10 helpful tips to help your baby learn to sleep

How babies fall asleep: you should know that

Babies often fall asleep while sucking on the breast or bottle. In order for the baby to learn to fall asleep independently, it is important to take the teat out of his mouth just before he falls asleep. It is also helpful for falling asleep if your baby learns early on to distinguish between day and night. However, they only develop this ability between the third and sixth month of life.

But you can help your child to learn the difference between day and night at an early age. This is how you set the course for a good and age-appropriate sleeping rhythm.

Overview: 10 tips for printing

With the following 10 tips you can create a good basis for your baby’s sleeping habits:

Tip 1: Sleeping is not a punishment, it is beautiful

The best basis for a successful sleep development in your baby is a positive attitude towards sleep. Convey to your baby that sleeping is something nice and not a “must”. As the sleep researcher Professor Zulley from the University of Regensburg describes it: “Sleep is far too often used as a punishment, the isolation of the child as a reaction to negative behavior. However, sleep should be something positive right from the start, and children should be taught that sleeping is a pleasure. So you should never force sleep.” So it is also important that your baby finds a sound sleep.

Tip 2: The night is a time of rest

In order to extend the nocturnal sleep phases, you can help your baby to distinguish between day and night at an early stage. It makes sense to let your baby take his naps in a bright room with a normal background noise. At night, on the other hand, you take it easy and avoid lots of light or words. You shouldn’t change your diaper every time you’re awake, only when it’s really wet. If your baby gets the bottle, it should be within reach during the night so that you can satisfy your hunger quickly. This sets a good course for your baby to fall asleep again quickly and go through longer sleep phases at night.

Tip 3: Learn to fall asleep alone

The best sleepers tend to be babies who have learned to fall asleep on their own. Because they don’t “miss” anything when they wake up in the night and realize that everything around them is the same as it was before they fell asleep. For example, a baby who falls asleep while breastfeeding and later wakes up alone in his crib will probably cry and not go back to sleep without mommy’s help. You can find out more about the background to this behavior in our article “ This is how the child’s sleep rhythm develops“. It is therefore beneficial for your baby’s sleep development if you put him in his bed from time to time early on while he is awake. Between the sixth and twelfth week of life, your baby learns best how to fall asleep on its own. The experts therefore recommend putting the baby to bed every now and then while he is asleep but awake. In this way you help your baby to fall asleep later without your help. Pantley also offers this advice:

• Reassure your baby that their crib is a nice, safe place. You can reinforce this feeling, in addition to beautiful and age-appropriate preparation, by cuddling up with him in his bed during the day, for example. If your baby wakes up in the night feeling like they’re in a safe place, they’ll be able to go back to sleep with peace of mind.
• Multiple sleep signals: If your baby is always rocked to sleep, for example, then it has internalized this as a sleep signal. Over a period of about a week, show him alternative ways to get him to sleep. For example, you can carry it around one day and drive around in the car the next day. It is important that you put him in his crib just before he falls asleep. Be sure to stay with him and pet him.

Tip 4: Avoid the sleep-sucking association

If your baby always falls asleep at your breast or while bottle-fed, she learns to associate this with falling asleep. Many children do this and many later struggle with the dissolution of this connection. To prevent this from happening in the first place, Elizabeth Pantley recommends taking your baby’s breast, bottle or pacifier out of his mouth as often as possible as soon as he’s about to fall asleep. So the chances are good that he will learn to fall asleep without suckling.

Tip 5: Recognize and prevent hunger at night

Another tip from Elizabeth Pantley: Listen carefully to your baby’s nocturnal sounds. Is it really awake and hungry? Then you should of course breastfeed or feed it as soon as possible so that it falls asleep again quickly. However, sometimes these are just simple sleepy sounds your baby makes and still entice them to pick them up and feed. If you can tell the difference between hunger and sleep sounds, your baby may wake up less often and get through the night with less food. Also make sure that your baby drinks a lot at his last meal before bedtime. If it’s really full, it won’t wake up from hunger as quickly. If necessary, wake him up if he falls asleep from drinking and you feel

Tip 6: Establish fixed processes in good time

From about the sixth week of life you can try to get your baby used to a certain daily routine. The “two-hour rule” has proven its worth, which states that you put your child in their bed as soon as they have been awake for two hours.

In “Every child can learn to sleep”, the authors recommend introducing fixed sleeping times for the evening and daytime naps from the third to fourth month of life. In tip 8 you will find out how to best handle the daytime naps. Some babies, who are fed and put to sleep independently of the time and only as needed, develop their own rhythm. If you are one of the lucky mothers who have such a baby, then you do not need to intervene. If not, you can support your child and try to get them used to regular meals and bedtimes.

From the sixth month of lifeyour baby is also physically developed to the point that it no longer needs food at night and can therefore sleep through the night. From this point on, fixed sleeping and eating times should be the order of the day and correspond to your baby’s sleep needs. Choose the times that best suit your situation. Just make sure that the intervals between the daytime naps and the last daytime nap and nighttime nap described in tip 8 are adhered to as far as possible. Your baby’s internal clock will adjust to this within a few days, so it will always be tired at these times. You should not interrupt the rhythm your baby has developed in this way at first. Only when everything has settled down properly after two to three weeks can you, in exceptional cases, for example for a weekend trip, break the regularity. Your baby can then quickly adjust to the usual routine again.

Tip 7: Solid “hour before bed”

Have you ever noticed that your baby sleeps particularly well or quickly after bathing? As long as your baby’s skin is not too sensitive for a daily bath, there is nothing wrong with establishing a daily bath before going to bed as a ritual. A mild washing gel, without perfume and dyes, such as the Penaten Ultra Sensitive Bath & Shampoo, is best suited for the daily bath.advertisement

In general, it is advisable to always plan the last hour before bedtime in the same way. Above all, enjoy the last few minutes before bedtime with your baby, for example by cuddling or singing to him. For more tips on structuring that “hour before bed,” see our article “Developing Pre -Sleep Rituals .”

Tip 8: No late afternoon naps

During the day, make sure that your baby has been awake for at least 3 hours before a nap. You should allow at least four hours between your last nap and going to bed. Otherwise there is a risk that your baby is simply not tired enough to sleep.

Tip 9: The right sleeping environment

It is best to sleep well in bed. Create a comfortable sleeping environment for your baby in a well-ventilated room. Make sure that the mattress is not too soft and, especially in the first few months, avoid blocking the air supply with blankets, pillows, cuddly toys and other objects. A sleeping bag that suits the season – our tip: the “Schmusebär” sleeping bag set by Julius Zöllner –advertisementis enough for your baby. You can also find more recommendations on the sleeping environment in our article “9 tips for a good sleeping environment” .

Tip 10: Relaxed mom

Your baby can tell if you are not relaxed. Therefore, use the breastfeeding or feeding times consciously for your own relaxation. Make yourself as comfortable as possible, especially at night. Feel free to accept any help you can get and don’t put yourself under pressure because, for example, the household isn’t perfect. Also, have realistic expectations: your newborn won’t sleep through the night yet. If you become aware of this, you will be able to deal with it better.

So you can help your baby develop a good sleep rhythm early on. The proven tips have already helped many babies to fall asleep and sleep through the night. You can also find interesting background information on the sleep behavior of babies in our article “What happens when your baby is asleep” and “ This is how a child’s sleep develops ”. With the “ Checklist: Is your baby a good sleeper? ” you can check whether you should change something in your sleeping habits.