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Changing baby sleep habits

Changing baby sleep habits

How to help your baby change sleep habits or associations - for peaceful happy sleepers

Changing sleep associations

You rock your baby to sleep each nap and each night and you’re sick of it! Or your baby has outgrown the dummy. Or you’ve decided that it’s time to stop feeding to sleep. You need to change your baby’s sleep associations. Sleep associations are also called sleep aids, prompts, sleep routine, anything that says to your baby ‘it’s time for sleep’.  

Changing sleep associations is probably one of the most common difficulties parents struggle with in regard to their little ones’ sleep.

You can change your baby’s sleep associations! 

After all, no one rocks their teenager to sleep each night, do they? You need to plan, be prepared for some resistance, and have patience. Babies are adaptable and resilient.

1. Identify the sleep association or habit you need to change

2. Pick the best time to make changes.

3. Avoid changes while baby is ill or there are big upheavals at home

4. Decide on your approach, based on your baby’s temperament. Cold turkey? Change by degrees? Identify alternative ways to comfort your baby to ease the transition

5. Celebrate little wins and be prepared for setbacks as you take slow, baby steps towards better sleep! 

Babies and toddlers love routine or habit - changing sleep habits takes time

Habits make their world predictable. Habits help them judge what will happen and this gives them security and comfort. So when we want to change what they know, they will not like it initially even if it is in their best interests. A tired baby doesn’t know that making a change will mean better sleep. They just know that it is different to what they know and trust.

How long it takes to change a sleep association depends on many factors:

how the parents feel beliefs and values baby’s temperament how long the practice has been going on what the practice is. 

As your baby grows and develops there will be changes that you need to make to their sleep habits. These are in addition to changing any sleep associations that aren’t working for you (like rocking your baby to sleep all the time). Milestones include:

1. Learning to roll - it is safest to stop swaddling your baby with arms in when he or she learns to roll Learning to climb - once your baby starts climbing it’s time to move from a cot to a bed. 
   
   
   If sleep is a battleground for you and your baby or toddler then something needs to change. You and your baby deserve great sleep and awesome days. Our Toddler Tricks video series outlines lots of helpful sleep strategies and troubleshooting for common sleep issues.
    

To find out more about us visit our website insyncwithinfants.com

How to help your baby transition to cup

How to help your baby  transition to a cup- top tips for your child’s development

Have you thought about when  and how is the right time for your baby to transition to a cup? Find out  the top tips of when the best time is for your child’s development.

Maybe the talk in your mothers group is about the right time for your baby or toddler  to  transition to  a cup just to add some pressure.

One of the things that sometimes confuses parents is how  and when to change from breast or bottle to cup. This needn’t be  a concern.

When you are breastfeeding, you can breastfeed for as long as you and your baby are happy to.

With breastfeeding there is not right or expected time to stop. We would like to see you breastfeed till at least 12 months in the ideal world. Of course this doesn’t always happen. Sometimes your baby chooses to stop early. Each infant and child’s development is at their own pace.

Sometimes life circumstance interferes and keeping going just isn’t working. For some it is just not a pleasant experience and they do for as long as they possibly can.

Babies are designed to breastfeed. The breast fills their mouth and so helps their mouth, jaw and throat structures to develop in the optimal way for optimal infant and child development.

Transition to a cup can be done at any stage of your baby’s development.

Bottles are a slightly different story. Bottles are a handy tool for feeding small babies. It is easy, not messy and very efficient.

You can start your baby on cup feeding from any age - even newborn. It is a skill present and part of your infant’s development. Yes it is slow and messy but it can be done and is a viable option.

Generally speaking though we encourage parents to introduce  a cup at least from about 6 months of age onwards- usually this is a sippy cup with a lid. However an open top cup is also ok- it is just more messy.

The importance of transitioning to a cup in your infant and child’s development

Drinking from a bottles uses different muscle co-ordination to breastfeeding.  The muscles in our mouth are used for speech and it is because of the potential negative effect of long term bottle feeding on speech and language  development that we encourage stopping all suck feeds and dummies from about 12 months of age. This doesn’t apply to breastfeeding as mentioned previously.

Speech is the product of many different configurations of the muscles in our mouth, throat, cheeks, tongue. Our tongue particularly is a muscle that become thicker in some parts  with excessive use, and may interfere with  the ability to form certain sounds.

Research also shows that long term bottle sucking may contribute to the prevalence of snoring as  an adult. This is because not only are muscles affected but the shape of your throat and mouth may also be changed. Some other structures that may be affected in your infant’s development are teeth and jaw alignment, teeth decay and or nasal difficulties.

Muscles will always win out over any other connective tissue in our body,  such as bone or tendon.

What to do to ensure your baby reaches his or her milestones of infant and childhood development?

So what to do?  Introduce a cup from about 6 months of age onwards- with water is perfect.

Once your baby gets to about 12 months of age start to wean off bottles. From 12 months  at the latest we would encourage you to take out any valves in cups that control the flow of liquid so that your baby learns how to control the flow of liquid with their mouth, cheeks and tongue.

Transitioning to a cup for your infant can be painless and stressfree with  a few guidelines such as these to help your baby reach his or her optimal development and milestones.

For more tips and hints with your toddlers go to our Toddler Tricks resource at insyncwithinfants.com

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