Life is more or less adjusted: a young mother is used to a lot of troubles associated with caring for a baby. Many fears that defeated newly-minted parents were also left behind.
By the fourth month of life, the kid also learned a lot of things: to recognize parents and immediate family, to hold a toy, to roll over, to lie on his stomach for a long time with his head raised. And of course, the older the child becomes, the shorter the duration of his sleep, because there are so many interesting things around! But he will eat more every month. Probably, sleep and food are two of the most painful problems for young mothers. With the second baby, everything is a little simpler, because you can remember how it was with the first child. Mothers of the first-born live in constant fear of whether the child eats and sleeps enough. The amount of food consumed usually affects weight gain. But the "sufficiency" of sleep is more difficult to control. But first things first.
How much should a child have at 4 months
Regardless of whether the baby eats the milk mixture or breast milk, specialists voiced numbers in the range from 150 to 170 milliliters per feed, and there should be six of them.
With the mixture, determining this indicator is quite simple: by its residues in the bottle. But the only way to understand how much the baby ate breast milk is by regularly weighing it before and after feeding, that is, twelve times a day. This is hardly reasonable.
Figures are numbers, but you need to remember that appetite is an individual matter, and, as a result, body weight, too. If the parents are short and slender, then the child can weigh less than the norm, and at the same time eat normally.
Separately, it is worth mentioning about breastfeeding. It is impossible to overfeed the baby with mother’s milk, and even if the baby’s weight is higher than the average, you don’t need to “put the baby on a diet.” With an increase in motor activity, the folds on the body smooth out by themselves.
How much should a child sleep at 4 months: harsh statistics
The waking period of a newborn is only three to four hours a day, but with each month its duration increases. To the question: "How much should a baby sleep at 4 months?" Russian experts reply: "From fifteen to seventeen hours in total." At the same time, about eleven hours are allotted for night rest. Foreign colleagues give slightly more modest figures: from fourteen to fifteen hours daily.
Both of them agree on the organization of daytime rest: the number of dreams should be in the range from two to three, and preferably in the fresh air.
How much should a baby sleep at 4 months, and what really
The theory, of course, sounds beautiful, but it displays average statistics, and deviation from the figures is not a pathology. If the baby feels great, is cheerful and active, but at the same time rests a little less or a little more than the norm, there is nothing to worry about and how much the child should sleep at 4 months is a waste of time. A healthy baby will adjust this time sooner or later, regardless of the tabular data.
If you think about adults: do everyone sleep the same amount of time? Does everyone go to bed before midnight and wake up with roosters? One needs six hours to fully recover, while others can oversleep all twelve. Some feel better when they lie down early and get up early, while others - on the contrary. Children are no exception. And you do not need to customize them to some average indicators.
Another case is if the baby does not sleep due to any discomfort. Therefore, thinking about what a child’s dream should be (4 months old or a year old), you need to focus not on its duration in hours, but on its quality indicators. Again, remember the adults: you can spin all night, spin, wake up in the afternoon and feel overwhelmed. And you can go to bed late enough, oversleep “in the same breath” and get up in the morning awake and full of energy.