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Most parents do ask them selves the question “Is my baby sleeping enough?” when ever their baby is cranky or seems tired. For optimal development your baby needs sufficient sleep and getting that solely at night time isn’t enough.

Your baby should be having regular naps throughout the day. While your baby is sleeping, it’s good time for you to have a nap too to recover some of the lost sleep that you will have been missing and reduce your levels of stress while recharging your batteries.

Sleeping enough and taking daily naps with your baby will also help you to lose the extra weight that you might have gained during pregnancy. Lack of sleep makes you easily to eat food with high sugar content.

Some babies will nap at regular times throughout the day and others will nap as they feel like it. There won’t generally be a regular pattern for newborns as they will nap for 2 - 4 hours at a time throughout the day and night. As your baby grows he/she will start developing more predictable sleeping patterns .

You will usually be able to tell when your baby needs sleep due to signs such as eye rubbing, getting irritable and so on.

As your baby gets a little older is he/she should be having less naps and not later in the day. Late day naps sometimes can affect child’s ability to sleep well at night. If you do have a problem with your baby going to sleep at night it would be wise to see if missing the afternoon nap will help. More often than not this will work as they will become more tired at their regular bedtime.

Every baby is different and while some babies can go to sleep easily and sleep for long periods of time others can be quite restless and wake often while sleeping very little. Thus – as frustrating as this fact may be – baby sleep patterns do vary from a baby to another, and even siblings can be totally different regarding their sleeping patterns.

Provided your baby is contented don’t be overly concerned about your baby’s sleep patterns initially as they will in time become more regular unless there are some other conditions that need to be checked by your child’s doctor.

You can try to make your life a little easier by getting your baby to get used go to sleep without requiring excessive attention from yourself as this will make your life a lot easier in the longer run.

If you have regular patterns with your own life, your baby will also adapt regular day and night patterns, including sleeping habits. This will make life a lot easier and more contented for both of you.

By associating specific actions with sleep it becomes a lot easier for your child to go to sleep so try to be as regular as possible with the various different events that lead up to sleep time.

Teething may make your baby restless and irritable. If fever, vomiting, or diarrhea occurs do not relate this automatically to teething, as teething is not generally the cause of these conditions. If your baby has fever, vomits or has diarrhea, it might be a good idea to get your baby checked out by your doctor to rule out any other cause if you have any concerns.

Some signs that your baby may be teething:

• Red cheeks or rash on cheeks increased saliva/drooling.

• Clingy or restlessness

• Wakefulness during the night

• Swollen red gums, sometimes you will see a blister on the gum where the tooth is coming through

• Loss of appetite

What you can to do to give relief for your teething baby?

Let your baby chew on a cold, hard object, such as a teething ring. The coldness helps ease the discomfort and the hardness will speed up the eruption of the tooth. You can try a few different types of teething rings to see what your baby prefers. Keep your baby’s teething rings in the fridge rather than the freezer to minimize the risk of frost bite.

Another way to give relief for your teething baby is to massage your baby’s gums with lemon juice can help reduce pain and discomfort during teething. Some older babies like to chew on frozen lemon wedges. Remember to defrost the lemon wedges a little before giving them to your baby to avoid frost bites.