I have been to many classes, read many books and even being to Karitane with my
1st baby and I learn many things I did wrong and I know how much I
suffered with her. For the second baby I am using many ideas of what I think
would be helpful to make my baby boy settle on a better way.
First thing
we need to remember is that babies are
born knowing how to sleep, what they learn is how to stay awake and what they
like or not on the word out here, so we are the ones teaching them to like for
example “rocking to sleep”. With this in our minds here are my tips:
Since the
baby is born, we need to let the babies sleep, I would say the maximum waking
time of a newborn need to be 1 hour and we should be able to feed, clean and put
the baby to back to sleep in this time frame. This will make a very happy baby
as sleeping well during the day will mean the baby will be rested to sleep well
at night too.
During this
1 hour awake we should be able to feed the baby well to make him full, change
his nappy and have 10-15min wake time doing tummy time or playing. When the baby
wakes up if the baby is very hungry, ideally, we should change him first, so he doesn’t associate waking up with
food, after that we can feed the baby and have time for a little play, the worse thing we can do is to let the
baby sleep while feeding or in our arms. ( Yes it is nice but if we do that
over and over again, guess what he will need when he wakes up in the middle of
the night?)
The goal is
to put him awake in his bed, so he can learn to self-settle. The “dream” is for him to find a way to
learn how to sleep by himself. Same as us, we don’t just lay down and sleep.
and babies are the same, so we need to find a clue that helps them to sleep.
There are many things we can try: music, wrap, tapping on his bottom, rocking
the cot, essential oils, dummies, comforter toys etc, but here is the tricky thing,
whatever they get used to they will ask when they wake up, so I would recommend
to try to find something for them to
rely on that doesn’t depend on you.
I try to use
music (that can keep playing whole night), wrapping (at least until he grows
older) or a comforter toy that he can look at and reminds him is time to sleep
and some essential oils smell in the room. It doesn’t mean I don’t try other
things on emergency days, but as much as possible I try to rely on those self-settling
clues.
The whole
idea behind it is that after they start to grow older they start to sleep
longer and as they wake up see/hear/feel/smell the “clue” (music, comforter,
wrap) and go back to sleep by themselves so they will only wake you up if they are really hungry or need a nappy
change as for settling they will not need you anymore.
Sometimes
the baby doesn’t want to sleep that easily so I just get him and try again, talking
to him, rocking him a bit (without sleeping) and when he is drowsing again try putting
him on the cot with the clues and at some point he will recognize the message,
it may take some days and tries as he is already used to other clues, but the
persistence will really pay off when they start to grow up.
So here is my quick guide of what I am trying
to do with the second baby:
Wake up
Change, Feed,
Play (1-hour maximum)
Back to Cot
Awake
Clue to
sleep
Sleep 2-3
hours or longer 😊
For bath
time I try as much as possible to follow a routine too, with bathing at the
same time ( on the 6pm – 8pm time frame) and feeding right after it and this is
the only time I do feed just before putting my baby on the cot as I want him to
be very full to have the longest sleep at this time which usually starts to happen
at 2 months old. (Sometimes I even squeeze 2 feeding one before bath and one
after so he is really full and sleep longer, this is the only time he can go up
to 90 min awake).
So far things
are going to plan as much as possible and he is self-settling most of the time.
I hope to give very good news soon when he starts to have longer sleeps but
just to have him sleep 2-3 hours solid sleeping without needing my help, I am
already quite happy.
A mom after
30 looking forward to good sleep
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