Having a new born in the house portends sleep deprivation for the parents as well as everyone else in the house. Babies will keep you up on most nights as they become acclimatized to life outside the womb. Their sleep comes in short spurts followed by a lengthy period of them wanting you to stay awake watching over them.
Creating a regular sleeping routine is one of the first steps to helping them and yourself sleep better at night. A baby’s brain easily picks up and gets used to a predictable routine much faster than adults do. With consistency and patience, they start associating bedtime with comfort and rest and may be less cranky as a result.
Here are Toddler Tips to help your baby get a good night’s sleep.
Separation anxiety
Separation anxiety could be the reason your child has trouble sleeping, especially if you they don’t sleep in your bedroom. Babies can be reluctant to separate from their parents and the sleeping alone with the lights switched off worsens their fears.
Find ways to reduce separation anxiety in babies in order to help your child feel comfortable sleeping alone. You can read them bedtime stories and sing lullabies to calm the down until they fall asleep before leaving their room to get some much-needed and well-deserved rest.
Bedtime routine
You should develop a bedtime routine that is sustainable over several months. You don’t want them getting used to a routine that you will have difficulty keeping up with. For instance, singing cartoon tunes every night will strain you to your very core.
Examples of easy to keep up with routines include warm baths before bed, reading and storytelling. In fact, reading aloud to your babies has a lot of benefits including faster mastering of language and better communication skills as they grow.
The other things you can do is give them a gentle massage and change them into fresh diapers so they are more comfortable.
Switch off the lights
Dispel any fears you baby might have about darkness. Sleeping in a dark room helps both babies and adults fall asleep faster and also improves the quality of sleep.
It is your duty to help your baby differentiate daylight from nighttime. Leave the lights on will confuse them and make it harder for them to fall asleep. Furthermore, if your baby wakes up at night and they find darkness, they are more likely to go back to sleep on their own than wake you up.
Consistency
Don’t keep on shifting from one bedtime ritual to another. Instead, put your baby to bed at the same time every single day and with the same routine.
Over time, their brains start associating the aforementioned routine with sleep making it far much easier to lull them to sleep. Ideally, put them to bed at least 15 minutes before their official sleeping time to calm the down.
More importantly, avoid exciting your child before bed since the accelerate heart beat makes it harder for them to fall asleep.