Put Baby to Sleep - Techniques and Tips

Friendly advice to help put Baby to Sleep

Baby Sleep Routines for Your Baby

One of the main questions that new parents ask is – ‘how do I create the perfect baby sleep routine for my baby?’ This article is here to assist those parents and many others out there that have the same question plaguing their minds.
Humans are a creature of habit, and your baby is no different. The more your baby observes you doing something, the more your actions signal to your baby that this means something.
Creating a baby sleep routine needs to provide restful sleeping for your baby as well as reward you. The routine you come up with needs to be carefully thought through and comprise of steps that are followed sequentially every day.
When choosing a series of steps, you need to be realistic and practical. Come up with steps that do not take a lot of time especially if you have more than one baby in your home. An ideal sleep routine will make use of some or all of the following steps:

Bathe your child
Give him a massage
Dress the baby and place him in a sleeping bag
Feed the baby
Read a bedtime story to your baby
Cuddle and kiss your baby
Place him in a cot

Once you have come up with your baby sleep routine that you wish to follow, STICK TO IT. Do not feel that it is not working after just one day and forego it, because it takes some time for the child to adapt to it. Each of the steps used in the routine has a purpose. For example, a bath can soothe and calm the child significantly.
The baby sleep routine you come up with helps your baby sleep best but it is also contributed to by the environment you set up. Your child’s nursery needs to provide a suitable environment for your baby to sleep peacefully until morning. Make sure the temperature in the nursery is at the correct temperature (18-20 degrees). The bed needs to be comfortable and warm enough to promote better sleep.
It is vital that you come up with a routine that is appropriate for you, your baby and your lifestyle. It is advisable to come up with a simple routine which your nanny or babysitter will replicate when you are not around.
The baby sleep routine you have developed needs to get your baby in the proper state of mind for sleeping before you lay them down for the night. Do this by making sure the time before bed is as quiet as possible. Encourage the baby to play before you start the routine so that they can spend up their energy.
When you stick to the routine, your baby will see it as a signal that bedtime is near and they will look forward to interacting with you during this time.
Coming up with a calming and reassuring baby sleep routine will be very comforting for your baby as well as provide peace for the rest of the people in the house. As your baby gets older, it is not bad to relax the routine occasionally, but do not drop it entirely as this will confuse your baby.

Baby Sleep Patterns – a simple guide

It’s important to know that your baby will to some extent determine their own way of sleeping.  There are numerous baby sleep patterns that have been outlined over the years.  You will simply have to try some existing patterns and adapt them to the routine your child wants to make.  Let’s look at how much sleep a baby needs and when they like to sleep.

Sleep Please!

Even if you think you’ve mastered sleeping for a newborn, by the time they reach 6 months many of them will begin to have problems sleeping.  Research has shown that just over 20% of 9 month old babies find it hard to settle into a sleep pattern and just over 40% will wake up many times in the night.
A newborn child can sleep a lot!  Newborns can put away as much as 16 hours of sleep in a day, most often this could be the 16 hours you are awake and hence why your own sleep becomes disturbed.  At times like this you simply need to learn to sleep at the same time as your child does and “go with the flow”.  They will often sleep in stretches of 3 to 4 hours and wake when hungry or their diaper is full.
Other baby sleep patterns will soon start to emerge within the first few months of their life.  Therefore it is essential that you start to develop routines from an early age.  This would be something whereby the baby is bathed, fed and then put to sleep around the same time each day.  They soon get to know that bath then a feed means that the next stage is to go to sleep.
Once you begin to establish a routine with sleeping then just be aware if this sleep pattern changes.  If they begin waking again it could be for a variety of reasons (for example an ear infection).  As parents we are expected to know everything and be psychic!

We cannot possible know everything all the time so this is why we try to set out some baby sleep patterns from an early age then we can monitor the sleep that a baby has and see when something deviates from this routine.

If your baby is having trouble getting into a regular sleeping pattern then you need to recognize the signs and ensure that the bedroom is the right environment.  This means dark and quiet and at the right temperatu

The baby sleep patterns that you face with your baby can be adapted to fit in with your life, over time, but just remember nothing is perfect and things do change.  Look for the signs of them being sleepy.  This can be when they are yawning, rubbing their eyes, fussing and looking away.  The main thing to remember is that you can change their bedtime routines but it can take some time.