Search for tag: "infant"

Dr. Gellner: It's 3 a.m. and you hear that cry from your infant or toddler's room that you dread every night. Why do they do that and what can you do? I've got tips on little ones sleep issues for you today on The Scope.

Announcer: Keep your kids healthy and happy. You are now entering "The Healthy Kids Zone" with Dr. Gellner on The Scope.

Dr. Gellner: I'd like to start by calling this Scope piece the "Don't do what I did with my own kids." podcast. I was that mom who felt so bad that I wasn't home for my kids because I had to work that I used any excuse I could to have extra snuggle time. Boy, was that a mistake. I try to let my patients' parents know about my experiences so they can hopefully get more sleep than I did during those years.

Recent data shows that one in five infants who have trouble sleeping may continue to have challenges during the toddler years. And, yes, some of this can be blamed on the behavior of parents. You hear your little one crying. You wait to see if they go back to sleep, and then if they don't, you go rush in there to pick them up or give them a bottle.

Well, guess what? Your child is training you very well to do what they want. It's not on purpose really. Babies learn to be comforted when they wake up from newborn on. Then as they get older they should start sleeping through the night. But some babies become trained night criers or trained night feeders. These are called sleep associations. They really don't know how to go back to sleep on their own unless they're rocked or cuddled or fed.

Parents often will tell me that they will go into their baby's room and the baby only feeds for a few minutes and then is sound asleep again. That's because they aren't waking up for nutrition. They're waking up to go back to sleep in the manner that they were put to bed in the first place.

This is learned hunger. This occurs in children who are drinking a bottle or two of milk or nursing for prolonged periods at night. They have learned to expect food at night to go to sleep. So when they wake up, they're looking for it.

If your child is over seven months, healthy, and feeding multiple times a night, then this is your problem. Most babies are able to sleep through the night by six months old. Now, of course, kids are going to wake up more if they're sick or something is off with their routine. But, in general, they should be able to get back into good sleep patterns easily if you are consistent. If kids are waking up several times a night, both you the parents and the child are going to be cranky the next day.

So how do you fix this? First thing is to get your child to go to sleep on their own by putting them to bed when they're still sleepy but awake, no bottle, no pacifier, no cuddling. Have a good bedtime routine and do the same thing every night. For our kids, it was PJs, brush teeth, story time, usually the same three books every single night to the point I didn't even need to look at the book anymore and then say the good nights.

Sometimes you have to move bedtime 15 to 30 minutes later to make sure they're really ready to conk out. Yes, they may fuss for a few nights, but they should learn, if you are consistent with this, that when it's time for bed, it's time for bed, not an extra drink of water, not just one more story, or being rocked for 15 more minutes.

Bedtime routine done, then lights out. Dark, quiet, maybe a night light if needed, or soothing music. We have an ocean sound CD that our kids have listened to since birth, and they're double digits now.

Trust me, I know how hard this sleep training thing is. My older son decided that 11 p.m. was a good bedtime. I would hold him as he fell asleep, again, mom guilt, and then when he woke up, he'd need me to hold him until he fell back asleep again.

Funny thing is that if his dad put him to bed and he woke up, he'd be like, "Oh, it's just you, dad," and go back to sleep, because my husband made my son self-sooth from early on, and so our son learned that Dad wasn't going to pick him up or cuddle him.

Now if I put him to bed and he woke up, you'd think that me closing the door was because I was putting him in a torture chamber and he'd scream and cry until I went back and held him or stayed by him and then he went back to sleep. Our younger son was just a sleep nightmare for a variety of reasons, including night terrors, but that's a whole different subject.

Bottom line is this is a very common issue and one that most pediatricians have experience with either as parents or having worked with other parents facing the same problem. If you're having a hard time with getting your little one to fall asleep and stay asleep without waking to eat or be comforted and your child is over six months old, talk to your child's pediatrician, we can help.

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Announcer: Health tips, medical news, research and more for a happier, healthier life. From University of Utah Health Sciences, this is The Scope.

Dr. Van Hala: Hi, I'm Dr. Sonja Van Hala, and I worked at Sugar House Family Health Center through the University of Utah. I'm a family doctor.

I talk to many parents who are wondering when they'll get a full night's sleep. You know, every baby is different and has their own rhythm. Really early on the baby is in charge, and especially if you're breastfeeding, you're going to want to respond to their rhythm. So when they awake and they start crying, you know, you'll check to make sure their diaper is clean and then you'll most likely be feeding them.

And then oftentimes, they're sleeping in between their feedings. But when the baby is small, their stomach isn't very big and so they need to feed about every two to three hours if they're breastfeeding. With formula, it might be spaced out a little bit more, every three to four hours, and then oftentimes they're sleeping in between.

You can start to expect around two months of age or so some longer stretches of sleeping, five to six hours perhaps at night. But really, we don't start fussing with trying to train them to sleep until closer to four months of age when their stomach is a bit bigger, we know that their growth is going well, and they're able to tolerate longer stretches of sleep.

One thing that I encourage, and I would start doing this early on with your newborn infant, is a bedtime routine, and this can include bathing, singing, reading, just really slowing things down prior to bed and getting the baby in the mood to go to sleep. Once the baby is closer to four months of age, if they start waking in the middle of the night, it's a good idea to just see if they really are fully awake and if they need your attention or if they're just making some noise and you can just let them be and then they'll settle themselves back down.

Certainly, in the middle of the night, it's important to not train them that they're going to have a fun time in the middle of the night. So ways to handle that is if you do need to give them attention in the middle of the night to either feed them or change their diaper, keep the lights down low, don't play, try to not do too much talking and stimulation, try to keep it boring. Do what you need to do and then put the baby back to bed, and then hopefully they'll eventually learn that awaking in the middle of night, you know, really isn't that much fun and so they'll start stringing more hours together.

So I would say if you get some good night's sleep in the first few months of life, that is wonderful and enjoy it. But usually, you're not going to have a full night sleep, meaning five or six hours, until probably around three to four months of life, and around four months is when you can start doing some sleep training with your child and try to extend those hours.

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Interviewer: Are you a new parent? Well, here are three burn dangers you need to watch out for. We'll examine that next on The Scope.

Woman: Health tips, medical news, research, and more for a happier, healthier life. From University of Utah Health Sciences, this is The Scope.

Interviewer: When you bring a brand new baby home, there are a lot of things that you've got to make sure that your house is safe for them. One of the things you have to start thinking about is potential burn dangers, and we're going to talk about three things you should do . . . three burn dangers you should watch out for when you bring that new child home or you have a new child in the house. Annette Matherly is with the University of Utah Burn Center. Let's cover these three things: number one . . .

Annette: Number one would absolutely be that beautiful glass fronted gas fireplace, which is quite a mouthful for me to say, but that fire is really attractive to young children and that glass stays hot for at least an hour after it's turned off. So it's not just when the fire is on that it's hot. It's when it's off and it looks safe that it remains hot enough to burn a child in about a second.

Interviewer: And I think that's really surprising when people find that out because they think that that glass is like the glass in your oven, right? The oven could be at 450 degrees. You could touch that glass. You're fine. The glass fronted fireplace, not that kind of glass.

Annette: Absolutely not, which is strange because it's about 1,300 degrees when it's hot, which is crazy to think about. And so, now, there's legislation moving forward to ensure that everybody puts a guard around that glass fronted fireplace, but that doesn't protect you if you go to a vacation spot or a hotel or a restaurant that doesn't have that guard around or it doesn't protect you if you've had your glass fronted gas fireplace in for a while and you're not aware of the danger surrounding that.

Interviewer: All right. So, remember, that glass front fireplace, it's pretty, it's like a magnet that kids' hands would love to go up there and it stays hot for a long time. So be aware of that. That's number one. If you're a new parent, you've got three burn dangers to watch out for: number two . . .

Annette: Number two would be hot liquids burn like fire, which seems counterintuitive because we think fire burns like fire. We don't think of something in a cup burning like fire, but to know that hot water right from your water heater is set at about 146 if you haven't turned it down. And so a suggestion to new parents, especially because that child has much thinner skin than an adult, would be to turn that water heater down to 120. You can measure that by putting a candy thermometer in the first water that comes out of your tap and then it's usually a low, medium setting.

Interviewer: So the default settings for hot water heaters is 146.

Annette: 146.

Interviewer: And how long does that take to burn a child?

Annette: Two seconds for a significant injury to occur.

Interviewer: And 120 is a little safer or a lot safer?

Annette: Absolutely. So it doesn't mean that you won't get burn injured, but what it means is that there's some more time. There's minutes as opposed to seconds.

Interviewer: And what about hot liquids like in your cup there that was hot, cups of coffee and stuff?

Annette: If you think about your Starbucks, or whatever it is, your beverage of choice, when a barista pours it, it's around 180, which is crazy if you think 146 is water that comes from your tap and burns you in two seconds. So 180 is outrageously high and much faster than that two second incident. So never carry your young child whilst carrying a hot beverage and ensure that your beverage stays away from countertops and tables, that tablecloths aren't used so young children can't pull on that tablecloth and pull that beverage down onto themselves.

Interviewer: And maybe go out and buy some mugs like your fancy one three with that airtight seal on it.

Annette: Absolutely. My beautiful silver one, so, you know, if you've got a young child then we usually say, "got a kid, get a lid."

Interviewer: Okay. Very good. All right. So glass front fireplaces, hot liquids burn like fire, what's the third thing that new parents should watch out for as far as burn dangers are concerned?

Annette: So we talk about a three-foot safety zone around a lot of things. So around a campfire would be another thing, but also around your cooking area. So, if you have a small child, I know it's not always possible to put a physical three-foot marker with duct tape on the floor. Most people don't want that in their beautiful kitchens.

Interviewer: You could.

Annette: You absolutely could, but to think visually where that marker would be, especially when you have little children roaming around or a brand new infant because that also includes cooking with a child in your arms. So to be aware of what you are holding in that precious bundle and is it worth the risk.

Interviewer: And other than the stove, a lot of people don't really realize the microwave, stuff that comes out of there can be dangerous, ramen noodles, boiling water.

Annette: Absolutely. So ramen noodles are the number one for teens because teens come home from school. They go and they put something hot in the microwave, and oftentimes, again, like you said, it's above head level, and so they're reaching to pull something down and they'll pull it right down on their face.

Interviewer: Yeah. And if you have a child in your arm and you reach up with one hand, you fumble that item. It doesn't take long.

Annette: Absolutely.

Interviewer: All right. So those are the three really good things to watch out for if you're a new parent because a lot of burn prevention is just awareness and implementing some of these changes in your household. Do you have any other final advice for that new parent coming home with that new child to keep them more burn safe?

Annette: So the last thing would be burn prevention is a team sport. We work as a team to ensure that each other is kept safe so when you bring home your new child then to talk to others that are maybe not familiar with the dangers that you've just heard about. So maybe grandparents, maybe babysitters would be another really important one as you go out on a date with your partner and leave your child in the care of another. And so, to ensure that they're aware of the things that could really cause lifelong injury to a small child would be really important to mention before you leave.

Interviewer: And having these conversations really can make a difference.

Annette: Absolutely. Most burns are preventable. It is very, very infrequently that we see somebody come through our unit that it could not have been prevented. So, to know and to educate yourself about the dangers of fire and then to educate those around you would be really important.

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