13
Aug
Baby Sleep

Why the baby wakes up at night

Posted on by Mrs. SleepySparrow

Here are some reasons why your baby wakes up during the night:

  • It finds difficulties to move between different sleep stages. Usually when your baby enters the next stage of its sleep, it moves its legs and arms a little bit or it turns to another side of the bed. All this happens unconsciously and the night continues calmly. This transitions doesn’t happen so smoothly with some children and they wake up or cry sometimes.
  • Teething begins
  • There are medical reasons for the waking up – the baby is sick, has a fever, has a pain somewhere etc. In this case is absolutely necessary to consult your pediatrician.
  • Your baby has colic
  • The baby is overexcited and lives through its emotions during the night – the little babies get a lot of new impressions from the world around them during the day. For them everything is new and very exciting. They learn new things that leave a mark in the baby’s mind. Very often they live through all this again while sleeping and that’s why they wake up. They don’t know how to react to the new impressions and that makes them cry sometimes. When this happens, it is good enough to hug your baby for a little while and it will get asleep very soon.
  • There are external factors that influence the baby sleep – it’s cold; it’s very hot; there are loud noises; the room is quite airless; some light is bothering the baby etc.
  • The baby is hungry – especially with the newborns, the night cry is mostly related with hunger. If 2 or 3 hours have passed since the last feeding, most probably the hunger is the reason for the waking up of your baby.
  • The baby is wet – if the diaper is heavy and wet this could generate discomfort for your baby and it could start crying. Change its diaper and it will probably get back to sleep very soon.
  • Your baby wants to be close to mommy or daddy – sometimes the babies cry just because they want a hug. Don’t refuse this eagerness for intimacy, but be careful not to accustom your baby for this at night. It is possible your baby to start crying every night until you hug it and eventually this will harm its sleep.