How to Reset Your Baby’s Sleep Cycle

Photo courtesy of D Sharon Pruitt

Special thanks to today’s guest contributor, Nancy Parker, a former nanny who enjoys writing about parenting. Please check out her bio at the end of this post!

As a new parent, it is hard to know what is natural and what should be changed. One thing that all new parents seem to suffer through is their child’s sleep cycle. If the sleep cycle is not consistent, or is consistently backwards, it can be hard on the parents. Here are six tips on how to turn your child’s sleep cycle around. You really can’t change a baby’s sleep cycle until they are more than six months old. With newborns, their cycle is completely dependent on their needs. Avoid trying to train a child younger than that. Once they reach six months, however, they can start to be trained.

Look for patterns

If your baby has habits, as most babies do, look for them and record them. Example: the baby wakes at 3 am every night for a pacifier. Once you record the patterns, you can start to counter those problems specifically.

Wake to sleep

Once you have figured out the baby’s habits, set your alarm clock to wake you 20-30 minutes before the baby usually wakes up. Then, go into the child’s room and change their sleeping position or do some other motion that almost wakes them up. Anything that disturbs their sleep without waking them completely will do.

Be consistent

Continue to do this for three to five nights. Eventually, you will see that the sleep cycle has been broken. The habit has been changed. Now you, and your child, should be able to sleep through the night.

Encourage healthy sleep habits

Make sure you encourage your child’s healthy sleeping habits. Nap times shouldn’t be too long or too late in the day. Have a bedtime routine where noise is kept at a minimum and soothing activities, like bath time and reading time, are used. Do not hold or cuddle the baby until she falls asleep. Instead, when the child begins to nod off, place her into the crib partially awake. That way the child can learn to master independent sleep and it won’t become necessary for you to hold or rock them to sleep.

If all else fails …

Let them cry it out. It sounds mean, but older babies fall into bad habits. If your child is constantly waking in the middle of the night for attention, you may have to withhold it. If no one comes after a while, the child will eventually discard the habit as ineffective. The best thing to do, however, is not let bad habits begin in the first place. For step-by-step directions on how to “CIO”, read How to Sleep Train Your Baby Using CIO or Dr. Ferber’s Progressive-Waiting Method.

The nocturnal baby

Some babies have their sleep clock so messed up that they sleep all day and are up all night. This is not healthy for you or the child. But how do you reset their clock? Well, keep them up all day. It may sound a little harsh, but the object is to keep moving, playing, and being active during the day. They’ll get tired and cranky and may cry a lot, but by the time night rolls around, they’ll be more than ready to hit the hay. When you’ve accomplished this, try to keep it up. Make sure they don’t sleep all day by keeping them active and involved. It’s a lot easier to avoid a problem than to correct it later.

Depending on your child and their stubbornness, habits can be very difficult to break. However, with a little time and effort on your part, you can change your baby’s sleep cycle. After all, healthy sleep is necessary for people of all ages and childhood bad habits turn into big problems if not dealt with early on.

Nancy Parker was a professional nanny and she loves to write about a wide range of subjects like health, parenting, child care, babysitting, nanny background check tips etc. You can reach her at nancy.parker015 @ gmail.com.

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6 Tips to Help Baby Sleep

 

Photo by Christopher Meredith

I know. I’ve been there. So exhausted that I couldn’t do anything but weep and beg my baby to sleep. I’ve fallen asleep while physically rocking a cradle and praying to God for delivery.

So, after much desperation, after two children, and after asking dozens of women what works, I present to you some strategies that did help. I’m not promising that they will all work for you, but I sure hope one or two of them will.

The Womb Sounds Bear Audio Pacifier

I don’t want to act like a commercial for another baby “device” that you really don’t need, but this silly contraption really did help my daughter fall asleep. I would strap it to her crib and the (somewhat creepy) imitation of my heartbeat in the womb would sing her to sleep. The downside was, that mine had a timer, and sometimes when the bear shut off, my baby turned back on, but still … for our family, it was worth the $18 investment.

The Bedtime Bath

This solution sounded so overly simple, that I ignored my sister’s advice for months. I thought, nah, that can’t work. Too easy. But it did work. It worked wonders. Just before bed, I gave my son a bath, and it did calm him down and help him fall asleep. Especially if I added a few drops of lavender essential oil, which leads me to …

Aromatherapy

Yep, I said it. The scent of lavender (as well as other oils) can truly help a baby “unwind.” Be sure to spring for the real thing, however. A bottle of essential oil will last you nearly forever, so it’s not as expensive as it seems, especially if it buys you a few hours of shuteye. Be sure to get essential oil, which actually comes from a plant, not fragrance oil, which comes from God knows where. Then just add a few drops to the bath, and voila! Fragrant sleepytime. You can also put a diffuser in your baby’s room, to keep the aromas circulating all night long.

Try a Different Sleep Spot

Turns out my son hated his cradle. He just wouldn’t sleep. I mean – Would. Not. Sleep. So long before he was too big for the cradle, we plopped him in the crib, mostly just to give ourselves a change of scenery. And he nearly instantly fell asleep. We don’t need to understand why something works, right? As long as it does. So maybe putting baby in a different spot, or wheeling her cradle or playpen into a different room will help.

Try a Different Outfit

Dr. Sears backs me up on this: some babies just don’t like some materials. I would also argue that babies have a different definition in their little brains of “comfortable temperature.” I changed my son’s pajamas five times before figuring out that he just wanted to be naked. So we put an extra heater in his room, and let him sleep in just a diaper.

Wear Your Baby Out

This worked for both my children. If I tucked them into a wrap or sling, they instantly fell asleep. The trick then becomes, getting them out of the wrap and keeping them asleep. If this doesn’t work, consider asking daddy, gramma, or a friend to wear your baby for a while so that you can get some shuteye.

If it’s any consolation, and I doubt that it is, remember that babies really are not supposed to be good at sleeping. They are still used to sleeping inside mommy’s womb, and this weird world just isn’t the same. Remember too that this is a (very) temporary problem and soon you will be trying to rustle your teenager out of bed for school.

Special thanks to Robin Merrill for contributing this resourceful guest post. You can find Robin blogging at uBaby, a website dedicated to helping every woman have a healthy pregnancy.


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