Quality of Sleeping for a Happy Baby

Does your baby usually revealing a sullen face and inclined to be fussy, when woke up in the morning? A baby who is getting out of bed without a smile, can be categorized as an unhappy baby. If the condition continues to recur, it would affect the baby's growth conditions.

Sleep is an optimal process for children growth, especially for the development of brain cells. A baby aged 0 to 6 month will spend all day in their bed, and you shouldn't disturb your baby's sleeping time. A baby is usually woke up from sleep at night for 3 to 5 times, or even more. This is because of baby's ability is not able to distinguish the time, whether it's a day or night. A baby aged below 3 months old can't see very well, due to baby's eyes are still on the developing process. So, turn off your camera's flash, when you want to take picture of your baby. Flash light from your camera, especially a xenon flash, will hurt your baby's eyes.

Based on my experience with my children, when my elder daughter aged a month old, she slept with room lights on at night. Because when I turned off the lights, suddenlly she woke up and cried immediately. Fortunately, I was helped for a full month by my favorite TV show, a live broadcast of World Cup 2006 soccer match.

This didn't apply on the second month. At the age of 2 months, I tried to teach my daughter to distinguish between day and night, also taught her to sleep well at night. Every time she woke up crying, my wife and I had never lifted her up from the bed, or even carried her out from my bedroom. Enough with the breast-fed by my wife, she then went back to sleep. It's just the same when she was pooping and peeing. I purposely didn't get to put disposable diapers on my daughter, especially at night.

The result was, she had managed to distinguish between day and night, when she was 3 months old. When she woke up in the morning, she were always showing a smile. She also rarely cry at night. But if she did, once upon a time, she cried for almost an hour without stopping. The incident was repeated until 3 times, it happened when she was aged under 6 months old. Older people once said to me that if a baby cries endlessly, it can be caused by disruption of the delicate creatures, such superstitious beliefs, but it's true.

Sidoarjo, Indonesia, January 23, 2008. 2 days old Michael got his 1st kiss from his sister.

When Michael was born, since the age of 1 day, he slept with room lights off. Wait a minute..!? You may wonder? How come my son could get home on the day after my wife gave birth on him? My wife gave birth on both of my children, were not in a hospital, but in midwife's home clinic. The day Michael was born, I carried my wife to the clinic at 5 am, and Michael was born at 9 am. At 4 pm on the same day, they both were allowed to go home by the midwife.

Why did a day old Michael could able to sleep with room lights off at night? It all because of his elder sister, who aged 20 months, was already used to sleeping with the lights off. My daughter woke up instantly at midnight, when suddenly I turned on the light to change her brother's diaper.

I can ensure you that both of my children are categorized to be happy babies, in which the characteristics are:

• Always smile when wake up in the morning.
• Wake up at night less than 4 times.
• When your baby's waking up in the middle of the night, will be able to go back to sleep again.

The quality and quantity of sleeping for children will determine the level of their emotion and intellect. Children aged under 5 years old should have at least 9 hours of sleeping at night. You should avoid putting a TV in your child's bedroom, it will reduce your child's sleeping time.