3 most important things you must know for your baby to sleep

Baby sleep is the most talked about, the most questioned  and the most frustrating thing for new parents. 

If someone could bottle it , it would be worth an absolute fortune.  It is a common question to ask what about  those babies who seem to sleep easily?  What do they have or do that makes it seem so easy?

 Certainly parents who have more than one baby, often see a difference from one child to the next.  For some the first baby sleeps easily. For others the second child sleeps easily.   When you are in the throes of sleep deprivation it is hard to work out the difference as to why one child sleeps well and the other not so well.

The 3 key basic requirements for any baby to sleep easily are:

1. Your baby is well.  This just means that there is nothing causing your baby to feel yucky.  If your baby is unwell such as tummy upsets or having a cold or some illness, they may have pain associated with it (eg headache) then this will undermine any attempts for your baby to sleep.  When your baby is feeling well and comfortable, he or she can relax enough to go off to sleep.   If your baby doesn’t sleep well because of being unwell, once you fix the cause, often sleep falls into place more easily.

2.   Your baby feels comfortable.    Usually this would be things like gut upsets or discomforts caused by foods, formula, pain from teething, reflux or wind, feeling too hot or too cold.  This can also mean not quite being satisfied and needing just a little more feeding.  While your baby is uncomfortable  he or she will find it harder to go to sleep.  If they do go to sleep it is often from exhaustion and often only for a short time.   Once this discomfort is fixed, your baby can then go off to sleep more easily.

3. Your baby needs to feel secure.  This is more so for newborns and up to about 3 to 4 months of age.  In this time, your baby is very immature and needs to build trust that all his or her needs will be met.   Most parents do this very well and by the time your baby is over 4 months they have built up the trust in you  to give them what they need.  For newborns, swaddling gives them a sense of security when not in your arms.  If your baby settles well without swaddling – great.  If not- it may be worth considering.  Incidentally, there are a number of ways to swaddle and some are more effective than others.

 Once you know that these basics are  sorted, then we would look more at what else is happening for sleep but  making sure that your baby is well, is not uncomfortable and feels secure are the first things to work on to ensure your baby gets  good sleep.