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It’s recommended that baby sleeps in their own crib/Moses’ basket in the same room as you for the first six months. But once they are passed six months old, many parents choose to put baby in their own room and often in a cot for the first time. Today’s new parents have little experience with babies - amazingly, many have never even touched a newborn in their lives! So they seek answers from the piles of sleep manuals on bookstore shelves. (Over the past twenty years, more sleep manuals have come and gone than any other type of parenting book.) On a bad nap day, you might move bedtime up to be earlier, sure. Doing this once in a while is great—but when it becomes a pattern, it too can result in split nights, since your baby is spending more time in bed than they need. Every child has a total amount of sleep in them, and we have to aim for prime sleep pressure all the time. It becomes a mathematical equation. Many tragic deaths have been reported associated with bed-sharing. For that reason, scientists have dedicated a great deal of time and effort over the past twenty years to evaluating if—and how—babies can safely bed-share. And some concerning results are emerging. Follow the same order each night and soon enough your baby will catch on that it’s bedtime. The idea here is not to do formal sleep training. It’s natural for your newborn to still wake up in the night. Putting them to bed at the same time each night helps build a foundation for healthy sleep habits as they grow. In the womb, at 28 weeks, your baby probably spent almost all her time in fussy REM sleep, which explains all that dancing around! Until your baby is 6 months old, she’ll also spend about half her time in non-REM sleep, a deeper, quiet sleep that doesn’t include as much twitching and movement. In comparison, adults spend only about a quarter of their snoozing time in REM sleep and about three-quarters in non-REM sleep.



Sleep, and getting enough of it, is a common concern for every new parent, and navigating the challenges of getting your baby to sleep whilst ensuring they also sleep safely can be exhausting and overwhelming! It is not about being a selfish parent if you want your child to sleep, as that is often how it is perceived. A well-rested child is a precursor to a well-rested family unit – with huge benefits. If we are going to prioritise maternal health and wellbeing and also infant mental health, sleep has to be part of that conversation. Travelling can actually help baby to sleep better. A change of scene can help break bad sleeping habits. Extra time outdoors, doing new things with mum, dad and family can make babies feel more tired than usual so they sleep more easily. If baby falls asleep in your arms during the day, don’t worry about putting them in a cot. Put them down somewhere safe, which may even be the floor. (Not applicable if you have dogs or toddlers at home with you!) And if you’re feeling very tired, be careful you don’t fall asleep with baby on you For sleep regression guidance it may be useful to enlist the services of a sleep consultant.

Follow A Consistent, Calming Bedtime Routine

Babies actually feel more secure sleeping on their tummies, but that sleep position is linked to a much higher incidence of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). So experts recommend always putting your baby on her back to sleep. How often your society expects a baby to rest, nap, and be stimulated can affect sleep patterns. The American expectation that babies need to be active, learn, and spend time away from parents means they get less sleep than babies in China, where rest and quietness, protection, and dependence have more emphasis; or in the Netherlands, where an early bedtime is sacrosanct. Swaddling your baby with a blanket or dressing him in a sleep sack will offer an extra dose of security — and may even help him sleep a little longer. Just be sure to stop swaddling by the time he's 3 or 4 months old, when he can roll over and wriggle out of his swaddle or blanket. A baby bedtime routine can be a combination of things which signal bedtime is coming such as bath, milk, story and winding down. It is recommended that you put your baby down awake if possible. This is to encourage your baby to find ways to get himself to sleep rather than being dependant on you. Then say your "goodnight" and turn out the light. This will help him get used to sleep in the dark. If you’ve consistently stuck with a sleep training method for at least two weeks and your baby’s sleep is still disturbed and you’re not sure why, consider calling your doctor to see if he or she has any insights or advice to help your baby sleep better. The gentle approach and caring manner of a baby sleep expert allows them to assist you in the most preferable way to deal with gentle sleep training and to assist you and your family in any way possible.

Most 8-11 week-olds take 3-5 naps everyday. Your baby’s nap length will determine how many naps he takes. If he always naps less than one hour, he’ll need more naps to make it through the day. If he takes long naps of 1+ hours, he’ll need fewer naps. From 6 months onward, babies do the bulk of their sleeping at night. However, other issues such as teething, growth spurts, illnesses, or sleep regressions may start leading to nighttime awakenings. Parents may opt to use more specific sleep-training strategies if babies aren’t sleeping through the night at this stage. Sofas and armchairs are dangerous places to fall asleep with your baby – move somewhere safer it you might fall asleep. Reason: the risk of SIDS is 50 times higher for babies when they sleep on a sofa or armchair with an adult. They are also at risk of accidental death as they can easily slip into a position where they are trapped and can’t breathe. Putting your baby to bed each night at the same time will help her to regulate your child's sleep patterns and body clock. Sometime between 7–8.30pm is ideal – any later than this and your baby is likely to become over tired. Whilst a newborn is still very small, it is important to give them cuddles and contact naps which helps enhance their development. Whilst lots of parents go on to choose to continue to contact nap and co-sleep, the reality of today’s modern society is that lots of parents have to return to work much sooner than nine-12 months. 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 sleep training or one of an untold number of other things.

Follow A Bedtime Routine

Some parents choose to co-sleep with their baby in places such as on a mat, on a futon, on a water bed, an air mattress or on blankets and duvets on the floor. The risks associated with these alternative sleeping arrangements are significantly higher. These sleeping arrangements are therefore not recommended. The Ferber sleeping technique helps your baby fall asleep independently and was created by pediatrician Richard Ferber. It involves putting your baby into their crib while they are still awake and leaving the room, then waiting a few minutes – three minutes is the recommended amount of time – before going back to soothe them. During the first year of your baby’s life, the proportion of night-time sleep gradually increases and the number of daytime naps decreases as your little one gets older. Although some change is necessary on the part of the family, a new baby should not dictate the when, where, and how of normal family life. As simple and important as this concept is, it can be a difficult concept for first-time parents to accept. Yet babies are adaptable, and they should be exposed to all facets of family life. If you have twins and plan to have the twins sleep together for the first few months, make sure you swaddle them snugly (perhaps in a premade baby swaddler that cannot unravel) and put them top to tail. And be sure to use rumbly white noise to keep them calm and reduce wiggling. If you need guidance on ferber method then let a sleep consultant support you in unlocking your child's potential, with their gentle, empathetic approach to sleep.

Night-time waking and severe asleep deprivation are unavoidable for new parents but for how long should that last and what can be done if it seems to be continuing indefinitely? Those are questions more parents are daring to ask out loud and, it seems, are willing to pay to have answered – judging by the growth of paediatric sleep consultants in over the past decade. Try to avoid rocking, cuddling or feeding your baby when they wake up in the night, as this may encourage her to regularly wake for your attention. If she keeps crying, you may want to say a few comforting words from the door and leave her again, repeating as necessary at increasing intervals of time. The dreaded 4-month sleep regression is often the hardest for parents simply because it's the first. There are several culprits behind baby sleep problems at this age: the pain caused by teething, hunger linked to growth spurts and the excitement of rolling over for the first time. For the first six months your baby should be in the same room as you when they’re asleep, both day and night. Particularly in the early weeks, you may find your baby only falls asleep in your or your partner’s arms, or when you’re standing by the cot. Your baby may have been sleeping beautifully for weeks or even months, and then – perhaps just when you were wondering if it’s too good to be true – suddenly everything changes. When people talk about sleep regression, they are usually referring to when your child starts waking up during the night and has trouble falling back asleep. 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.

Your Sleep Habits Affect Your Baby

Capitalize on a principle of early infant development: patterns of association. Baby’s developing brain is like a computer, storing thousands of sequences that become patterns. When baby clicks into the early part of the bedtime ritual, he is programmed for the whole pattern that results in drifting off to sleep. Remember, babies should be sleeping in the same room as an adult until six months, to reduce the risk of SIDS. Your newborn baby will wake up regularly to be fed. It doesn't matter if it's day time or night time. This can be very hard to cope with. It will get easier. Try to sleep when your baby is asleep. You can find extra details regarding Sleep Trainers at this NHS article.

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