

Your baby is not into slavery, manipulation or instant gratification: she’s into a game called survival. Neither is it because they want mama or dada to be wrapped around their little finger. No matter what your well-meaning relatives or friends tell you, babies do not wake from a peaceful sleep simply because they think it’s a great game. Hello, separation anxiety! Babies don’t wake up every time you put them down because they want to annoy you This starts to happen later, somewhere between 6-9 months. Unlike an adult’s brain, a newborn’s brain is not developed enough to grasp the concept that she is a separate person from her mother. “Infants are alerted because, as far as their own body is concerned, they are about to be abandoned, and it is, therefore, time to awaken to call the caregiver back - the very caregiver on whose body the infant’s survival depends”. They feel, through their skin, that something is different, such as missing the softness of the mother’s touch, the heat of mother’s body, the smell of mother’s milk, the gentleness of mother’s moving, breathing chest and the feeling of being protected. “Infants are biologically designed to sense that something dangerous has occurred – separation from the caregiver. Professor James McKenna, the world’s leading expert on co-sleeping, explains: A baby wakes up when put down because infants are designed to sense separation
#Newborn dont sleep free#
We think they’re the best on the internet!Ĭlick to get the FREE weekly updates our fans are RAVING about. Some parents, though, find that waiting longer doesn’t seem to help either, which brings us to the second reason.Īnd unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, it’s not something you can control or change.Īre You Getting BellyBelly’s Baby Week By Week Updates? Part of the problem could be you’ve tried to put your baby down too soon. This means your baby will wake easily if disturbed before this time. It takes up to 20 minutes for babies to reach deep sleep. In desperation, you’re asking, ‘Why does my baby wake up when I put her down?’įirst, it’s important to understand that a baby’s sleep cycle is different from an adult’s. No matter how many times you try, or how deep a sleep you think she’s in, it happens again.Īrghhh! Baby wakes up when I put her down… why? Painfully slowly, and with super-smooth motion, you lower her into bed.īut the minute she hits the mattress, her eyelids fly open and she immediately eyeballs you with the, ‘I can’t believe you just tried to put me down!’ look on her face. You quietly tiptoe towards your baby’s bed, doing your very best not to disturb her. Your baby has finally fallen asleep in your arms, and you want to put her down so you can have a break, go to the toilet or even feed yourself!

It’s many a parent’s frustrated cry: ‘Why does my baby wake up when I put her down?’
