Q: The child is 2 months old and sleeps very little, the total sleep time is 12 hours a day. He sleeps normally at night, but during the day he sleeps for less than half an hour at a time, and wakes up at the slightest movement. He woke up again after a while. I saw a local doctor and was told that he was deficient in calcium, but he took a lot of calcium supplements and sunlight, but it didn’t work. Is it normal for a child to be like this, is it a calcium deficiency, and how should I make her sleep longer? A: It is often said that children grow up in their sleep, and this statement does have some truth. Modern scientific research has found that people will secrete a kind of “growth hormone” during sleep, which can promote human growth and development. Therefore, it is very important for your baby to get enough sleep. Generally speaking, babies need to sleep for 18-20 hours a day from 1-3 months of age, babies can generally sleep 10-12 hours at night and 2-3 times during the day, 2-6 hours each time. Excluding disease factors, there are several reasons why babies do not sleep well during the day. The first is the sleep environment, the light is brighter during the day, the sound is noisy, the baby will not be used to, you can hang thicker curtains, put some soft lullabies or water sounds to the baby. The second is the sleep habits, infant sleep is a physiological need. When his body’s energy consumption to a certain extent, the natural request to sleep, do not need to rush to let it sleep and hold back and forth to coax him, and do not let him whistling fingers or sucking pacifier. If temporarily no sleep, you can let him lie with his eyes open, do not tease him, and do not carry out, otherwise it will develop bad habits, as long as adults let him sleep, will immediately be noisy, but when he knows that after crying adults will hold him, pat him, will develop the difficulty of falling asleep and must be dependent on adults to sleep ring habits. Then there is the problem of calcium. The calcium requirement for newborn to 6-month-old babies is 400 mg/day, and the vitamin D is 400 u/day. 0-6 month-old babies who are fed mainly with milk need an additional 200 mg/day in addition to the amount of calcium consumed in milk. 1 year-old children should be fed cod liver oil and have more sunlight to meet the vitamin D requirement. However, if your baby has sleep disturbances, excessive sweating, occipital baldness, square cranium, delayed teething, etc., it is rickets, which requires vitamin D supplementation of 1000 u/day. There is also the issue of diet, too much food or hunger before bedtime can lead to difficulty falling asleep and sleep disturbance. Then there is the check to see if the bed where the baby sleeps is uncomfortable, sometimes the quilt is uncomfortable. Or the quilt is too thick, too much to wear, etc. can affect the quality of sleep of infants. Children’s needs for sleep time vary greatly on an individual basis, and they don’t have to do exactly what the book says. If your baby sleeps deeply at night and has good energy, appetite and activity during the day, there is no need to intervene in a hurry.