Newborns typically sleep 16 to 17 hours a day. That sounds wonderful to the rest of us, except they wake every three hours or so to be fed, changed, and cuddled. This means the parents’ sleep is short and highly disturbed during the baby’s first few months of life.
To make matters worse, parents are often anxious with the birth of their first child, and wake up every time they hear the baby make a noise, wondering “is that baby sound normal?” “is the baby in trouble?”
When parents are constantly woken up to attend to the baby, they miss out on valuable sleep and never get the recommended 8 hours each night. This causes a great deal of fatigue and new parents are usually exhausted and express other symptoms of sleep deprivation such as irritability, blurry vision and the inability to concentrate for very long.
Here are some basic tips for Prince George’s parents to get the sleep they need.