Regulation of Body Rhythms

Regulation of Body Rhythms
Infants at birth do not have regular patterns of sleeps, eating and elimination. Gradually with the parent’s help, they develop a regular pattern, which gives a beginning sense of predictability to the experience.

For example, a newborn sleeps about 16 hours a day, with the same proportion of sleep and wakefulness during the day and night.

By about 6 weeks, the circadian rhythms are becoming established and the infant is sleeping primarily at night, with well defined nap periods during the day.

Although this is primarily a biologically and maturationally based change, it is encouraged by the parents’ own sleep and wake cycles.

Young infants sleep for short periods of a few hours and often wake up briefly at night. They often wake sufficiently to need the parents’ help to go back to sleep. Gradually, they develop self soothing techniques.

Concurrent with the development of relatively regular sleep patterns, the infant, with the parent’s encouragement begins to eat primarily during the day.

By responding to the infant’s signs of hunger and at the same time establishing a general schedule of feeding times, the parent helps shape the infant’s experience of hunger, feeding, and satiation into regular pattern.

By 3-4 weeks, following a period of weight loss while feeding patterns were being established, the infant has regained his birth weight, which helps parents feel are succeeding.

As caregivers respond to the baby’s needs as well as shape his experience in accordance with their own needs and routines, the baby feels a sense of regularity and predictability.

As the baby’s rhythms of sleeps and wakefulness, feeding and elimination, become more regular she feels more predictable to the parents.

Parents describe that infants become more “settled’ in this way between 1 and 2 months. The parents’ perception that the baby is more settled is also based on the fact that the parents have spent enough time caring for the baby to get to know her characteristics and behavioral patterns.

For example, they have learned to distinguish between types of crying due to hunger, discomfort or pain, alarm and fretfulness related to tiredness or lack or regulation.
Regulation of Body Rhythms