Here are 7 sleep tips for new moms and borns.
In this article you’ll learn:
- How to teach your baby to sleep
- Start with yourself
- Make sleep a priority for your baby
- Falling asleep is a skill
- Creating a sleep routine
- Understanding your baby’s need to cry
- Sleep training
How to Teach Your Baby to Sleep
Nobody functions well on little sleep. Sleep is a basic need for both physical and mental health, yet new parents are chronically sleep-deprived.
Sleep is a loaded area for most new parents. Not only is our ability to parent as a calm leader for our child impaired by sleep-deprivation, the territory of “sleep training” is full of judgment and anxiety. Am I harming my child by letting them cry in their crib? Is cosleeping safe? Am a better parent if I never let my baby cry or if I let them learn to handle their feelings? Can babies actually self-soothe? Family, friends, and even our partners have different feelings about how babies should sleep and this pressure can create enormous anxiety for a parent.
The truth is there is no one right way to do sleep for every family, and even for every child in that family. These tips below can help parents get better sleep for themselves and their babies.
We have to start with ourselves.
For parents, especially in the newborn stage, we have to be very creative – and committed – to getting enough sleep. I recommend my doula clients stay in their pajamas longer so that they are more likely to get back in bed and take a nap when their newborn dozes off in the late morning. It is normal for newborns to wake up every 2-3 hours during the night to feed, so you will likely have to stay in bed much longer than 8 hours in order to get a full 8 hours of (broken) sleep. Sleeping when the baby sleeps is our greatest key to catching up on our sleep deficit, even if it is hard to nap during the day as a grown-up. Practice good sleep hygiene to make the most out of your time in the bed. Turn off all electronics 1 hour before you plan to sleep, have a sleep routine such as reading with a cup of tea or taking bath, sleep in a dark room, and use the bed for only 2 things: sleeping and sex.
Recruit help when you need to get more sleep. Ask a family member, friend, or postpartum doula to help care for the baby so that you can nap. Nighttime doulas will even stay in your home overnight to handle baby’s nighttime needs while you sleep. Some new parents hire professional sleep trainers to help them implement and follow a plan for maximum sleep.
Photo by Daria Shevtsova from Pexels
Make Sleep a Top Priority for Your Child, Too.
Naps are sacred for babies. Plan your day around naptime. There is an adage that says “The more a baby sleeps, the more a baby sleeps” and in my experience, I’ve found this to be true. This will probably mean you have to say no at times to dinner out, or a long shopping trip, or even that mommy & me yoga class that is right at your little one’s nap time. But by protecting your child’s need for sleep you are creating healthy sleep habits for them as well as letting them practice, again and again, the necessary skill of falling asleep.
Falling Asleep is Skill
That’s right, we have to learn to fall asleep. Eventually, sleep will overcome any of us, but for healthy sleep to occur we have to teach our children to fall asleep. The best way to do this is to provide lots of opportunities for them to fall asleep on their own. If our baby is always falling asleep nursing, feeding, or in our arms then that is the strongest association they will have with sleeping. This is also true for babies that only want to fall asleep in the car.
Instead, try to lay your baby down in a safe sleeping space (a crib, pack ‘n play, or cradle) when they are well fed and freshly changed. Step away and tend to your own self-care. Give your child the chance to fall asleep on their own without interference. It is fine to let them fall asleep in a variety of places, like the stroller, swing, or car, but ideally, you want their strongest association for sleep to be in the location that they will be sleeping at nighttime. The more times your baby sleeps in their crib the more likely they are to fall asleep in their crib.
If you want your baby to sleep with you in your bed, called co-sleeping, that is fine. Many attachment parenting theorists claim this is the biologically appropriate way to sleep. Co-sleeping is the most common way for families to sleep across the world and it is possible to get great sleep this way. Just know that you will likely have to lay down and nap with your baby or go to bed with them each night, too.
Create a Sleep Routine
A sleep routine is essential to making bedtime smooth for babies. Focus on the 3-5 things you will do each night before bedtime. Some ideas include a bath, feed, pajamas, songs, books, and snuggles. Try to do the same thing in the same order each night so that the association of these activities triggers a sleep response in your child. Once you have a sleep routine down you can apply an abbreviated version to nap time. Let your sleep routine be a sweet way to connect with your child at the end of the day!
Understanding Your babies Need to Cry
Understanding that crying is a normal expression for babies – and all humans – and is not something to be stopped or scared of is helpful in nearly all aspects of parenting. This is our child’s way of communicating and also their way of letting off steam. Some babies cry a little bit at bedtime each night no matter how familiar they are with falling asleep. Think of your baby’s cries as their way of saying “I don’t like this,” “This is hard,” or even, “I’m tired!”.
Sleep Training
Any changes and habits you make with your child around sleep are considered sleep training. There are many methods you can choose from Cry-it-out to No-Cry, but the important thing is to make the plan that is right for you. Babies are incredibly sensitive to our moods and anxieties so you must be comfortable with the plan you are implementing. It doesn’t matter that Richard Ferber says you have to wait 45 minutes to check on your child and your best friend says you can’t go in at all until morning, if you feel you need to check on your child every 15 minutes to let them know you are still there for them, then that is fine. If you feel you need to stay in the room until they fall asleep, do that. If you feel the best thing for you and your child is to not check on them at all, trust that feeling. When you trust yourself you can be a confident, kind leader. It is confusing for a child if they sense your nervousness.
You can help without overhelping. If you choose to stay in the room while your child is falling asleep they know that you are there, even if you cannot hold them or nurse them as they want. The same is true if you choose to come in and check on your child every so often as they fall asleep. Setting boundaries around sleep does not have to be done in a mean or negligent way! It is a part of loving leadership.
Try to implement your own self-care while helping your child learn to sleep. Use the periods of crying a chance to take a shower, drink a cup of tea, and take some deep breaths.
Baby Steps
When tackling sleep changes, I find it easiest to take just one step at a time. You may want to focus only on teaching your baby to fall asleep first, and then tackle staying asleep through the night later. Or allowing your baby to nap however they need to nap (remember “the more they sleep, the more they sleep”?) and only focus on developing a bedtime routine first. Pick your starting place and commit to it. Then once that area of sleep is more manageable, add in another aspect of sleep training. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. What you are looking for is consistent movement in a positive direction.
No matter how you approach sleep, know that you are in the company of thousands of parents out there trying to figure out how to get their child – and themselves – to sleep in the healthiest, happiest way. While it is often a challenge, it doesn’t have to be filled with dread and anxiety. You are teaching your child a skill they will use every day of their life, and one that is primary for mental and physical health: how to sleep!
Guest blogger, Elisabeth Mitchell, is a writer, doula, and postpartum mental health advocate living in western North Carolina. You can find more expert parenting information from Elisabeth at www.heartcenteredmamas.com.
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