Do you remember the first few weeks of your little one? Before I gave birth to The Princess, Daddy A and I thought that parenthood is all rainbows and butterflies. While it is true that having your own child is the most wonderful, beautiful and magical thing you will experience in your life, we cannot ignore the fact that having a baby is also a challenge.

Aside from all the worries (believe me, you will have a million worries when you become a parent!), one of the struggles you will encounter as a parent to a little one is being able to function properly even with just an hour or two–if you’re lucky, three–hours of sleep. And man, that’s hard.

If adults need some shuteye to function properly, our little ones also need to get enough sleep for proper development. To make parents more aware, Pampers Philippines launched the Sound Sleep, Sound Development Campaign.

Experts such as Philippine Society of Sleep Medicine’s Dr. Luis Rivera Jr., MD, FPSSM and MCNAP President Alicia Estiller as well as Mommy bloggers Pehpot Pineda of Make Or Break and Frances Sales of Topaz Mommy all talked about the importance of sleep for babies and tips on making sure that our little ones get the rest they need.

Why is it important for kids to get enough sleep?

According to Dr. Rivera, sleep has restorative and cognitive functions, aids in growth and development of the central nervous system and enables somatic growth.

Some of the effects of inadequate sleep include mood disturbance, fatigue, cognitive impairment and decreased daytime functioning among many others.

How much sleep should your child be getting?

In Dr. Rivera’s presentation, he discusses the ideal hours of sleep for each stage of a child’s life.

For instance, newborns (0-2 months) should get about 10-19 hours of sleep per day. Infants (2-12 months), on the other hand, need to get 9-10 hours of night time sleep and an average of 3-4 hours of naps. Toddlers (1-3 years old) should be able to get 9.5-10.5 hours of sleep at night and naps that last for 2-3 hours during the day.

Ensuring Sound Sleep

Okay. So we know how much sleep our kids should be getting… but what if she just won’t sleep? Dr. Rivera, Alicia Estiller and Mommies Pehpot and Frances also talked about sleep strategies and tips for parents.

Know the signs. Parents should be able to tell when their little one is ready to get some sleep. I know that The Little Man is sleepy when he starts rubbing his eyes or rests his head on my chest.

Make the surroundings conducive for sound sleep. Help your little ones get uninterrupted sleep by making the surroundings conducive. A pre-sleep bath and comfy pajamas would be nice. The room temperature should be just right as well–not too hot, not too cold. You may even play soft music in the background. Good nappies like Pampers (after two kids, Pampers is definitely tried, tested and approved!) will really help, too.

Develop a sleep schedule. This one is tricky for our family because our two little ones nap and sleep on different times, making sound sleep a bit difficult to achieve. Recently, though, we have been trying to get them to nap and sleep at the same time to lessen disturbances.

An important question was also raised during the open forum about waking kids up in the middle of the night to take their scheduled medicine.

According to Dr. Rivera and Alicia Estiller, it depends on the illness and the type of medicine the baby needs to take. For instance, if high fever is present, then the baby has to take the medicine even in the middle of sound sleep. However, let’s say it’s a cough/cold medicine and the baby doesn’t seem to be bothered by the cough/colds, then we can put the medicine intake off until the little one wakes up. Besides, when it comes to cough and colds, sleep (and lots of water) is very important!

Aside from the talk about the importance of sound sleep, we also got a chance to try out the interactive stations prepared by Pampers.

I wasn’t able to try the stations because I had The Little Man with me, but I’m sure all the moms and dads enjoyed the activities Pampers Philippines prepared!

That’s it! I definitely learned a lot from this event and I hope you gained new knowledge about sound sleep through my post. 🙂