5 Baby Sleep Tips

One of the most difficult things for new parents to deal with is a newborn's sleeping habits. Most of us are familiar with the circles around the eyes of new parents and their complaints about lack of sleep. Here are 5 baby sleep tips, which will hopefully help both your newborn - and you - to get a solid night's rest.

Develop and stick to a routine

One of the most important things you can do in terms of getting your newborn to sleep better is to establish a routine, and to stick to it. The more regular your baby's sleeping hours are, the more likely he or she will be able to sleep solidly throughout the night. As soon as possible, try and establish a sleeping pattern with your newborn that mimics the one in the rest of the household - in other words, one in which most of the sleeping is done at night.

If you find that your newborn is sleeping-in because of being up late at night, rouse him or her at the time when you normally get up. By doing this it's more likely that your newborn will be tired and sleep in the evenings. On a general level, there will be no way to avoid the fact that your baby's sleeping habits are going to be irregular, and there are, of course, going to be times when the baby simply wants to be awake when the rest of the family wants to be asleep.

Over time, however, your newborn will begin to adjust to your family's regular sleeping habits if you instill in him or her at an early age a sense of routine. A baby, particularly when he or she is very young, is heavily influenced by these routines. As much as possible, you should resist the temptation to let the newborn arrange his or her sleeping habits.

The baby, of course, will want to sleep a lot -- which is fine -- but don't let the baby sleep too late into the morning. By establishing a routine with your baby from a young age you will ensure that the transition into more regular sleeping habits is both a quicker and smoother one.

Let your baby nap in a brightly lit room

Although it seems somewhat counter-intuitive, ensure that when your baby naps, he or she does so in a well lit area. This will likely ensure that your baby naps for shorter periods of time, which will make him more tired in the evening hours, and help him sleep better at night.

The reason letting your baby nap in a brightly lit room is a good idea is that it strikes a delicate balance for the parent: it allows you to influence your baby's sleep habits without too much direct interference.

The problem is that nobody likes to rouse their baby while he is sleeping -- in fact you're probably enjoying the peace when he is - and yet at the same time you want to try and prevent him from sleeping throughout the day and bothering you at night.

By letting your baby sleep in a well lit room you encourage shorter naps without actually having to go through the unpleasant experience of physically waking your child. In keeping with this idea, try not to encourage long or extensive napping. Many parents, when they see their baby fall asleep during the day, will do everything they perceive as needed for their child's comfort.

This is natural, of course, but often extends to drawing the curtains and turning out the lights in the room. By doing this you are ensuring that your child will nap for a long time, and can count on him or her being awake repeatedly throughout the night.

Make your child develop sleep associations

One of the key factors in your baby's development is in creating associations with sleep. It is important, therefore, to instill a bedtime routine with your child that includes sleep associations he or she can replicate for him or herself. The idea is to get your child to a point where if he wakes in the middle of the night, he can go back to sleep on his own.

Establish a bedtime routine with your child that includes things like a final changing and feeding, etc. The best thing you can do is to put your child to sleep at a point during the day when they feel quite drowsy, but are still aware enough to take in their surroundings and develop their own sleep associations.

The worst thing you can do is get your child used to falling asleep with you there. If your child develops sleep associations with a pacifier or by being rocked, when she wakes up in the middle of the night she won't be able to recreate her sleeping situation on her own - because you won't be there to rock or feed her. Instead, try getting your child to associate with things like a stuffed toy or blanket.

The idea is that if your child makes sleep associations with these items, he can recreate the sleep situation on his own when he wakes up in the middle of the night. Instead of waking up and crying for a feeding or to be rocked, the child will be able to grab his stuffed animal or blanket and re-create on his own a situation conducive to sleep.

In this same vein, parents should consider the use of what is called a "transitional object." This is something you allow your child access to only before bedtime, and which he can bring to bed. So as your child gets his final bedtime story, allow him to have his blanket or stuffed animal, and allow him to keep the object with him as he's put to bed.

The Ferber Method

If at the age of five or six months your baby is still having problems sleeping on his own, you will have to consider a more strict methodology in getting the child to go to sleep unaided. The most common method for achieving this is taught by Dr. Richard Ferber, and is based on the principle of getting your child to learn to fall asleep on his own.

Most children will learn to sleep on their own in a relatively short time using the Ferber method. Nevertheless, it is important that you implement the Ferber method during a time when you can afford to lose some sleep: it does require listing to lots of crying while your child learns to sleep on his own.

If you waver and let your child fall asleep in your bed or with you, you may be undoing a lot of hard work. You start by developing a bedtime routine that ends with your child being left on his own to fall asleep. The first night, place your child to bed - awake - on his own, and when he inevitably cries, wait around 5 minutes.

After that time re-enter the room and console him, but not for too long - avoid picking him up or rocking him when you enter the room. After a brief time in the room leave, and this time allow him to cry for 10 minutes before returning. After you console him a second time, leave and wait 15 minutes before returning if he is still crying.

Set your wait limit at 15 minutes and repeat the process - the idea is that the child will fall asleep on his own during one of the 15 minute intervals you are out of the room. The second night, begin with a 10 minute wait time, moving to 15 and then 20 as a maximum. Increase your initial and subsequent wait times by 5 minutes each day. Your child will soon learn to sleep on his own using this method.

Excerpted from the book How to Take Care of Your Babys Health by Wings Of Success.

This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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https://boostlane.com/p/boostlane/956/how-to-take-care-of-your-babys-health/