Your Baby Needs To Be Close To You In Order To Fall Asleep

Your Baby Needs To Be Close To You In Order To Fall Asleep

Last update: 17 February, 2018

When a baby is born, sleep becomes one of the cornerstones of their development. Sleep is also necessary for the mother. The key to both of you being able to fall asleep and get enough hours of rest is to stay close to each other, and we’ll explain why.

Your baby needs to be close to you in order to fall asleep, and to be able to stay asleep.

Your baby has spent a lot of time inside your belly without being away from you for even a minute and now they need to touch you, smell you, and listen to your heartbeat as a way to remember when they were happily inside you.

Your Baby Needs To Be Close To You In Order To Fall Asleep

Your Baby’s Sleep Is Necessary for Their Development

By sleeping with them, you take away reasons for them to cry, because they no longer have to call you by crying.

When a baby is near their mother and father, they experience all of these advantages:

  • They regulate their temperature better.
  • Their hormonal levels are more stable.
  • Their heart rate is stabilized.
  • Their breathing improves.
  • Their immune system is strengthened.
  • Their enzyme production increases.

Because of this, children who spend more time in contact with their parents, have better health, fewer illnesses, and more weight gain.

Closeness Improves Breastfeeding

It is simple. When they are hungry, they already have their mom there to feed them right away, and many babies don’t even start to cry.

This is why babies who sleep with their parents breastfeed for longer.

These babies drink more breast milk at a time and also breastfeed more at night time when their mother is always around. This is beneficial for the baby.

While they wake up more at night, breastfed babies fall asleep early and so do their moms. It is simply a natural process of the body.

Your Baby Needs To Be Close To You In Order To Fall Asleep

The Kangaroo Method

In most hospitals around the world this technique called the “Kangaroo Method” is used.

It has been proven to be beneficial because babies gain more weight, have more stable heart rhythms, are calmer, have better health, and can leave the hospital earlier.

The Kangaroo Method of caring for babies can be used for any child, whether born prematurely or to term, healthy or sick. It is the best way to take care of a baby.

It basically has to do with providing skin-to-skin contact, breastfeeding on demand, and the care that both the mother and baby need.

A healthy child just needs contact with their mother and food.

If the baby is premature, underweight, or suffers from any ailment, skin-to-skin contact will serve as the basis for the medical care that they must receive.

What is co-sleeping?

In countries like Japan, where co-sleeping is the norm, the rate of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is one of the lowest in the world.

It can be done by sleeping in the same bed, having a specially designed crib which attaches to the parent’s bed, or using a conventional crib with one side taken down.

The comfort of not having to get out of bed, especially when it is cold, allows the mother and baby to fall back asleep almost immediately.

In fact, the mother often doesn’t know exactly how many times she has woken up, because she has not fully woken up at all.

The neural development functions at the highest during the least deep sleep phase, and so co-sleeping not only gives the baby more breast milk, which is ideal for their physiological protection, but it also enhances mental development.

Since they have food nearby, they can synchronize their breathing with that of their parents, and they feel safe with their caregivers as close to them as possible. Babies who co-sleep with their parents sleep better.

This means that they are better rested, have more energy for the day, and they are more active which causes them to develop better.

Throughout our history, the human race has practiced co-sleeping, even from when we were primates living in caves. It is only in the last 150 years, with the arrival of houses with several rooms, that babies have been separated to sleep away from their parents.

In conclusion, if the mom needs sleep just as much as the baby, they should not hesitate to do so together.


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This text is provided for informational purposes only and does not replace consultation with a professional. If in doubt, consult your specialist.