Melatonin- The reason baby’s stop sleeping at 8 weeks
Why is it you get home with your newborn baby and for the first few days/weeks they sleep? This is easy as pie, you think ? feeling smug, I have struck gold with a “sleeper”. Then as the weeks tick by your baby tends to turn into a baby that no longer knows how to sleep. Then you think – I’ve broken my baby!
So I learnt from lovely, fellow Mum Helen that there’s a reason for this madness…
MELATONIN – the hormone that makes us sleep. A baby doesn’t start to produce this hormone till about 8 weeks. When a baby is born they have their mothers melatonin in their system making them often sleep beautifully until it starts to run out. They then have to build it up again from 8 weeks, hence the 8 week sleep regression.
Delphi is currently coming up to 8 weeks and we’ve had a fair few sleepless nights. Knowing this nugget of info though has made me realise that I actually haven’t broke my baby at all, she’s not the real child of Voldemort (if you know you know!) and that it’s not only just normal but there’s a reason for it.
The most wonderful thing I gained from yesterday was knowing that this early on there’s nothing that you can do to control your baby’s sleep? SO STOP TRYING!!! What I can control though is how us as a family deal with it and accommodate this little sleep thief. It goes back to – Control the things you can, let go of the things you can’t – which is one of my favourite birth motos.
This message was pretty revolutionary for me.
Have you been considering seeking sleep advice recently? Here our resident sleep expert Helen gives three questions you should ask before getting sleep advice.
Sleep knowledge credits to Helen at My Baby Sleeps
Photo creds Chui King Li Photography
