The idea of having babies settle themselves to sleep seems crazy to parents who have sat up all night trying to get them to stop crying. But it can be done. Try these steps to get your baby to settle themselves to sleep.
1. Understand that your baby, thinking simply, associates various object, people, and activities with going to sleep. These are called "sleep associations". If a sleep association involves you, then your baby will think they need you to fall asleep. If a sleep association involves feeding or rocking, your baby will think they need food and/or rocking to fall asleep.
Other sleep associations include pacifiers, bottles, and teddy bears, This is not inherently bad thing, since it is natural for a baby, but as the parent, you need to choose the best association for your child to have a complete and restful night's sleep.
2. Establish a sleep association from day one. After bringing your newborn home from the hospital, settle them into their room and try various associations that make your baby calm and comfortable.
3. Talking softly to your baby is the most widely-accepted method.
4. Know that it is important to establish good sleep habits early on, before any habits form. Ensure your baby is in a good routine, preferably with set times for daytime naps and nightly bedtime. This helps your baby understand what you expect and when you expect it, and this helps your settling training work much faster.
5. Decide on a personal level that you are going to stop rocking, feeding, driving or whatever else you are doing to get your baby to sleep. Many people will advise you to just leave your baby to cry and they will eventually fall asleep. On the other hand, this is contested by many with the following reasoning: They reason that babies cry because they are unable to protect themselves and afraid of being deserted by their parents. A child that stops crying gives up the hope of being "rescued", and loses trust in you, the parent, as the protector. This can greatly affect a child's development and self-confidence. Still, it is your personal choice.
6.Teach your baby to fall asleep independently by giving them the opportunity to do so. Many babies need a period of winding down to fall asleep, and by not letting them cry at all, they can miss the opportunity to learn to fall asleep. These techniques can work quickly with a lot of babies; however, consistency is very important to making them work effectively. If you use the controlled crying at 7pm, 10pm and 2am, then at 4am feed baby to sleep in your bed, the program is not going to work quickly, if at all. To use one of these programs, you need to be sure you can listen to your baby crying for a period of time and be consistent with how you respond.
7. These techniques also give you a middle ground between not letting your baby cry and the cry it out method.
Tips
Settle the baby, then leave the room for increasing periods of time, giving baby the opportunity to fall asleep independently. You start with 2 minutes settling, and leave the room for 2 minutes, then 2 minutes settling, out of the room for 4 minutes, etc. Up to a maximum of leaving your baby for 10 minutes. This has been shown to be one of the most effective methods of teaching babies to self-settle, provided it is used consistently at all sleeps and any night-waking.
The cry it out method involves leaving your baby until they go to sleep by themselves. This often works very quickly - in as few as 3 nights - but it can mean listening to your baby crying for long periods of time.
This technique can be useful for toddlers who are 'trying it on,' for example continually requesting more stories, another bottle, every excuse but going to sleep. It can also be suitable if you have tried controlled crying with an older baby, but you are finding going in to resettle them is upsetting them further.
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