When playtime is not needed

Every parent wants to sleep well at night. Critical to good night sleep is setting up really good habits in the evening routine. When your baby is newborn until about 6-8 weeks evenings can be really tricky and hard work. This is normal and is just your baby’s immaturity. The effort you put into a consistent, calm evening routine will eventually be rewarded!

 

The witching hour, the arsenic hour, trouble time. Babies are often unsettled in the evening. Theoretically there are a number of things contributing to these unsettled times. Breastmilk supply is lower at this time of the day, everyone is tired at the end of the day (yes, even after all those naps), and it can be a busy time of the day for the family with dinner, baths, homework, planning for next day and dealing with frazzled temperaments from tiredness.

 

Most newborns just want to be held at this time of the day. He or she may want to suckle all the time. Remember sucking is soothing so this is perfectly normal. This is often called ‘cluster feeding’. All this behaviour will pass once baby matures (in weeks and months, not years!).

 

Once your baby matures past needing constant cuddles in the evening, evening routines can be started. Evenings routines that are helpful include dinner, bath, story, milk*, bed. Once you start your evening routine aim for no playtime. This seems like a drag but can make all the difference in the world to your night time . When little ones get into bed on time and know what to expect things usually run much smoother.

 

When the arsenic hour hits remember that your baby is not complaining that they are bored. Make sure that well meaning friends and relatives don’t try and stop the baby from crying by entertaining and playing. Babies do not need play in the evening. They need a calm, predictable bedtime routine and lots of support to work through the stresses of the day, relax and go to sleep.

Our webinar last month was on being with your baby when crying. If you would like to purchase a copy email us here and we will organise it for you. Go here or send an email to leisa@insyncwithinfants.com

* Remember last week I wrote about feed, play, sleep and not using feeding as a sleep cue? Having a feed just before bed as part of the evening routine is okay. Feeding to sleep usually does not interfere with night time settling. The problem is if your baby relies on feeding for sleep at every sleep time. The one for the evening is okay - enjoy that lovely cuddle time together.

Feed-Play-Sleep

Feed-play-sleep is a parenting mantra that is misunderstood by many! This concept came about to give new parents a framework to help manage their baby’s care and to give some sort of routine to their day.

The concept is for those who really need some sort of structure in their lives to help them make sense of their day (the parent I am talking about here).

 

Most new parents arrive home from hospital with their baby, look at each other and ask, “now what?” Feed-play-sleep is the answer.

 

Basically Feed-play-sleep is a way to separate feeding from sleep for newborns so that feeding is not a strong cue that your baby becomes reliant on for sleep. Babies are learning from birth. The order of their day is something that some babies learn quickly, while others are more flexible.

 

Some babies who learn that feeding comes before sleep can have difficulty sleeping. These baby’s parents struggle to help their baby get adequate restful sleep. Because feeding has become a sleep cue their baby wakes frequently with a short sleep cycle and thinks he or she needs to feed to go back to sleep again.

 

Hence Feed-play-sleep came about to help parents manage their routine for better outcomes for all.

 

Baby gets better quality sleep and learns helpful habits for sleep, gets really good feeds at feed time and is happier. Parents are not feeling like they are always turning around to feed or put baby to sleep.

 

Feed-play-sleep is not something that all parents use or resonate with. As with everything we discuss at Insync with Infants- it is another concept that is available to help you make sense of life with a new baby when lots of things just don’t make sense yet.

 

Feed-play-sleep can be confusing because your baby will not always feed every time he or she is awake. This is the bit that often causes confusion and frustration. As your baby grows and matures, the number of feeds a day often reduces. As your baby learns about sleep separately from feeding he or she will also have some times when he or she will have a short sleep, have a short play time and have a another sleep without the need for feeding. In all of these instances just follow your baby’s lead. As you learn their behaviours it will become easier.

 

If you would like some practical assistance, tailored to you, Insync with infants has home visits or skype consults available to help you with this confusing time.

 

Please email us your enquiry at Leisa@insyncwithinfants.com.

 

 

Playing with your Newborn

One of the things that can be confusing and tricky for new parents is all the toys, helpful tools and stuff out there for newborns and toddlers.  One area that can be really confusing for parents is toys and what is appropriate for play.

 

Newborn babies are wired for survival and learning. Their senses are turned on so that they can learn as much as they can from their surroundings as quickly as possible. Their brains are wired for learning. The tricky part of this is that newborns get overstimulated very easily because of this.

 

This is a really confusing thing for a lot of new parents.  Usually you are so in love with this new baby that you just want to shower  him or her with affection and positive vibes and joy and everything else.  Unfortunately your baby can only cope with a short amount of stimulation and quite quickly get over stimulated which looks like an unhappy and cranky baby.

 

Your baby doesn’t need much at all in the way of toys etc. It is probably more for our benefit to think we need to provide all this stuff. The best play thing for your baby is you. Your newborn gets enough stimulation just from the touch, sound of your voice and movement that he or she receives from the care that you give throughout the day and night.

 

Sure as your baby grows and matures toys come into play more. When your baby is moving around the floor, more interested in surroundings, reaching more etc, toys will be more important. However you are still the most important part of your babies toy room.

 

My message is that your baby doesn’t need all those things that marketing makes us believe  are important. Pretty much less is more when it comes to your baby.  You are enough and the perfect plaything for your baby.

When over tired

In previous weeks, we’ve talked about the importance of catching early tired signs and that there are early and late tired signs. We have also touched on how your baby is affected by too little sleep or missing early tired signs.

 

Today I’d like to talk a little about what happens when your baby is overtired. Usually this is when most people think it is normal to put your baby to sleep. And yes, you will have to put your baby to sleep when he or she is overtired.

 

When you have caught the early tired signs you can give your baby the opportunity to self settle. When your baby is over tired that is probably not realistic to expect. At least not with young babies. Older babies who know about sleep may be able to go off to sleep for themselves when over tired if they know how.

 

When your baby is over tired he or she is so wound up and over stimulated and overwhelmed that he or she just can’t unwind enough to relax for sleep. Your baby doesn’t know that he or she is overtired, they just know they feel crappy and need you to help him or her feel better.

 

It may take up to half an hour or so for your baby to unwind. It may take longer. Generally we expect at least 20 minutes, then another 10-15 minutes to relax and then another 10 minutes or so to get to sleep. That is a normal expectation when your baby is over tired. It may even be a little longer.

 

When you are helping your baby to sleep be prepared to have to last the distance. Expecting your baby to be asleep after 5 or 10 minutes when over tired is usually unrealistic. If you calmly persevere in helping your baby you will usually achieve sleep of some sort however be prepared for it to be a short one and to have to repeat what you have just done to help build more sleep.

 

We’re here to help if your baby’s sleep is confusing you, if it's “hard work” all the time or if it could use some tweaking


And make sure to follow Insync with Infants on Facebook for more tips and hints on great baby sleep. (click here)

What’s all the fuss about early tired signs?

Early tired signs are now well known to be one of the important points to your baby settling more easily for sleep.

 

Why is it important to catch early tired signs?

 

At the stage of early tired signs your baby is still happy and relaxed. Once late tired signs kick in usually your baby is less relaxed, feels more uptight and as a result needs more from you to help him or her relax again in readiness for sleep.

 

When you see early tired signs your baby will still look happy and relaxed. This usually trips people up because they think “ oh he (or she) isn’t tired yet, he’s still smiling and happy”.

 

It is also important to know that there is only a short window of time between early tired signs and late tired signs. When you see late tired signs your baby is actually over tired. When your baby is over tired he or she usually needs some form of help to get to sleep.

 

The important part about early tired signs is that your baby has a better chance of going to sleep on his or her own and not needing any help. This is really important for that easy sleep we are all after in little ones. It is easier to go to sleep when you are relaxed than when you are over tired. So yes it is important to catch early tired signs.

How do sleep cycles affect your baby's sleep?

Most of us are aware of sleep cycles. As adults we have learned to sleep from one cycle to the next
without any fuss or trouble.

 

The exception may be if it is raining heavily outside or storming, a dog is barking or there is something very different to normal happening at night. this is when we may wake up between sleep cycles and check out what is going on. As adults we usually can go back to sleep easily.

 

Your baby also has sleep cycles. Newborns have quite short cycles- as short as 20 minutes. As your baby grows the sleep cycles lengthen gradually. Babies often wake up between cycles and this is a normal part of newborns. It doesn’t always mean they have to be entertained when he or she wakes, just that it is the break form one cycle to the next.

 

The waking that you see between short cycles is not always actual waking. With newborns, that waking may just be a light sleep between cycles. This is the bit that often trips people up:

 

New parents are so in love with their baby and so committed to be the best parent they can, not harming their baby and ensuring their baby gets everything they could possibly need, parents often inadvertently misinterpret light sleep for wake and wake up their baby when they probably needed to go back to sleep and weren’t really awake at all.

 

This can be really tricky and can be quite confounding to begin with. As time goes on it will be easier to work out when your baby needs to go back to sleep and when he or she is ok to stay awake for some play or talk time.

Are day time and night time really that different for baby sleep?

Does your baby seem to fight day sleep, refusing to nap?
Have you heard that you absolutely MUST make your baby’s day and night sleep very different so that he or she learns the difference between day and night sleep?
Have you tried to make day and night different and it is still not working?

 

Babies with mixed up sleeping patterns, partying all night and napping all day, are a common problem for new parents. I often hear new parents say they have to make day and night sleep different for the baby. They want their babies to know the difference between night and day to help everyone have a good, restful nights sleep.

If you are trying to make day and night sleep different for your baby - STOP!

Your energy is better spent in other ways.

 

You don’t need to do things differently for day and night sleep

Being consistent about sleep is more important. Sleep routines and sleep cues help to get your baby to sleep easily and in a more reliable pattern. Your baby already can tell there is a difference between day and night just from different noises and noise levels, activity levels, light and dark and temperature to name a few.You already do things differently at night to day. There is no need to make a bigger issue out of it.

 

Have you heard these common myths about day sleep, naps and night sleep?
- She is sleeping too much! That’s why she doesn’t sleep at night!
- He won’t sleep because he’s bored! You need to wear him out during the day!

 

These baby sleep myths need to be busted. Your baby needs lots of good day sleep to sleep well at night. Babies don’t get bored, but they do get overstimulated easily. Both of these myths lead to overtired, overstimulated babies who don’t sleep well at night. Understanding sleep will help when well meaning friends and relatives offer this kind of advice to improve your baby’s sleep.
Learn more about Baby Sleep Click here