Newborn Sleeps: Is My Baby Sleeping Too Much?

As per National Sleep Foundation, a newborn sleep for 14 to 18 hours each day. And, no matter how long your newborn baby is sleeping, it is not too much as long as your baby is healthy and growing naturally.

In fact, if your baby is sleeping more than that, you should consider yourself lucky!

Why?

I will explain later.

For now, let’s have an idea about the sleeping range of babies having different ages. I already mentioned about the newborn sleeping range.

If your baby has an age of 4 to 12 months, the normal sleeping range will be 12 to 16 hours in their convertible cribs. Babies having the age of 1 to 2 years, will sleep for around 11 to 14 hours. These total sleeping hours is included with naptime.

A newborn can’t recognize day or night. So, you will notice that your newborn is sleeping whenever it is possible. The sleeping schedule is quite irregular. They will keep awake for very little time in comparison with their sleeping time.

Why Does Baby Sleep More Than Usual?

There could be several reasons and you should not worry about it as long as the baby wakes up for feeding several times a day. The followings are the reasons why even the healthy baby can sleep more than usual:

• Development leap or the growth spurt of your baby.
• Suffering from a minor illness like cold.
• Immediately after receiving the immunizations.
• Temporary difficulty in breathing.
• Medical procedures like circumcision.

Excessive sleep should be temporary. But if it lasts for a while, you should talk to the pediatrician to have the complete assessment. Jaundice is very common for babies and if your baby is suffering from it, your baby will sleep more than usual.

The following symptoms can tell you whether your baby is suffering from jaundice or not:

• Yellow color in the eyes and skin.
• Irritable or fussy behavior.
• Feeding trouble.
• Lethargic.

However, it is very rare that a baby will sleep more than usual due to sickness or medical conditions like heart diseases. As I said above, if your baby is sleeping more than usual for a long time, talk to your pediatrician to have a look.

If your baby is sleeping too long in the bassinet, even longer than the usual 14 to 18 hours – chances are you are wondering how the baby can learn to roll over, walk and talk, right?

Don’t worry!

There are some newborns who don’t wake up literally in the first 2 to 3 weeks! They do nothing but eat and sleep.

Is it the case for you? If so, the problem will be feeding the baby. You have to take charge. Wake up your baby every after 3 to 4 hours to feed your little one. You will notice a more stable sleep pattern after the end of the first 3 weeks of your baby.

About the rolling over, talking and walking – you should be worried too much about it either. Even though your baby keeps awake for a very little time, that’s enough to learn all those great skills. This excessive sleeping happens only when the age of your baby is 2 to 3 months.

Trust me, there is a plenty of time to learn!

Apart from having any not-so-serious physical conditions, some infants sleep longer than usual simply because of the reason that they are better sleepers. There is nothing wrong about it.

Some babies are just unique, so they may respond to sleeping differently. Carefully notice whether your baby is having breast-milk regularly or not and the weight of your newborn should increase as the day passes.

Newborns may wake up voluntarily when they are hungry. Breast-milk fed infants will wake up more frequently than the formula-fed babies. The reason is quite simple. The stomach of formula-fed babies keeps full for a longer period. So they feel less hungry than the breast-milk fed babies.

Why More Sleeping Is Good?

As I said above, if your baby is sleeping too much (at least this is what you are thinking!) and there is no serious physical condition – this is a blessing for you! You should catch up your own sleeping during this very short period.

Why?

As the days’ passes, the total sleeping hours will get shorted day by day. In fact, you will be begging to your baby to have sleep. Unless your baby sleeps at night for longer hours, you can’t sleep either! So, as long as you can, enjoy this extensive sleeping hour of your newborn.

You don’t want your baby to be clingy and whiny. Because this is going to happen if your baby does not sleep well. You can’t soothe a sleep deprived baby easily even the baby mobile won’t help. As I said, you should consider yourself lucky if you have a sleepy baby.

A preemie will sleep more than the colicky baby. Besides, since there is no circadian rhythm in infants, you will notice you may notice an unusual sleep pattern as well. As you can see, there can be several reasons why there are sleep variations among newborns.

So instead of worrying why your newborn is sleeping too much, you should be alarmed if your infant is not.

Remember, the first 2 to 3 months of a newborn is the stage of rapid growth, so it is natural your newborn needs a lot of sleep. Inadequate sleep will hamper the growth of your baby for sure.

Last Words

Are you still wondering why is your baby sleeping too much? Stop wondering and enjoy this time while you can. Not so many parents are as lucky as you are. There is a big BUT though…

As a parent, you should trust your instinct regarding the wellness of your baby. If you think there is something wrong, talk to the doctor. There is nothing wrong being an over-protective parent of an infant.

I hope this article has given you some answers to your so many questions. Share it with your friends and families so that they can clear themselves as well regarding the extensive sleeping of their newborns.