Parents often find themselves asking… How do I get my baby to sleep? Getting your baby to sleep through the night is a common issue challenging many parents and caretakers. Having a sleepless baby is not only frustrating, but can also cause sleepy, zombie-like parents (we’ve all been there.) Fret no more zombie parents! You are not alone in the challenging yet rewarding journey of helping your precious baby experience a good night’s rest.
Check out the helpful tips we’ve put together to help parents understand how to get their baby to sleep (and stay asleep) through the night.
Create a soothing environment
Soothing ambience goes a long way towards promoting an environment that helps your baby feel safe, secure, and relaxed. Your baby’s mood plays a significant role in keeping them from becoming overstimulated during bedtime. Here are a few ideas to help you create the ideal nursery room for your baby:
- Consider painting your nursery walls soothing colors. Light tones, such as whites, grays or beiges add a soothing feel to baby’s room.
- Hang curtains to any windows within the nursery. Blackout curtains not only block out most all sunlight, they also help reduce noise making a comfortable sleeping environment.
- Add a dimmer to overhead lights or a lamp to soften the amount of light, creating a soothing ambience for bedtime.
- Add a soothing sound machine. Having a sound machine will reduce background noise while creating a calming environment. [Put an obvious BSH plug here. People expect it since it’s our blog, so you might as well promote it!]
- Choose a comfortable rocker/glider where you can spend hours of peaceful and memorable cuddle time with your baby.
Follow a nightly routine
A key part of getting your baby to sleep on a consistent basis is by establishing a healthy and consistent routine. There are not any magical routines, rather, it is more about following the same routine night after night. Having a routine will help calm and prepare your baby for nighttime.
It is also important to remember that starting your nightly routine before baby is overly tired and fussy will go a long way towards easing the process. Babies are no different from adults in that overstimulation in the evening can make it difficult for them to settle down and fall asleep.
Nightly routines will vary from parent to parent, but remember to choose things that are soothing and relaxing! Feeding is often part of a bedtime routine, but our advice is to feed at the beginning of the routine. Doing this keeps your baby from associating feeding time with sleep time, resulting in baby being able to fall asleep without always having a feeding during the night.
Decide what a good bedtime is for your baby and start the routine approximately one hour before. Determine an order of events that works for your family and try to maintain this same order every evening. Having a consistent order will put your baby in a calm state of mind. The more relaxed your baby is, the better chance you will have of getting them to sleep on time.
Baby’s bedtime routine might look something like this:
- Give Baby a Soothing Bath
- Swaddle Baby
- Read a Story to Baby
- Dim the Lights
- Rock your Baby
- Turn on a Soothing Noise Machine
- Lay Baby down
With these strategies you should be able to create a relaxing and calm environment for Baby. This will help soothe them to sleep, night after night with a new bedtime routine established, and you’ll be able to get your rest as well! If these tips and tricks have helped you, make sure to let us know! Be sure to follow us on our social networks.
