What are some tips to get a baby to sleep in their crib? Give the child a consistent base when dealing with bed time. This question will be answered in different ways. You can talk about somebody who is...
This question will be answered in different ways. You can talk about somebody who is relatively young and you are teaching them how to sleep. They are more awake during the day now that they are old enough to be that way. Add a few months of age and sleep now isn't something so automatic. Whereas when it is a new born I mean virtually the entire day it's mostly sleep. And they may have four hours of the day total that they were awake and it's in little bits and pieces. Now they are consolidating their wake periods for the day. So getting the sleep now is a real transition. I was awake and now I am tired and cranky and rubbing their eyes and they are whining and they are fussing and you can tell that they are getting close to the clues that this baby is probably sleepy.
You know they are not really engaging anybody. They are not really looking at anybody kind of glassy eyes. I can say yes, these are the markers I would recognize as a sleepy behavior. So now there is a real transition. Its early as you can you want to make it so that when they are sleepy this is where you go. You go to the crib. That's where you go when they get sleepy. Then you put them in the crib so that they can learn that this is where they go when they're sleepy. So reading a book and talking to them and stroking your child are wonderful. But the problem to some degree is whatever you are doing in the last minute or so before they fall asleep.
In your case it may be the fan, or the lights. For the baby it's my crib and my parents walked away. You can leave the light on or off because it doesn't make any difference. But remember, if you leave the night light on, leave it on all night. If you are going to leave the music on, leave it on all night.
B: So your baby learns this is the time when I like to fall asleep. So that later on in the night you know may be two or three times in the night that when they do wake up briefly, all those things are still there. The night light is still here it's still dark it's still quiet. I am still sleepy. I am in my crib lets go back to sleep.
So that's what you want to do. You want to give them that kind of teaching as early as you can to get them going. And again I am not saying you can't hold your baby. I am not saying you can't play with them. In fact it's the opposite. When you want the nighttime behaviour or sleep behaviour you want to be the dullest person on the planet. You want to talk to your child only when you have too. You only want to turn on the light to attend to them and only if you absolutely have to. Hold them for the bare minimum it takes to calm them. If they need to be changed, fine. Babies are not going to sleep through the night because they have a little stomach. So the only choice they really have is to eat frequently.
They don't want to be awake but they are hungry. But you are not supposed to talk and play games. Like I said you want to be the dullest person the kids ever seen.
And then during the day you want to be the most excitable person the kid has ever seen. You want to play, talk, teach, and read. You are engaging with eye contact and you are doing all kinds of things for your baby for stimulation during the day. So the baby gets the clear indication that there is nighttime and daytime behaviour. There are times during the day when you are active. During the night is when you calm down and get ready to go to sleep. Again, it's not trying to be cruel or anything but it is teaching them what you expect.
There will be times that you can do anything about it. At times of illness, your kid has a bad cold or your child is especially very young. Your baby has stomach flu and that's going to terribly disrupt sleep. There is not a lot you can do about that and to get through it you may end up rocking your baby and yes, sleep patterns may fall apart. If you take vacations with small children you know sleep patterns are going to fall apart.
You know you may have to unlearn some things.
Illnesses, you may have to unlearn somethings that you just learned. But provided the patterns have been there before it shouldn't be that difficult once the illness has passed.
