I work with many families who are very much wanting an improvement in their child’s sleep. We speak at length about what things affect their baby going to sleep and how to avoid the things that negatively impact on sleep.
As we have progressed through the basics and sleep is very much improving, we can then look at working yet further on getting the baby to settle with less and help from parents or carers. More improvement comes and it looks likes things are mostly sorted. I then occasionally get messages from parents telling me their baby is regularly self settling but still waking after one sleep cycle in the day and not going back to sleep and still wakeful at night. It is at this point that I have learned to come back to revisits he initial basics, as this is often the cause of the current issues. If this sounds familiar to you, then don’t be afraid to take some time to examine what habits may have unknowingly crept back into your baby’s settling to sleep routine that is contributing to the current problems.
Shaya is 5 months old and is able to self settle beautifully on a regular basis. She is not reliant on a dummy, and sleeps mostly well at night, albeit, she is an early waker. Despite Shaya being able to self settle, she only sleeps for 30-40 minutes in the day and often has 4-5 sleeps through the day to compensate for her short naps. This further throws out her feeding and the days are now stressful for her mum Marie.
It just didn’t make sense. Shaya should be able to link her sleep cycles together and be able to sleep 1.5-2 hours for a few sleeps in the day and perhaps one shorter sleep as well. As I delved deeper talking to Marie, regularly and not always, Marie had started giving Shaya a little rock in her arms when they were cuddling during wind down time. This resulted in Shaya becoming just a little sleepy, but awake as she went into her cot and then she proceeded to fall asleep on her own. That little rocking period then made Shaya feel sleepy and she didn’t have to work to hard to fall asleep in her cot. The when she roused from a sleep cycle, that sleepy, drowsy feeling was no longer there and she couldn’t work out how get that feeling back without help and was not able to fall back to sleep, resulting in a cat napping all through the day.
By simply reviewing Marie’s current practice and tweaking it, Shaya started to sleep for longer stretches in the day, took her milk much better as she had the energy to feed better and within a few days, things were back to their usual great sleeping ways.
At Caroline’s Angels, we have broken things to down to 5 simple steps, that act as a starting point, but also as a refresher for families dealing with sleep. To start at step number 1 and apply this to your own baby then to step 2 and so on. This way you can work through all aspects of your child’s sleep and problem solve on what is affecting your baby’s ability to sleep for longer periods unaided. We have put these 5 vital steps into our new book, ‘ 5 Steps to Sleep- For Babies and Toddlers’. We have kept the format simple and straight to the point so that you can get to the really important parts and work out how to either make a start, or use it as a refresher tool for starting with a new baby after a little gap from having your previous child. It also serves as a great tool, for those who have addressed sleep and feel they are going backwards or just don’t know to further improve things.
At just $25 + postage, this can affordable become part of your essential toolkit for sleep.
For Marie, it was reviewing step number 5 ‘ Allow your baby to feel the same when they wake as they did going to sleep’. Shaya felt slightly different when she feel asleep compared to how she felt when she woke up. It was only such a slight alteration but an essential one to bring about the positive improvement in her sleep. Many parents think that by addressing sleep issues with their child, it will be about lots of crying from baby and parents. It can sometimes be a series of small changes that are instrumental in improving things, rather than really quick and abrupt changes that upsets everyone.
If you are thinking of addressing your baby’s current sleep or are baffled as to why your baby’s sleep is regressing and deteriorating, the “5 Steps To Sleep – For Babies and Toddlers” is just what you are looking for. And for under $25, you can’t ask for a better resource.
If you need further assistance, then please contact us at Caroline’s Angels
Sweet dreams,
Caroline and Caroline