Help Your Baby to Sleep. Penney Hames

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       Brenda and Dave, parents of Mark and Esme

      It’s a complex business. Your new born baby will need to be safe (see page 33 on safe sleeping), sleepy and comfortable – fed, clean and dry, warm and free of pain. But from about three months many babies are a little bit more astute and are ready to respond to a more definite timetable. There’s a lot you can do to help your baby learn.

      Babies like to understand, but they are not clever enough to grasp a lot of complications – they like things clear and they like repetition. So, to get your baby to understand the idea of going to sleep, you’ll need to have a few clear steps and to go about it in the same way every time (see pages 28–32 for some tips about the end of the day, bedtime routines and sleep associations).

      Organizing the Day

      Strange as it may seem, having a regular breakfast time has a lot to do with getting a good night’s sleep. Babies don’t fit naturally into the daily pattern of sleeping and waking that we adults take for granted, so if you have a laissez-faire attitude to the day, with moveable feasts and naps when needed, your child might develop the same attitude to bedtimes and night wakings.

      ‘I really don’t know why Sophie slept through the night from very early – luck maybe! However, I do feel a bedtime routine is essential and even some kind of routine during the day.’

       Diane, mother of Sophie, aged 15 months

      Many parents find that thinking about the patterns they create during the day as well as at night helps their baby to develop a more regular routine. You may find that a structured day with meals and naps at fairly regular times, give or take ten minutes, gives your child a better chance of a regular bedtime with continuous sleep. If your baby is bathed, fed and sleepy by 6pm, it’s best not to keep him awake waiting for daddy to come home for a cuddle, especially if that could be any time up to 9pm. This doesn’t mean being ruled by the clock. Some days are bound not to fit your pattern. But knowing what your goal is, allows you to respond to your child’s needs while recognizing that flexible routines can provide a reassuring anchor.

      ‘My first child was a nightmare for nine months, and needed hospitalisation to check there was no underlying problem, he was that bad. I was a single parent at the time and I feel that that contributed to the problem. However, I really believe that developing a good daytime nap routine was the most important thing I did. Within one week of establishing two daytime naps Sam went from screaming every two hours to sleeping through the night. I also used this for number two – it works!’

       Fiona

      However, some parents feel that routines can get in the way of meeting their own and their children’s needs, and stop them responding to their child as an individual. Many of these parents prefer their children to eat and sleep wherever and whenever they like.

      ‘By the time he was five months old Thomas occasionally slept through the night. But reading The Continuum Concept made me realize I did feel odd about the hours of separation from him. I decided to continue to sit up and feed him and gently put him in his cot in the evening. When he woke in the night I’d follow how I felt or how he seemed to feel and either take him in with me or to the guest-room double bed for a feed and sleep or just sit up to feed him to sleep again and pop him back in the cot. The sleeping through stopped immediately. But I feel it worked because I gave myself to him 101 % instead of getting annoyed. When he’d perk up after an hour’s feed from 8pm to 9pm and I’d felt he was just dropping off, I’d laugh and say, “Well we’d better go downstairs and see what daddy’s doing.” The key was to be really and truly willing to share his joy of life.’

       Sarah

      The Choice is Yours

      Psychologists have discovered that when adults live in a laboratory for a few days without a watch or clock or any other way of discovering the time, they tend to sleep longer and stay awake longer so that they quickly become out of sync with the outside world. In fact, adults’ biological clocks are set to run on a 25-hour clock and not the 24 into which we squeeze ourselves. This is why we find it easier to stay up late at night than to go to bed earlier than usual.

      Your baby’s internal clock is set to the same rhythm. If you let him he could gradually work his way round to an increasingly late bedtime and late morning wakening.

      Bedtime Routines

      If you want your baby to go to sleep at a regular time, the best way to complete a well-organized day is with a bedtime routine. When you look into your baby’s eyes around the time of the six-week check-up there finally seems to be someone home – or almost. So this is a good time to introduce a bedtime routine if you haven’t already done so. In fact, many babies begin to sleep a lot better from this point without much prompting and many have developed a definite pattern of their own making by the time they are three or four months old.

      A bedtime routine will probably include some or all of the following: bath, feed, story or quiet play, cuddle and a kiss. And it will end with your baby in his place for sleep on his own or with you. A bedtime routine can be as long or as short as you like. Many people find saying goodbye difficult. A bedtime routine can be a good way of preparing you and your baby for the separation of sleep.

      ‘It took me a couple of weeks to get myself organized and then we decided to organize Thomas. Lots of people had given us advice. So we decided to have a set bedtime to have the evening to ourselves. We started with a bath, and then into the bedroom with a very dim light so that we could just see, for his last feed. He slept through the night at six weeks.’

       Sue, mother of Thomas, aged two

      The main points to consider when developing a routine are:

      • Is it peaceful? Waiting for a partner to come home from work for half an hour of rough-and-tumble play can be counterproductive. Save it for the weekend.

      • Do all the elements always come in the same order? Babies feel more relaxed when they can predict what’s coming next.

      • Is it practical? Sometimes a family will develop a routine that is useful at times and difficult at others – such as letting the baby fall asleep in front of the television or while driving round in the car. It is worth persevering with a more practical alternative if you can find one.

      • Is it possible to do all these things within the time you’ve set? Starting a lengthy routine at 6.30pm for a bedtime of 7pm is doomed to failure. Experts now recommend a daily 20-minute dose of book sharing even with the youngest of babies, so it may be worth winding things down a little earlier than you had planned.

      • Is anything else going to interfere with the routine? This should be a relaxing and close time for both of you. So, record that soap opera for later and ask your mum to call after your baby is asleep. You and your baby both need to give and receive full attention, so that you can both feel secure enough to say goodnight.

      • Is there an end to the routine? Cycling through the last couple of elements again and again can be exhausting and frustrating for you and СКАЧАТЬ