A topic that keeps many people awake
I've avoided the subject of sleeping for long enough now. However, the whole thing is so complex that we will tackle it in several stages. Today: the five insights I have gained after 15 years of paediatric practice and three children of my own.
If people knew in advance how big the sleep deficit would be with children: Humanity would have died out.
Sleep is different for every child. Forget what you learnt from your first child.
Every family has to find its own system for sleeping. It can be three mattresses next to each other, it can be a cot next to the parents' bed, it can be a mattress for one parent next to the cot ... Don't listen to any old wives' tales, don't believe your grandparents who always slept through the night. As a family, find a sleeping system that works reasonably well for everyone.
Every child leaves their parents' bed sooner or later. At any rate, I don't know of any children who are still sleeping in their parents' Gräbele (Swabian for "bed rift", i.e. the centre of the parents' double bed) at the age of 16. At some point, the children disappear of their own accord.
The positive message at the end: sleeping gets better over the years as your child grows up. Faster for one child, less so for another. But it tends to get better.
More findings will follow ... But one more thing is very important to me: the topic is so individual and sometimes so stressful for some parents that sometimes a personal consultation with a paediatrician makes sense and helps.
Further interesting tips
Meningococcus I
Infections with meningococci (bacteria that can cause dangerous meningitis, for example) are fortunately very rare and fortunately we can also do a lot to prevent them with vaccinations (more on this in Part II).
Whooping cough
Whooping cough is a disease that has unfortunately not completely disappeared and is unlikely to disappear completely. One problem is that the vaccination only offers around 80 per cent protection. Even with good immunisation coverage, it must therefore be assumed that cases of whooping cough will occur again and again. So here are the important facts about this disease.
Blood test
Parents keep asking if we would like to do a blood test on their child. There are two main things to say about this.