Selecting Sleep Specialists can be a dilemma, particularly when you have no conception where to start. Hopefully this post can be of benefit.
Children whose fathers bonded with them at an early age tend to be academically more successful, emotionally more secure, use drugs and alcohol less frequently, and are less likely to get involved with crime. No pressure there! Studies have shown that falling asleep unassisted at the start of the night leads to fewer wakings throughout the rest of the night, and, in my extensive experience, I have found a profound benefit to starting sleep training at bedtime, more than at any other time of day or night. Your baby will learn good sleep habits if you take a consistent approach. You may find it quite tough at first, but there will be long term rewards for you and your baby. Just because your baby reaches six months you don’t have to move them to their cot right away. If everyone is sleeping well there really is no rush. If you have space you might just want to move their cot into your room to start with but if you’re already cramped in your bedroom and your baby isn’t yet falling asleep for longer stretches at night a move might be just the ticket for all of you. Limiting day sleep to what they need as per their age will help night sleep. This may mean you need to wake them for naps but many still need a good chunk of day sleep before age three years. Sleep products are designed for specific ages and sizes, using a product that is not suitable for the baby’s age/size can be very dangerous. Just because something is made by a brand you know or sold on the high street doesn’t make it safe.
We think if they’re really, really tired, they’ll sleep better – and longer. But it’s the opposite with babies! If they’re too tired they get frantic, hyper and cranky. And because they seem even more awake, we delay bedtime even later and the problem gets worse. If your child is just an early bird who doesn’t need much sleep, you better start going to bed earlier so you can adapt to her schedule! However, if you think she may be waking early because her bedtime is too early or too late, follow the advice for shifting an infant’s bedtime. As your little one gains upper body strength, she may surprise you by changing sleep positions and rolling over around at about the 4-month mark (and she’ll push to a sitting position when she's around 9 months old, though the timing of all these milestones can vary). Don’t worry — there's no need to return her to her back at this point, but she’ll still need to start there every time she’s going to sleep. Co-sleeping with a baby comes with cautions - bedding might smother or overheat the baby, a tipsy mom or dad could roll on top of her, or she might get wedged between bed and wall. A sleep consultant will take a holistic approach to create a sleeping system that you can manage and one which takes into account sleep training as well as the needs of the baby and considerations of each family member.
Helping Your Baby Fall Asleep
It sounds a bit mad, but a gentle stroking motion – downwards from between the eyes – can relax them and encourage baby to close their eyes. Parents who respond soothingly to their children’s emotions report fewer infant sleep problems, and this is the case regardless of a family’s sleep arrangements. Whether children share a bedroom with their parents, or sleep elsewhere, they sleep better when their parents are sensitive and responsive. A soft song or lullaby sets the stage for sleep. Save the tickle monster and other rougher games for earlier in the day. Young parenthood is greatly rewarding and exciting. But it can be a very tiring and demanding time for you. Make sure you have plenty of downtime too. When your baby is awake, you want to be able to enjoy the interaction. Use the time your baby is sleeping to rest. Sleep regression isn’t really an official term, but you may have heard it from other parents. In fact, because your little one’s sleep patterns are changing constantly as he or she grows and develops, it might be helpful to think of these changes as sleep progression rather than treating them as any kind of setback. For sleep regression guidance it may be useful to enlist the services of a sleep consultant.
Ask for help. As you’ll probably be doing all the night feeds, ask your partner to help out with more of the nappies, washing or baths. When your partner is at work, can a friend or relative step in to help with cooking and chores? Many parents will have been slept on their tummies as babies, as that was the advice before 1991. However, research has since shown that the chance of SIDS is much higher when a baby is placed on their front to sleep. One reason why babies are so noisy is their digestive and respiratory systems aren’t fully developed yet, so swallowing and breathing takes a little extra effort. They also breathe primarily out of their noses, not their mouths, so if they're the slightest bit congested, you're going to know it. According to parenting expert and author of the Baby Bedtime Book Fi Star-Stone, it can take several weeks, even months before your baby is sleeping through the night and being more awake during the day. In the meantime, there are a number of strategies you can employ to help your baby get into the habit of sleeping at night and being awake during the day. In the early months of life, swaddling may help baby sleep more soundly and for longer stretches. It works for some babies in the first several months, but sometimes not for others. If your baby responds to it, great. If not, no big deal. A sleep expert will be with you every step of the way, guiding you on how best to find a solution to your sleep concerns, whether its ferber method or one of an untold number of other things.
Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
Go with your baby on this, they are stocking up for a longer period of sleep at the first part of the night and it is a good idea to go to bed when they do, as the first stretch of the night is often the longest. Babies have it easy They sleep most of the day. But exactly how much and how often they wake up differs from baby to baby. One thing that is almost certain, is that your baby’s sleep patterns will be very different to yours. So creating a baby sleep routine is important to help everyone get the rest they need. If for some reason your toddler has skipped their nap but come bedtime your little one doesn’t seem to be overly affected by the missed nap, this is an indication that daytime naps may be a thing of the past. Infants fight bedtime if they’re confused by an irregular or inconsistent bedtime (for instance, when you travel across time zones or switch to daylight savings) or if bedtime is too early or late. If baby is here, there, and everywhere then the likelihood baby will fight sleep is pretty high. Even if you are a spontaneous person and hate being tied down to routine, that doesn’t mean that routine isn’t good for your baby. Whether its something specific like gentle sleep training or really anything baby sleep related, a baby sleep consultant can guide you to find a sleep solution as individual as your baby is.
For babies who are used to nursing off to sleep in a mother’s arms, fathers can wear their baby down to sleep and give mother a break. Wearing down is particularly useful for the reluctant napper. When baby falls asleep in the sling, snuggled with his tummy against your chest, or draped over your chest once you lie down, you both can take a much-needed nap. Daytime sleep training should begin about two weeks after your baby is consistently sleeping through the night. At that point, you can observe your baby’s natural sleep pattern during the day. You will then use this pattern to help set the naptimes. The baby should take about a one-hour nap in the morning and a two-hour nap in the afternoon, occurring at about the same times each day. Sleep deprivation is the worst. It’s 3am and your baby is crying and so are you because you are so tired and wondering if things will ever get back to normal. Life as a new parent is tough. Routinely putting a baby to sleep on the stomach raises her risk of SIDS about fourfold. But SIDS risk jumps even higher (eight- to thirty-seven-fold) when young babies (under four months) are put to sleep on the back but accidentally roll to the stomach. Mesh bumpers are considered safe, but are unnecessary in the first weeks of life. Sleep-sack-style wearable blankets are a great idea if a parent is concerned their child might be cold at bedtime. Having a baby is a steep learning curve and aspects such as 4 month sleep regression come along and shake things up just when you're not expecting them.
Keep It Quiet
According to the NHS controlled crying is a technique designed to reinforce a message from you to your little one that it is time to go to sleep. However, it is important to note that controlled crying is NOT recommended for babies under the age of 8 months and in fact, many parents don’t like to use the controlled crying method at all. Newborns need to feed around the clock and then gradually start to eat the bulk of their meals during the daytime. Still, for some babies, waking for a nighttime feeding can be a tough habit to break. Babies as young as 4 months old can go all night without feeding. One common mistake parents make is not ensuring that they have their child’s bedroom ready before sleep training begins. Implementing these simple recommendations can even aid in achieving better-quality sleep from birth. While they aren’t a magic bullet to solve night wakings and short naps, having a sleep-conducive environment will ensure that once your child does learn to fall asleep unassisted, their sleep will last longer and be of better, more restorative quality. Check out supplementary intel regarding Sleep Specialists at this NHS web page.
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