its own distinct pattern of brain activity.
NREM is thought to be the restful and restorative stage of sleep, whereas REM (dream sleep) is the stage where we lay down memories and develop the central nervous system. These two stages alternate throughout the night in an ultradian rhythm.
For newborns, who aren’t renowned for sleeping for long periods of time, still need to sleep up to 70% of a 24 hour period. But their sleep patterns in the early days are in stark contrast to their parents - as adults our sleep cycles are 90 minutes, but a baby’s sleep cycle is 50 minutes.
The good news is, as your baby gets older, their sleep pattern will change and evolve to come in line with yours (eventually). But for now, their shorter sleep cycles mean they will wake up more frequently.
While newborn sleep patterns may be frustrating, know that they are totally normal.
The importance of sleep for newborns and babies
So what is sleep actually doing for your baby in this critical 1000 day period?
Sleep is critical for a baby’s growth
There isn’t a time period of greater growth in your whole life than in the first 1000 days. Babies double their birth weight in the first 5 months of their lives, tripling it by the time they’re 1 year old.
And sleep is incredibly important to enable this to happen. 80% of the growth hormone somatotropin is released soon after your child falls asleep and is in the first NREM stage.
Research by Lampl and Johnson shows a link between sleep and growth spurts, therefore, if a child doesn’t get enough sleep, the growth hormone isn’t released, resulting in stunted physical development.
Good sleep promotes good weight gain
Research by Tikotzky et al showed significant correlations between sleep and weight gain in a baby’s first 6 months, with sleep deprivation being a contributing factor to childhood obesity and preschool children.
Essentially, good sleep promotes good growth, bad sleep promotes bad growth and unwanted weight gain.
Sleep is essential for mental development
A baby’s brain doubles in size in the first year with most of their mental development taking place while they sleep. Connections between the left side of their brain and right are literally forming while they nap, with more than 1 billion neural connections being created in their first 3 years of life.
A study by Ednick et al showed a positive correlation between mental development and normal sleep patterns, with a lack of sleep being linked to cognitive issues and delays in development.
We also know that we lay down memories when we sleep, and the same is true of young children. While they may not have long-term memories stored, they do process what they’ve learned while they were awake, when they’re asleep, ready to build on it tomorrow.
Sleep boosts a baby’s immunity
We all know when we’re run down and sleep-deprived we’re more prone to catching colds and bugs, but if a baby isn’t getting enough sleep, their immature immune system doesn’t get a chance to develop, leaving them even more at risk of disease.
Plus, a lack of sleep increases their recovery time, which leads to even less sleep, creating a vicious cycle.
How to improve sleep in the first 1000 days
When babies are young it’s incredibly tough to get them into a sleep routine, with very few babies actually sleeping through the night until they’re 6 months old or more. Some three years still don’t sleep through the night.
But to help you help them reach the land of nod, here’s a few tips to improve sleep in those first few years.
Environment. Make their environment as sleep-inducing as possible. If that means hanging black-out blinds to reduce light and using white noise machines to cover disturbing noises, do it. Also, make sure the room isn’t too hot or too cold - between 16-20oC is the ideal sleep temperature.
Routine. It might seem pointless trying to get a baby under 12 weeks into a routine, but stick with it. In the early days, it’s more for your sanity than anything else. But the routine will eventually reward you when the baby learns what it means: bath, feed, cuddle, story and then bed (for example). They’ll learn to associate this order with sleepy time.
Signs. Look for the visible signs that your baby is sleepy - eye rubbing, yawning and increased fussiness are all key indicators that your baby is ready for a nap. Putting them down when they’re actually tired, rather than when you want them to nap, will make getting them to sleep so much easier.
Night time. Help babies learn night from day by keeping night time activity very subdued. For feeds keep the lights down low, keep noise to a minimum and try to disturb them as little as possible.
Day time. What you do in the day time stimulates your baby’s development. Those experiences form the foundation for all their future learning. The Oliiki app supports you with simple activities to do every day that are not only developmentally appropriate, they are also simple to do and use things from in and around the home.
Newborn support & night nanny
If you need help with newborn support or you’re looking for a night nanny to help you in the first weeks or months get in touch with newborn support specialists myTamarin at hello@mytamarin.com to find the right postnatal support for you.
