Baby Sleep – Four Tips To Get Your Baby To Sleep Through The Night
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Elizabeth_Aitken]Elizabeth Aitken
When mothers first bring home their newborn, their sleep life is not likely to be the same again for a long time. We hear about babies sleeping through the night as early as four months, but in fact parents are known to exaggerate to others when recalling how long their baby sleeps for.
Babies sleep differently to adults and take longer to get to sleep. When they do sleep, they sleep more lightly than adults as well. This is a survival mechanism because babies need to protect themselves from getting too hot, cold or hungry or from remaining in an awkward position. Little babies innately know that they need to be parented and crying is the only mechanism that they have to communicate their needs.
New mothers often wonder what they are doing wrong when their 5 month old baby is still waking two or more times between 10pm and dawn. All babies have different sleep personalities and sleep differently. You as a parent are not necessarily doing any thing wrong. However, there are some measures you can take to help your baby get into a routine of sleeping right through the night sooner rather than later.
Keep An Eye On Daytime Naps
Firstly, make sure that your baby’s daytime naps are not too long. It is hard to wake a sleeping baby when you are relishing the break, but if they sleep for too long during the day you are bound to have a more alert baby at bedtime. Also make sure that you feed the baby well and often during the day – especially when they are really small. Get into a habit of making feed time feel different during the day compared to the night. You may have music on or bright toys for baby to watch. Don’t try too hard to keep the noise level down during the day.
Give Them A “Dream Feed”
Secondly, remember that babies only have little stomachs and it is hunger that usually wakes them up during the night. A helpful idea may be to feed your baby just before you are going to bed yourself. Try not to awaken them. See if you can get them to suck while they are still sleeping and them put them down again after what has been referred to as their “dream feed”.
Don’t Always Change Baby’s Diaper
When your baby does wake for a feed in the night, try to keep it as quiet as possible. Keep the lights dimmed and do your best to keep your little one settled. Use a quiet and soothing voice. You might even choose not to change your baby if this is a feed that you want to cut out. This may sound a bit cruel, but if you have put plenty of diaper cream on your baby before they went to bed, they can probably last all the way through the night with one diaper, even though it is wet. Of course it is different if they have dirtied themselves.
Regularity Is Important
Finally, routine is really important. Try to get a regular routine happening as soon as possible – especially at bedtime. It may be that you give baby their last feed in a darkened room with a certain lullaby. As your little one gets a bit older, bedtime is commonly story time. You could begin telling stories without reading quite early, so your little one recognizes that “story” leads to “bed”.
Hopefully, if you put some of the tips given above into practice, they will help you get your baby sleeping through the night sooner rather than later.
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Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Baby-Sleep—Four-Tips-To-Get-Your-Baby-To-Sleep-Through-The-Night&id=7138863] Baby Sleep – Four Tips To Get Your Baby To Sleep Through The Night
