As any parent will be aware, good quality baby sleep is an essential basis for a child’s future health and development. The pleasure in seeing a baby sleep is hardly measurable but having to see (and hear) your baby when they just won’t or can’t go to sleep can be torture for a parent.
To help in solving a baby sleep problem and to teach your baby to sleep through the night, getting your baby into a regular, fuss-free, sleep routine is so important.
If you haven’t already, you should seriously consider establishing some sort of bedtime routine for your baby. Routine helps to establish baby’s sleep pattern and once it is established your baby will be happier, more content, and more likely to sleep through the night.
Here are several things you can do to establish a bedtime routine for your baby:
Most of us have some kind of winding down routine before we go to sleep and this should be no different for your baby. Perhaps the sleep routine could begin with a bath, followed by a slow dimming of the lights (so they realise it is getting near to sleep time), then a change of nappy or diaper, putting them in the crib or cot and finishing with a bedtime story or lullaby.
You don’t need to follow the above routine to the letter, you may wish to do it in a different order, or have a different routine entirely, but the important thing is that you create a baby sleep routine that you follow night after night after night until it becomes a habit for your child.
Whenever you begin this routine, your baby will know that sleep is expected to follow. Babies and infants are creatures of habit, they enjoy the predictability of a sleep ritual and so a regular routine like this can help settle your baby more quickly and also increase the chances of him or her sleeping through the night.
Providing a routine and the same sleep environment each time is crucial to providing the ideal scenario for restful baby sleep.
You should begin a bedtime routine in the early weeks of your baby’s life if at all possible but if your baby is already older than this, just get a routine established as soon as you can.
If you already have some sort of sleep routine for your child but they still have a baby sleep problem, take a close look at the bedtime routine you have created for your baby to see if can be improved.
You should also create a daily naptime routine too when it is feasible to do so as this helps night time sleep very much.
