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Your baby needs to sleep peacefully through the night so that your baby is rested and so are you. If your baby isn’t sleeping well, it means there is some problem with the sleeping schedule. By making a conscious effort to understand your baby’s pattern, you can ease your stress and fix your baby’s sleep pattern.
Here’s a few points to keep in mind when putting your baby to sleep,
1. Understand the sleep needs:
It’s hard to keep track of your baby’s sleep pattern when their hunger needs surpass their need to sleep. In the first two months, their hunger needs would tend to keep them awake. The toddler might sleep for a stretch of 3-4 hours and might go for 10-14 hours a day.
2. Establish Your Baby’s Night Time Routine:
The sooner your baby’s body becomes habituated to a night time routine, the better it is for you as parents. Its never late to start a routine for your child and stick with it. You must put your baby to sleep according to the time. Failing to do so might actually lead a restless night for your child. However, the routine will be helpful and will set the biological clock of your child.
3. Reduce the number of feedings at night:
Now this suggestion is highly subjective and must be consulted with a doctor before being acted on. If your doctor allows you to slowly reduce breastfeeding, then you can start with reducing it at night. Primarily since you've been feeding your child every time he or she wakes up, they associate sleep with food. To reduce this means you must control other factors and try to get your baby to sleep longer at night.
4. Control their Day-time sleep:
To ensure they sleep longer during the night, you must control their sleep during the day. Ensure they don’t stay asleep for a majority part of time at the morning. Engage with them for activities and keep them busy to ensure they make the fullest of their awake time. When they’re tired, you must allow them to sleep and rest. This controlled sleeping will allow them to sleep for longer time at night and also keep control over their feeding pattern.
5. Keep room aura positive and calm:
It is essential to control the environment in which you bring up your child. Keep the temperature of the room regulated. You must also choose soothing colour palettes for the decor of your child’s room, especially white noise is the best. This bring a calming effect on the baby and lights are essential part. Ensure the room is dark enough, but not too dark for your child to have a good night sleep.
6. Maintain your calmness and patience:
You must’ve heard about sleep regression that a baby might face. If your toddler had been sleeping peacefully previously, and is somehow not sleeping now, your baby is in regression phase. These phases usually last 1-4 weeks per se but may be a terrible phase. As parents you must remain calm and be patient and soon everything will settle.
Conclusion:
Suppose if your baby does wake up in the middle night, you must comfort the child but also make sure that they do not consider the time to play or go for a walk. Place your hand on their chest and then calm them. This will break the separation anxiety and calm your child back to sleep.