Tips for Good Sleep

As everyone says, a restless baby has the ability to make the whole home restless. It is often the question of every parent, "How can I get my restless baby to sleep?" Well, do not worry you have come to the right place. I am going to give you three main tips to help you and your family get your baby sleeping.

1.) Create a Routine

Research shows, a routine helps create consistency within all human beings. Babies need to have a routine they know is associated with bed time. This short routine should be done during bedtime and nap time. Having this routine helps the baby correlate sleep with the routine taking place.

2.) Create A Positive Sleep Environment

It is important for your baby to have a steady sleeping environment. The sleeping environment should be consistent and should be cool and dark. It is important for a new born to be swaddled. The swaddling helps prevent startling from the moro reflex. The Moro reflex is what causes a new born to feel like they are falling when there arms and legs are not closely bound to their body. White noise is also crucial in the sleep environment to prevent your baby from being awoke from noises within the house.

3.) Create An Independent Sleeper

It is very important for a baby to not use sleep props. A sleep prop is anything the baby uses to go to sleep. I am going to provide you with an analogy that will help you understand why it is important to not have props. As an adult, if we use a certain pillow every night to go to sleep and wake up during the night and the pillow is gone we will feel startled. Your baby is the same way. If they go to sleep with you rubbing their back and wake up during the night they will instantly cry until you come rub their back. This is a learned habit so it is important to teach your baby to sleep independently.

Why White Noise?

One of the best resources I can encourage a family to implement and use is a white noise machine. The womb of a mother is very loud. Research has found that the womb can be up to 90 Db loud. This is equivalent to a blow dryer blowing on high or a lawn mower. This noise has been shown to automatically soothe the baby to sleep by being surrounded the loud continuous noise. White noise has so many benefits for a child's sleep, including increasing the quality of sleep and helping to reduce stress levels while avoiding overstimulation from outside noise. However, it is important to implement low tones such as rain and waves. The white noise is most effective when it is placed across the room from the crib. At this point, you may be thinking, I do not want to pay for a white noise machine but I do need sleep. So, I have come up with some other resources you can use that are probably laying around your home. I will now list some of the top items that can be used instead of the white noise machine.

1.) Box Fan

2.) White Noise Deep Sleep Sounds( found on iTunes).

3.) Any music Box set on soothing songs

4.) Echo Dot can be used to play white noise