Baby Bum Shower Blog: How to Improve Your Baby’s Sleep Schedule

When it comes to babies, sleep is really important. They’re growing so much and need rest in order to develop physically and cognitively. Despite this, a lot of babies don’t seem to like it that much.

When your baby is awake, you’re awake, which means your body clock is altered too. You need rest in order to best take care of your baby, so we’ve got three tips on how to best set your baby’s sleep schedule from day dot.

  1. Highlight the difference between night and day

Newborns don’t recognise the difference between night and day, which contributes to their odd sleeping patterns in the beginning. Therefore, emphasising the difference between night and day is crucial in setting healthy sleeping patterns early on.

In the first six months, keep your baby’s room dark or dimly lit, and quiet at night time. If you need to attend to your baby in the night, turn on a dim light so as to not create too much of a disturbance.

It is also beneficial to be soothing and quiet when with your baby at night, and save playtime during the day so that this rest pattern can be established. Another good idea is to give night feeds in the bedroom to keep them quick and distinguish them from day feeds.

2. Put your baby to bed drowsy, but awake

This will allow your baby to associate feeling sleepy with being in bed. This will help them eventually self-soothe if they wake up in the night and cry out a little. This being said, if you hear real crying, you should attend to your baby.

3. Set a sleep routine

Babies sleep during the day as well, which can complicate the ways in which a sleep routine is set, but once again, day and night need to be distinguished.

When your baby wakes up during the day, you might offer them a feed, change their nappy, or talk, cuddle and play. However, when your baby wakes up in the night, instead focus on resettling them and getting them back to sleep.

No one said being a parent is easy, and lack of sleep seems to be a sort of rite of passage. Although it’s unavoidable to a degree, if you persist with these steps from early on in your baby’s life, it will make you and your baby a lot happier in the long run.