The Baby Sleep Book: How to help your baby to sleep and have a restful night

Love your books. Since you’re going to spend a lot of time reading, pick stories that you enjoy too, so that when your little one pleads, “Read it again”, you won’t mind. Martha and I have been reading bedtime stories for 38 years now. Our last child, Lauren, was no longer breastfeeding as a toddler (she’s ours by adoption), so it took a large stack of books, and she loved every one. It was a great way to get our biggest night owl to lie still long enough to get relaxed and drift off. Some of our favourites that are appropriate for children ranging from two to five years are listed in Appendix B (#litres_trial_promo), page (#litres_trial_promo).

Use your sleepy-soothing voice. Speak gently, quietly, and in a monotonous voice. Avoid exaggerated facial expressions or sudden change in volume, which can startle a child awake. Gradually pause longer between sentences and read more slowly and softly toward the end of the story.

Keep it simple. Read age-appropriate stories with simple pictures. Try to keep to one book. Otherwise, your child may awaken during the pause while you search for another book.

Position for sleep. Have your child lie in her most common sleeping position while you read to her.

Don’t stop too soon. Even though their eyes are closing, children’s ears are very keen to follow a story. We once heard a child instruct his mother to “Keep reading – I can still hear you even when I’m sleeping.”

I read to my three-year-old daughter at bedtime, and then she tells me “good night, love you, sweet dreams” and then rolls over and goes to sleep on her own.

7. Put a “cuddly” to bed, too

As you tuck in your toddler, put a favourite stuffed toy, doll, or other “cuddly” to bed next to her. Help her tuck her little friend under the covers and give her cuddly a hug or a kiss goodnight. Watch her parent her doll or toy off to sleep the same way you help her sleep – this will help her wind down. On nights when your child is reluctant to go to bed, tell her, “Let’s go put dolly to bed”. As she shares in dolly’s bedtime ritual, she will get ready for sleep herself.

I stumbled upon a way to get Ashton to fall asleep once when she was just resisting. I went cheek to cheek with her as if I was giving her a hug and I nibbled her earlobe with my lips. I immediately felt her body relax and her eyelids start to droop. The rhythmic nibbling combined with the warmth of my breath and our closeness to each other sent her quickly into dreamland. It was also very soothing for me and a good tool for my partner to try.

8. Offer sleep cues

Find a few favourite phrases that relax your child. Say these over and over in a singsong voice as your child is falling asleep or when he needs assistance in getting back to sleep. The child hears your soothing voice, but doesn’t have to think about what you are saying. Dr Bob used to repeat, “Rest your eyes” to his son over and over again. Try:

“Nighty-night”

“Go night-night”

“Sleepy-sleepy”

“Time for sleep”

“Sleep now”

Find a phrase that is reassuring to your child during the day and use it consistently to help him recover from a meltdown, something like, “It’s okay!” Soon your child will learn to associate “It’s okay” with settling. When he awakens from a scary dream or some other reason, hearing the familiar “It’s okay” may quickly resettle him back to sleep.

Our two-year-old loves trains. Sometimes he wakes up during the night fussy and upset and we say, “Can you hear the train?” and we make train noises. He listens, nods, and stops crying. He knows we can’t hear the real train, but at least he will stop crying to listen carefully.

9. Enlist help from a sibling

At age six, our daughter Hayden could easily “mother” her two-year-old sister, Erin, to sleep (because she had plenty of it when she was little). We would occasionally encourage Hayden to lie down with Erin and sing to her or look at a picture book and get her to sleep “just like Mummy and Daddy did with you”. Erin fell asleep, and sometimes Hayden did too. We got a lot of mileage from sibling co-sleeping. When we had two close-in-age children that we wanted to go to bed at the same time, we would announce, “Whoever is in bed first, picks the story.”

Sears’ Parenting Tip: Your future grandchildren will value the parenting-to-bed skills you taught their mother or father.

10. Make peace before bedtime

Children, like adults, have difficulty sleeping when they are angry or upset. If children have been arguing or fighting during the day, help them make up before bedtime and go to bed friends. If you and your child have been at odds all day, or if it has been an upsetting day for other reasons, take time to talk it out briefly, then do something pleasant with your child before bedtime. Maybe this is a night for an extra bedtime story, or for a tale from your adventures as a child. Cuddle your child off to sleep and help him clear his mind of upsetting thoughts. This can even be a part of your sign-off prayer to help it happen in a neutral way.

11. Try a reward chart

If bedtime is not going well at your house, try a reward chart. Set the timer to announce bedtime, and tell your child that if he goes to bed without complaining, he will get a gold star on his chart. After three good nights in a row, take him out for a fun reward (fun as in play, not as in a junky treat). When you’ve had a success or two, change the reward schedule to once every 7 days. Soon he’ll forget all about the chart.

12. Water your child

“I need a drink of water” is a classic stall tactic. Head this off by giving your child a drink of water in the bathroom before bed. Call it the “last drink” so she knows she can’t keep asking for water. Or, put a trainer cup or water bottle next to the child’s bed to quench the thirst that invariably hits as soon as the child is under the covers. He’ll enjoy the independent feel of having it on hand for himself, especially if he feels he’s had a good dose of hands-on nighttime parenting.

13. Use a nightlight

Sleep researchers have shown that the brain is able to sleep better at night with no light on, but some children are afraid of complete darkness. Try using a dim night light in your child’s room. An older child may feel more secure with his own flashlight or a reading light next to his bed that he can turn on if he wakes up. With our daughter Lauren we found that when she was older and in her own room she was happier when we let her keep the light on. We then turned it off when we went to bed.

14. Try the “fade away” strategies

Getting your baby to sleep independently implies helping your baby get used to needing less of you and comfortably relying on his own self-settling abilities. “Fading away”, means gradually weaning your child from breast, bottle, arms, voice, and eventually your presence at his bedside as he falls asleep. (See pages (#litres_trial_promo) for examples of this getting-baby-to-sleep-alone strategy.)

15. Just go to bed!

You know your child is tired, you’ve been through the whole wind-down ritual, but he will not go to sleep. In this case, tell your child to go to his bedroom, lie in his bed, and either look at books or play quietly. If he still needs you close by, read your own book or magazine in his room. If he has to entertain himself, he will probably soon be ready to sleep.

The rule is he doesn’t have to go to sleep. He just needs to stay in bed. He is allowed to read as long as he wants. He seems to get to sleep earlier and easier when he feels he has some control of his sleep time.

teaching your young child to fall asleep alone and happy (#ulink_5f372a03-30eb-5466-8990-cb912fd1c08a)

Putting your child to bed while you are there snuggling with her is easy. The challenge that most parents face is getting a child to learn to fall asleep without Mum or Dad there. All the steps so far in this chapter are designed to help your child feel comfortable and happy at bedtime, but how do you move towards sleep independence in a way your child will accept?

A better question is this: is it realistic for parents to expect all young kids to fall asleep alone? In our experience the answer is no. Around age two or three a child’s imagination kicks in and they develop a fear of being alone in the dark at night. They can imagine monsters in the closet or under the bed. Or they may simply want you there for no particular reason. This is normal behaviour for a child. But because these fears are irrational, most parents don’t take them seriously and simply expect their child to get over them. Even kids who slept alone as babies can begin to fear sleeping alone later on.

So how can parents get their kids to be happy going to bed alone? Slowly, gradually, and as peacefully as possible. Getting your child to sleep independently implies helping her get used to needing less of you and comfortably relying on her own self-settling abilities. It means gradually weaning your child from your arms, voice, and eventually your presence at her bedside as she falls asleep.

If you have been staying with your child while she falls asleep up to this point, then there is probably very little stress to overcome. If your child used to fall asleep alone but has stopped, and you now realize that there may have been some months of stress while you’ve tried to accomplish sleep independence again, then you will probably need to take a step backwards in the weaning process, reconnect with your child, spend a few weeks or months letting your child fall asleep worry-free with you right there next to her, then begin what we call the “fading away” process.

On pages (#litres_trial_promo) we go into detail on how to slowly fade out of your child’s bedroom. Skip ahead now and read those pages if you are currently trying to achieve this goal.

We would like to summarize the fading away idea here for the purposes of this chapter:

Snuggle to sleep. Lie in bed with your child while he falls asleep.

Camp out next to bed. Sit on the floor next to your child while she goes to sleep.

Move in and out. Leave the room for brief intervals, but come back frequently.

Check on your child. Hang around in the hallway or next room, but peek your head in to let your child know you’re there.

Infrequent checks. Come back to your child’s room every 5 or 10 minutes until he’s asleep.

Realistically, this is not a welcome idea for parents who used to enjoy the evenings alone when their baby was a good sleeper. No parent wants to go backward in this weaning process. But if you don’t re-create a stress-free bedtime, your child will likely continue to have nighttime fears, anxiety, and stress for many years. Put in a little time now. View this as a short season in your parenting career. In the long run, your child will be better for it.

In chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo) we will go into more detail about how to transition a toddler from needing your presence to fall asleep. We will also discuss how to move a child out of your room and into his own.

food for sleep

Toddlers have tiny tummies. They usually need a snack before going to bed. Just remember that what children eat affects how they sleep. Some foods contribute to restful sleep – we call them “sleepers”. Other foods – “wakers” – get in the way of a good night’s sleep. “Wakers” are caffeine- and sugar-containing foods that stimulate neurochemicals that perk up the brain. “Sleepers” are foods that contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is an amino acid that the body uses to make serotonin and melatonin, neurochemicals that slow down nerve traffic and relax the busy brain.