Struggling to get your baby to sleep? Read these great tips to help your baby sleep better.
Getting enough sleep is vital to maintaining a happy and relaxed family environment. Naturally this can be a little tricky when a baby arrives so here are a few tips to help your baby sleep that I used as a nanny many moons ago.
How does it work?
Awake windowWhen your baby is very little, he or she can only really stay awake for one and a half hours, before he or she is overtired and struggles to go to sleep. As baby gets older, the awake period stretches to 2 hours and when baby is close to a year, you may find that there is even a 3 – 4 hour stretch between sleeps. Every baby is different, so try not to worry about what the ‘books or experts’ say your baby should be doing, there will be a way that works for you and your baby.
Sleep cycles
A baby has a 45 minute sleep cycle which is a lot shorter than adults. As your baby comes into light sleep more frequently, baby will wake if he or she is too hot, too cold, has a tummy pain or is already overtired.
Overtiredness
When your baby doesn’t get enough sleep, baby will produce chemicals to stay awakes, much like the adrenaline you produce when you start working 16 hour days to get a project finished. When this over production becomes your baby’s norm, it is hard to settle, relax and go to sleep. Where possible, try to avoid your baby becoming overtired in the first place. Sleep deprivation is accumulative, so your baby needs to catch up on sleep lost before he or she is on a level playing field. It is not wise to ‘keep your baby awake when he or she is tired’. This unsettles your baby’s natural sleep pattern and will set you up for a dependency on ‘expert’ help as you will need each stage assessed and tweaked.
Sleep and feeding
Feeding can really throw a spanner in the works as you want to be sure that your baby is getting enough food. Sometimes this can affect baby’s sleep pattern adversely, so a good way to think of feeding and sleep is to create a credit account for each which you try to balance. If you deposit feeding time into the feeding account, you want to deposit sleep into the sleep account. If your baby feeds a lot in the morning, allow him or her to sleep more in the afternoon. If your baby sleeps all morning, expect him or her to feed all afternoon. If your baby sleeps all night, expect him or her to feed more during the day.
Do routines work?
Yes they do. Routines give you some idea of when you should think about getting your baby to sleep – if you keep missing the sleep or feeding cues your baby gives you. There is nothing wrong with having a routine. The negative association is more in line with leaving a baby to cry for hours on end, alone in their crib when every fibre in your body tells you to go in soothe and calm your baby. Control crying is unnecessary as you can achieve the same results in gentler ways.
Some babies however, will just cry for 5 to 10 minutes before they go to sleep, regardless of whether you are rocking them, soothing them in their crib or leaving them alone to work it out for themselves. Love nor money seems to make any difference to these little friends, so if this is what your baby does, know that this is just normal for them.
Routines provide your baby with a recognisable structure to their day. This can be a huge relief for them as they can’t always successfully communicate their needs to you. If you are struggling to get your baby to sleep, start with a little structure, then build it up during the day if your baby is still young. If your little one is older, you may find that it is better to have a blanket routine throughout the day.
Newborns to 12 weeks generally sleep after each feed
3 months to 6 months you may see that sleeps become shorter, especially if baby is sleeping well at night.
6 months to 12 months you may find that baby does one big sleep and maybe 2 short sleeps
12 months plus you may find that baby does one big sleep but the time of that sleep changes depending on your days activity.
Create your own routine
To start creating your own routine, pop your baby into bed 1.5 – 2 hours from when he or she wakes. If your baby seems sleepy before this time – get them into bed, especially if they have not been sleeping well. The more your baby sleeps, the better your baby will sleep moving forward as less stimulating chemicals are produced. Once you have done this for a couple of days, you will get a better idea of whether your baby is a morning sleeper or afternoon sleeper – sleep is not always evenly spread over the course of the day.
Find a pattern
You may find that your baby is easier to settle after morning feeds and harder to settle in the afternoon. This may be due to milk supply, available to your baby or it can be that baby is overtire by the afternoon and just can’t think straight – try feeding lying down or settling sooner than the 1.5 - 2 hours.
You may find that the evening is a nightmare. Start a wind down routine from 5pm – 6pm with a feed, nappy off time, bath and then feed again in a darkened room. Don’t worry about putting your baby to sleep early if you can see that he or she is tired. The better rested your baby is, the easier baby will go to sleep.
Keep tweaking until you find what works for your baby
Once you have your timings and an idea of your baby’s sleep pattern, keep tweaking the timings until you get it right. If you put your baby down and she cries for 30 minutes on and off without going to sleep – put her down 15 minutes earlier. If your baby chats in his or her crib for 40 minutes before going to sleep, pop baby down 15 minutes later. You are your baby’s expert. Lovely people like Jo Tantum can help, based on their years of experience, to find a routine that works for you by recognising patterns and signs your baby gives.
Quick case study
I remember one baby in particular, her name was Lola – the cutest little thing with jet black spiky hair, the worst reflux ever (cried 24/7) and who was a difficult little friend to coax to sleep. She cried for 10 mins before she would just drop off and go to sleep which was heart-breaking. I tried tweaking the times, rocking, soothing, spaced soothing where you go in to baby - soothe – leave and repeat every minute to 2 minutes until baby starts calming then you stretch the time before going back in. One night she just looked tired. She had woken and fed at 4pm but by 5pm she was crying. I did a quick top and tail, changed her into her jim jams, swaddled her and put her to bed. She slept for 8 hours, woke fed and then slept for another 5. It was the best sleep she had ever had and from there, sleeping became a lot easier. She still cried her little heart out, bless her, but she did go to sleep and was happy and well rested when she was awake.
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