"My baby has not slept well lately and has been crying, what should I do?"
"Babies sometimes cough when they sleep, but they don't have the symptoms of a cold!"
……
In the face of children's various sleep problems, such as suddenly starting to cry, always scratching, coughing continuously, in addition to excluding reasons such as illness, there is also a problem that is easy to be ignored, that is, the pillow is not suitable.
In our conventional understanding, the pillow is used for "pillow", which is a misleading misunderstanding of the name, in fact, the pillow is used to pillow the neck.
You know, the human spine is not straight, it has four physiological bending points, and the neck has a slightly inclined curvature here, which we call the neck bend. When the child lies flat, it will feel that the neck is hanging in the air, at this time the neck muscles and ligaments will be in a tense state, and some people will wake up to feel pain, stiffness, soreness, and long-term neck in this situation, it will affect the cervical spine, for the child will eventually affect the development.
Baby 3 months ago, there is no neck bend, this time whether lying flat on the side, the child's head and body will be on the same level, and there is no need to give the child a pillow, too early will make the child uncomfortable.
In addition, for safety reasons, young children should also try to contact soft pillows, quilts and other things as little as possible to avoid the risk of suffocation, so it is not recommended to use pillows for children under 1 year old.
After the age of 1, you can start using pillows, and you must choose and change the pillow that suits you according to your baby's development. Because the physiological curve of the curve of the cervical spine of the child from birth to adulthood is constantly changing, the baby's pillow cannot sleep from small to freshman year, but choose different pillows according to different age groups.
Choose a pillow for your child, you can follow the following three criteria:
Criterion one: The pillow cannot be too soft nor too hard
Due to the physiological structure of the anterior arch of the cervical spine, it is required that the pillow must be able to support the neck, but it cannot be too hard, because the pillow is too hard, it will make people uncomfortable, and it will cause deformation of the baby's skull for a long time, and there will be problems such as partial head or partial face, but it can not be too soft, and once again emphasize that it is from the perspective of safety, and the pillow that is too soft will become the "invisible killer" of the baby within 1 year old.
The criterion for judging the softness of the pillow is that it can be as follows: if the child's head is completely sunken, it means that it is too soft, and if the pillow cannot fit close to the child's head and does not drop significantly, it means that it is too hard.
Criterion 2: The height of the pillow is very important, and it must be adapted to the child's body
For babies, the pillow is too high, it will make the neck bend excessively, and some children will also have symptoms such as poor trachea and breathing effort. In the long run, it will make the child hunchback and slanted shoulders.
Of course, the pillow can not be too low, so that it can not play a role in supporting the cervical spine, will make the neck muscles in a state of tension for a long time, and can not get rest, we often appear to fall pillow is the performance of pillow discomfort.
Usually, the baby's pillow height can start from 3 cm height, slowly adjust to 6-9 cm, through continuous adjustment, find the most appropriate height to support the cervical spine, so that the neck muscles can be naturally relaxed, thereby ensuring the quality of sleep.
Standard three: the length and width of the pillow should be suitable
In addition to paying attention to the height of the pillow, the length and width requirements are also exquisite. Generally speaking, the length of the pillow should be larger than the width of the child's shoulders, in case the child is sideways and the head falls off the pillow.
In addition, the width of the pillow should be the same as the length of the child's head, otherwise the back of the head will easily fall off the pillow, and the width of the pillow should be as small as 1.5 times the width of the shoulder.
In addition to these three points, when choosing a pillow, we should also consider the fabric of the pillow, and try to choose a close-fitting, comfortable, soft, breathable, and pure cotton jacket.
In short, to let your baby sleep well, it is important to use your baby pillow correctly. Think about the child sleeping well, the body is great, what is more important than this?