On this week’s blog our friends from Little Dreams Consulting Ltd are giving us their top tips for baby sleep and how to help with early risers.
Jenna Wilson founded Little Dreams Consulting in 2016 whilst pregnant with her third child. She had been a childcare solicitor for 12 years and, after realising she was no longer in love with the law, she was searching for something where she could still make a difference, whilst being flexible around the needs of her own family. She trained with Dana Obleman of Sleep Sense and The Sleep Charity UK and has grown her team from 1 to 4 as well as launching an award-winning franchise, which has now worked with over 1000 families, with her now business partner, Fay Smith. Fay was a mental health social worker who, similarly to Jenna, realised she no longer loved social work after the birth of her second child. Together, they are on a mission to help as many families as possible across the UK, using evidence-based approaches, with little ones from 4 months to 10 years old get a better night’s sleep!
Sleep is often controversial subject. Some children find sleep easy whereas others find it trickier. At Little Dreams, we firmly believe that if what you’re doing as a family works for you – and everyone is getting the sleep they need – there is absolutely no need change anything! However, if you’re finding things hard and perhaps unsustainable for you and your family, we are here to help in any way we can.
In this blog, we’ll share some of our top tips on how to encourage healthy sleep habits, tackle early morning awakenings, and promote restful nights for your little ones.
A consistent bedtime routine
Creating a predictable bedtime routine helps signal to your little one’s body that it’s time to wind down and prepare for sleep. Establish a soothing routine that includes activities like a sleepy snack (if they’re established on solids) and/or milk, a warm bath, story time and cuddles. Little ones thrive on consistency, so sticking to the same routine every night can really help.
Think about their sleeping environment
Make sure your little one’s bedroom – or yours if they are under six months – is quiet, cool and dark. You can use blackout curtains or blinds to make it nice and dark. It’s good to make sure it’s dark at nap time too. Consider using a pure white noise – on all night and for naps – if you have a noisy household or neighbours!
Consider how much day time sleep your little one is having
Little one’s day time needs vary by child but pay attention to age-appropriate nap needs and awake windows – as these change as your child gets older. You can read more about awake windows for different ages here. Avoid danger naps – even a few minutes – or too close to bedtime, as this can interfere with falling asleep at night.
Activity, exercise and outdoor time
Getting outside helps to burn off your little one’s energy and promote better sleep. Encourage active playtime during the day, but make sure you avoid any that are too close to bedtime. Engaging in calming activities before their bedtime routine, can help your little one relax before they go to bed.
Early morning wake ups
Early morning wakes can be hard to shift sometimes. Here are some pointers to help:
Make sure:
- It’s not too light in their bedroom
- That they have a good nap routine with the right amount of day time sleep for them
- They are not going to bed under or over tired – as this will impact what time they wake in the morning
- Be patient and persistent
- Be consistent
Developing independent sleep skills
If your little one replies on something external to get to sleep, perhaps being fed or rocked to sleep for example, when they reach four months they will go through, what is often known as, ‘the four-month sleep regression’, which is when they develop sleep cycles. So, like us, they will cycle through deep sleep, REM sleep and light sleep. At bedtime, your baby will have a fairly long period of deep sleep. This usually lasts for 2-3 hours, after which they come to a partial waking before dropping into their REM, or dream, sleep cycles. It is in between these shorter REM cycles when your baby will partially wake every 30-60 minutes. We also do this as adults. So, we regularly wake through the night, but don’t remember these wakings, because everything is the same as when we went to sleep.
If you think about it from that perspective, if you’re helping your little one to sleep in some way, such as rocking or feeding them to sleep, if they come to the edge of their sleep cycles and they are no longer being rocked or fed, they will wake up. And they’ll let you know that they need help to get back to sleep again.
So it’s at this point, after the four month sleep regression, that some parents start to notice that if their baby has been assisted to sleep in any way, they will rely upon that whenever they come to the edge of sleep in between these cycles. However, for babies who have developed independent sleep skills, you may not even be aware of these mini-wakings during the night as they will not be reliant on you in order to get back to sleep.
If you have found yourself in this situation, it’s worth bearing in mind that for little ones who do rely on something to get to sleep, it’s unlikely that implementing a bedtime routine or making changes to their environment alone, will make a huge difference.
However, as we said before, if you what you’re currently doing is working for your family then there is absolute no need to change a thing! If you are having trouble with your little one’s sleep, please get in touch with Little Dreams Consulting Ltd, or visit their socials (facebook or Insta) for lots more sleepy tips, they’d love to help!