Newborn babies do not sleep through the night in their first six months. Or they sleep much of the time but in very short segments. As they grow, the number of day-sleeping hours decreases, still they can sleep through the night. Here are some tips that will help you get your baby sleep through the night.
1. Don’t rock or breastfeed the baby to help them to sleep.
When the baby shows that he or she wants to sleep their moms usually rock or breastfeed him/her. It is a good thing though for your baby to sleep, but this becomes a ritual the babies are used to before bed time. In doing so, the baby can’t sleep unless he or she is in your arms. Make sure that your baby doesn’t sleep while you are holding them. If the baby awakens during their sleep, they can’t fall back asleep until you hold him or her again.
Rocking or breastfeeding your baby before they sleep will make them feel insecure when you are separated. Here are a few tips that will certainly help you get your infant to sleep.
- Put your baby into bed when they are drowsy, not when they are sleeping.
- Don’t stimulate your baby by doing activities near bedtime.
- Give your baby a bath or read him or her stories form bedtime storybooks. This is an effective way to get them sleep.
- When the baby awakens and starts crying, wait a few minutes, then try to pat and sooth him or her.
2. Be sure it is completely dark for the baby to sleep.
When the baby is exposed to too much light, he or she can’t sleep. Complete darkness helps the infant’s brain to produce the melatonin, the necessary hormone for sleeping. It is better to expose him or her to the brightness of the day and darkness of the night.
- Install dimmers on the lights of baby’s room. When the bedtime is close, less than an hour, try to reduce the amount of light in the baby’s room.
- Don’t turn the lights on when the baby awakens at night. Try to pat on him till he falls back to sleep. If the light is on, it informs the brain that it’s not sleep time.
- Install room window blinds. Some babies are not comfortable with the morning sunlight. Room-darkening shades and window blinds show great help in this kind of situation.
3. Don’t change the diaper.
Changing your baby’s diapers when they are sleeping will certainly awakens them up. But if you relax the diaper’s rule, it becomes easy for you to sniff or check whether he or she spoiled the diaper or not. Don’t change the diaper unless there is poop. Use wipes to wipe the baby’s wee-wee. Use warm wipes that have been warmed in a wipe warmer.
4. White noise as the best method.
White noise may aid the baby to sleep. If your baby falls asleep while in noisy places in town, be sure that he or she will sleep at white noise at home. This is an effective way to make your baby sleep soundly. Videos on YouTube about baby white noise sleep sound make a great number of views (some videos reach the number of 33 million views).
- Use one of the videos on YouTube to help your baby to get to sleep. It’s a useful manner as the number of views demonstrates. I myself used it with my daughter Sara when she was a baby. It really works.
- Use the sound of waterfalls to sleep.
- Videos of the sound of hair dryers too.
- Buy a white noise sound machine on Amazon (it’s useful even for adults!).
5. Keep their sleeping spot warm.
When you get your baby from his or her bed to feed them, make sure his or her place is always warm. Some moms put a warm bottle in their cribs, so when they put the baby back in their crib or bassinet the place has the body’s temperature.
6. Let your baby cry.
If your baby is full and the diaper is clean, don’t hold your baby when they cry in sleeping time. Some experts say that you should let the infant cry until they get themselves to sleep. Babies wake up five or six times a night naturally. You should let them learn how to self-sooth and how to get back to sleep on their own is useful for both of you.
7. Your baby should sleep in a separate bed.
Avoid co-sleeping. Sleeping with your baby in the same bed is not a good thing to do. They always use your boobs as a pacifier, which makes them wake up like every 30 minutes and cry to get breastfeed to go back to sleep. Let them sleep in their own cribs or bassinets.
