The infantile dream, according to the doctor Eduard Estivill

The doctor Eduard Estivill is a pediatrician and specialist in Clinical Neurophysiology. Since 1989 he directs the Sleep Clinic Estivill, of the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus of Barcelona, ​​and is coordinator of the Sleep Unit of the General Hospital of Catalonia. He trained as a sleep specialis

The doctor Eduard Estivill is a pediatrician and specialist in Clinical Neurophysiology. Since 1989 he directs the Sleep Clinic Estivill, of the USP Institut Universitari Dexeus of Barcelona, ​​and is coordinator of the Sleep Unit of the General Hospital of Catalonia. He trained as a sleep specialist in the Dis Sleep Disorders Center of the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, in the United States and is a member of the most prestigious Spanish and foreign companies in the field. He is the author of more than 200 articles on sleep disorders in scientific publications and among his best known books highlights Duérmete niño .In this interview with

GuiaInfantil.com , Dr. Estivill talks about the sleep habits of children, the most propitious place to sleep for children and babies, and the possibility of teaching the baby to sleep, because he says, "to sleep you also learn."The sleep habits of babies and children, according to Eduard Estivill

What is the most appropriate place for the baby's sleep?

Children often sleep in their room in our culture. In other cultures and basically because of the economy, for example, in Africa, everyone sleeps together. The children sleep in the same room with the parents, and with the grandparents, the chickens and the other animals they have, because they are poor. In Africa, when a family progresses slightly financially, the first thing it does is put a room for the animals, another for the children and another for the parents.Is it beneficial for the family that the baby sleep with his parents?

In our culture, it is recommended that the mother be close to the child, especially in the first months, to be able to breastfeed while sleeping. The child, in fact, acquires the affection, this contact that we give him, when he is awake. The child can be next to the parents' bed for the comfort of the mother and then, as the parents see it necessary, they can put him in his room. If there is no more space, then it can be perfectly recommended that a corner of the room be enabled as a space or corner of the child. There they will place their drawings or their stuffed animals, and next to them may be the parents' bed, but the child differentiates very well which is the place where he sleeps and which is the place of the dads.
At what age should the child be changed from the cradle to the bed?

The child can be in his crib in his room after 2, 3 or 4 months. After 6 months, when the mother returns to work and the children begin with complementary feeding, then it is a good time to change the baby to her room, if the parents decide. The change from the crib to the bed is more due to issues of size and growth of the child.
How to teach the baby to sleep

How can we teach our baby to sleep?

Today we know that sleep is a need of the body, but to sleep well you learn. It is the same as hunger. Hunger is a necessity of the body, but to eat properly if we teach children. We teach to eat the soup with a spoon and with the mouth closed, they are norms of habits at the table. In the dream the same thing happens, we can teach a child to sleep correctly from the first day he is born, following what he does when he is in the mother's belly.Should the baby's habits in the uterus be moved abroad after birth?

Yes. We have observed that, in the mother's belly, the baby is awake for 20-30 minutes and then spontaneously falls asleep. When the child is born, we must take advantage of the time the child is nursing to keep him awake with small caresses or talking to him. Thus, we get the child to associate being awake with food. After eating, we must have about 10-15 minutes in arms and incorporated to remove the air that has been swallowed. Afterwards, we change him and put him in bed again, always awake. If we do this, the child will learn to sleep from the first day, or rather, not unlearn what he already does in the belly of the mother in a natural way.
What can we do when the baby cries?

How to understand why the children crying?The crying of the child is something that we have to understand. Not all cries are pathological. Crying is a form of communication, the child explains what he feels through crying. When a little boy gets a finger with the door, he has a kind of crying and the mother knows how to recognize it. There is another type of crying, which the child uses as a demand for a situation that may not be the correct one, for example, when he wants a chuche and the mother does not give it to him; then the child cries, the mother knows perfectly well that this crying is not pathological. The most important thing is that the mother is always calm before a situation of crying of the child and knows how to observe perfectly what kind of crying the child is doing at that moment. If we are facing a cry of pain, obviously we have to take care of it to the fullest, but if it is just a cry on demand, it is a way of communicating, then the mother or father must continue to set the standard or routine until the child learn.Marisol Nuevo. Editor of Guiainfantil.com