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The birth of a child in many families is a great holiday – some people consider this event the most important event in their lives. However, along with joy comes great responsibility: a small child needs to be constantly looked after, fed, dressed, and so on. It is especially difficult for parents of babies under one year old, because they can cry at any time and it is usually very difficult to calm them down. There is a very effective life hack, known from very ancient times – a crying child needs to be rocked in arms during a calm walk. At this moment, the baby has a “transport reaction” and he quickly falls asleep. However, if the baby is placed in the crib, they often wake up and start crying again. Recently, scientists conducted a series of experiments and solved this problem.
Studying infant sleep
The discovery was shared by scientists from the Center for the Study of the Brain of the RIKEN Institute, which is located in Japan. To find out what course of action on the part of the parent best calms young children, they conducted an experiment. It was attended by 22 children aged 0 to 7 months and their mothers.
22 mother-child pairs took part in the experiment.
As part of this experiment, parents had to perform a series of four actions:
- walked around the room with a child in their arms;
- sitting on the bed with a child in their arms;
- put the child in the crib;
- put the child in a crib or stroller and rocked.
Mothers combined these actions with each other – to calm the child, they had from 30 seconds to 5 minutes of time. In the course of completing the tasks, the authors of the scientific work carefully monitored the condition of the babies: they monitored calmness by heart rate indicators, and facial expressions and crying with the help of cameras. After collecting all the data, the heart rate was synchronized with the video to get a more detailed picture of what was happening.
Scheme of the experiment
What to do to make the child fall asleep quickly
When mothers walked around the room with a child in their arms, he usually calmed down and fell asleep easily. However, as soon as the parents put the baby in the crib, he woke up and started crying again. According to scientists, such a sharp awakening of children is associated with a change in head position and activation of the cardiovascular system.
After trying dozens of different combinations, the perfect way to soothe children was found. It consists in rocking the child in your arms while walking for 5 minutes, and then sit with him up to 8 minutes . It is believed that while sitting, a child’s sleep passes from a superficial phase to a deep one, and after laying in bed, he does not wake up until he has had enough sleep.
The secret to soothing babies turned out to be simple
The worst way to put a baby to bed is to just put him in bed. During the experiment, it was proved that this is not only ineffective, but can also alarm the baby even more. Despite the presence of contact between the mother and the child, in such a situation, one cannot speak of calmness and, moreover, falling asleep, because there is no transport reaction.
How much sleep should children
Newborn babies sleep a lot, about 18 hours a day. With age, sleep time decreases: at the age of six months, sleep lasts 14.5 hours, and one-year-old children sleep 14 hours. At the age of 6, children need about 11 hours of sleep, and only teenagers begin to become adults and rest for 8 hours. Sound and long sleep is very important for the health of the body and we often write about it, here is one of these materials.
Healthy sleep is important not only for children but also for adults.
It is also worth noting that breastfeeding is very important for the health of children – this is a scientifically proven fact. In 2016, scientists studied the health status of 180 children who were breastfed for the first 28 days of their lives. It was found that the components contained in it have a positive effect on the development of their intelligence. Subsequently, scientists conducted another scientific work and found out that the most useful substance in breast milk is 2′-fucosyllactose. It is worth emphasizing that the benefit of this component is available only in the first years of a child’s life, that is, after some time it is important to wean them from the breast.
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