It must be quite annoying listening to other moms brag about how well their newborn babies sleep through the night. Especially when your eye bags are telling an obvious story – that you are sleep deprived and your newborns sleeping patterns being the cause.
Parents of newborns are notorious for being sleep deprived, this comes from the baby being restless, fussy and even early morning feeds.
Being sleep deprived can lead to other health issues and as a parent you do not need that added stress.
Good news is that there are ways of making your baby sleep better at night to ensure that parents get a good night’s rest too.
Natalie Walles, The Baby Sleep Trainer suggests these tips to improve your newborn baby’s sleeping pattern.
Have realistic expectations
If your baby is having difficulties with sleeping, do not panic. Over half of all newborns suffer from painful reflux. Others lack the gut bacteria to properly digest many of the trace amounts of common foods found in breast milk, and thus have excruciating gas. And many are just unhappy being newborns. All that is yours as a parent is to continue doing your best and know that it’s not always that your baby will be happy and sleep through the night.
Set up a proper sleep environment
It’s important to set a room or a specific area of the house for your baby to sleep in. It’s best that the baby soon associates darkness and certain areas of the house with sleep.
Do not let your baby sleep longer than 2 hours at a time from 7 am to 7 pm
This is probably the most effective thing you can do to encourage your newborn to have longer stretches of sleep at night. Do whatever it takes to wake them up if they have been sleeping for longer than two hours like, taking off their clothes, exposing them to cooler air, taking them outside/exposing them to sunlight or even putting them in a baby tub filled with lukewarm water.
Perfect your swaddle technique
According to healthline, swaddling is wrapping your baby securely in a blanket so that only their head is peeking out. The rest of their body is comfortably snug inside the blanket, which may help the youngest infants feel like they’re still inside the womb.
Natalie suggests swaddling the baby for naps and at bedtime.
Also see: 10 tips for parents of fussy eaters
