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When people use the phrase “sleeping like a baby”, they’re probably not being literal, and that’s because new parents are usually exhausted trying to find the best sleeping tips for their newborn baby.
Making mistakes in your baby sleep training can have a serious impact on his/her development and behaviours later in life.
Every sleep expert provides slightly different advice on the ideal timing and method for sleep training. It can be challenging to which sleep training method you should follow.
I’m going to help you separate sleep facts from sleep fiction . These 4 proven effective sleeping tips for newborns and older babies have been shown to promote healthy sleep habits.
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#1 . Sleeping Tips For Newborns – Learn to Spot Your Child’s Sleep Cues
Did you know that babies have a sleep window?
This is the period of time when your baby will go down to sleep most easily. If that window closes before you have a chance to tuck your child into bed, his body will start releasing chemicals to fight the fatigue. As a result, will be much more difficult for you to get him to go to sleep.
So how can you tell if your baby is getting sleepy?
Sleep cues that show your baby is ready to nap or for bedtime:
- is calmer and less active – this is the most obvious cue that your baby is tired and you need to act accordingly.
- less tuned-in to his surroundings his eyes
- less focused and his eyelids may be drooping.
- could be quieter – if your baby tends to babble up a storm during his more social times of the day, you may notice that the chatter dwindles off as he starts to get sleepy.
- may nurse more slowly – instead of sucking away vigorously, your baby will tend to nurse more slowly as he gets sleepy. In fact, if he’s sleepy enough, he may even fall asleep mid-meal.
- could start yawning – if your baby does this, well, that’s a not-so-subtle sign that he’s one sleepy baby.
When your baby is very young, you should start his wind-down routine within one to two hours of the time when he first woke up.
If you miss his initial sleep cues and start to notice signs of overtiredness (see chart) try to do the following:
-observe how long your baby was up this time around; plan to initiate the wind-down routine about 20 minutes earlier the next time he wakes up.
Learning to read your baby’s own unique sleep cues is the first step to a more rested and more content baby.
Here’s something else you need to know about babies’ sleep cues, and this can toss you a major curveball if you’re caught off guard:
Babies tend to go through an extra-fussy period when they reach the six-week mark.
The amount of crying that babies do in a day tends to increase noticeably when babies are around six weeks of age.
You aren’t doing anything wrong and there isn’t anything wrong with your baby. It’s just a temporary stage that babies go through.
You will probably find that your child has his or her own unique response to being overtired. Some children start to look pale. Some young babies start rooting around for a breast and will latch on to anything within rooting distance.
When you know that your child is fed and clean but whining about everything and wants to be held all day, he’s overtired and needs help to get to sleep.
#2. Sleeping Tips for Newborns – Teach Your Baby to Distinguish between Night and Day
Did you ever notice that you tend to feel energized and tired around the same times every day?,
According to Sleep Foundation your circadian rhythm is basically a 24-hour internal clock that is running in the background of your brain and cycles between sleepiness and alertness at regular intervals. It’s also known as your sleep/wake cycle.
Daylight is one of the mechanisms that regulate our biological cycles.
Being exposed to darkness at night and daylight first thing in the morning regulates the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that keeps our bodies’ internal clock in sync. In this way, we feel sleepy and alert at the appropriate times.
By bringing your baby to daylight shortly after he wakes up in the morning and keeping his environment brightly lit during his waking hours, you will help his circadian rhythm to cue him to feel sleepy at the right times.
Moreover, he’ll start to associate darkness with sleep time and bright light with wake-up time. Soon you’ll find that it works best to take advantage of sunlight (as opposed to artificial light) whenever possible.
Studies have shown that exposing your baby to daylight between noon and 4:00 P.M. will increase the odds of your baby getting a good night’s sleep.
#3.Sleeping Tips for Newborns – Know When Your Baby No Longer Needs to Be Fed At Night
Your baby may continue to wake up in the night out of habit even when he’s outgrown the need for a middle-of-the-night feeding.
If your baby is going without that nighttime feeding some of the time or doesn’t seem particularly interested in nursing once he gets up in the night, it might be time to eliminate that nighttime feeding and use non-food methods to soothe him back to sleep.
Eventually, of course, you’ll want to encourage him to assume responsibility for soothing himself to sleep, but the first hurdle is to work on breaking that powerful food-sleep association.
With some children, it happens quickly. With other children, it’s a much slower process.
Once you break that association, he may stop waking as often in the night and maybe ready to start working on acquiring some self-soothing skills.
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#4. Sleeping Tips for Newborns– Remain as Calm and Relaxed as Possible about the Sleep Issue
If you are frustrated and angry when you deal with your child in the night, your child will inevitably pick up your vibes, even if you’re trying hard to hide your feelings.
Accepting the fact that some babies take a little longer to learn the sleep ropes and feeling confident that you can solve your child’s sleep problems will make it easier to cope with the middle-of-the-night sleep interruptions.
Scientific studies have shown that parents who have realistic expectations about parenthood and those who feel confident in their own abilities to handle parenting difficulties find it easier to handle sleep challenges.
This article is based on the program, “Baby Sleep Miracle” by Mary Ann Schuler. Featuring scientifically-backed insights from a certified child psychologist, the book is an invaluable source of practical, hands-on advice. It is filled with easy-to-implement tips, and suggestions not only for baby sleep issues but for other, related behavioural problems.
The best part of this program is the “Good Sleep At Every Age”, in which the author describes in minute detail every developmental phase of a child from birth up to five years of age, providing custom indications on how to adjust the sleeping strategy to any child’s personality.
You can visit Mary Ann Schuler’s website HERE: babysleepmiracle.com
