What is Infant Sleep Patterns?
3 to 6 months Infants Although your baby’s brain matures rapidly and changes do occur in his sleep by 3 months of age, up until about the age of 6 months, the part of the brain that controls the timing of sleep is not fully developed. So, your baby develops the ability to control this sleep-wake cycle during the first 6 months of life. During this time, an infant’s waking, sleeping, and feeding are done in a rather random fashion. In fact, the sleep-wake pattern is almost entirely driven by the repeated need for feeding during these first few months. Sleep researchers are studying whether you can start to change these patterns during these early months. However, it is already known that from 3 to 6 months of age, you can start to make changes to the signals that you give your baby to help lengthen nighttime sleep. Some babies can settle on their own, even as infants. If you need to help your baby to fall asleep, you can help him establish good sleep habits by slowly decreasing the nurt
