Getting your baby to sleep through the night can be one of the most difficult obstacles of parenthood during the early stages of your little one’s life. Having a baby that won’t fall asleep doesn’t only affect your baby, but it also can affect you and your ability to take care of your family confidently. If you are trying everything you can think of to get your baby to sleep and it’s still not working, it may be time to turn to a sleep consultant. SleepShop works with many certified sleep consultants that have developed a special approach to sleep training. We tailor our techniques to each individual family’s unique parenting style and goals. We help families ensure they find peace and joy in what can otherwise be a very chaotic and stressful stage of life. Parents often don’t even realize that their tactics are making it harder for their baby to fall asleep. Here are some of the major sleep mistakes parents often make:
Not Establishing A Bedtime Routine
Humans naturally are creatures of habit. This is even true for the brand new baby humans! As a parent, it should be one of your top priorities to establish a good bedtime routine for you and your baby in order to get them to the ultimate goal of comfortably sleeping through the night. For babies that really have a hard time falling asleep, it can be great to try different soothing activities leading up to bedtime, such as a warm bath or calming music. Some great tactics to add to your routine could be:
● Talking or singing to your baby
● Reading them a story
● Making sure their bedroom is set at a comfortable temperature
● Turning the lights down low
● Giving them a pacifier
Putting Your baby to sleep too late
It’s reasonable to think that keeping your baby awake longer can help them sleep through the night easier, but this method can actually backfire and lead to your baby being fussier and sleep-deprived. Since people are prone to being habitual, if your baby is naturally waking up at 6 am, you most likely won’t be able to fix that by making them sleep later. They often still will wake up at their usual times and in extreme cases, they might wake up earlier due to their discomfort. A better way to help your baby sleep comfortably would be to pay attention to their sleep cues. Learning and understanding your baby’s sleep cues can really help them get to sleep easily and help with establishing a proper sleep schedule for you and your family.
Letting your baby nap for too long
It’s important to know how much sleep your baby should be getting overall depending on their age. Once you have this information then you can create their nap schedule off of that. On average, you don’t want your baby napping for longer than 3 hours at a time, as they get older the average comes closer to 2 hours or less. Oversleeping during the day could make it harder for babies to recognize when it’s daytime and when it’s nighttime. This can cause long-term issues the longer it takes for your baby to be able to differentiate the two. You want to make sure they are getting enough rest, but also space it out accordingly so bedtime doesn’t just feel like another long nap.
How We Can Help:
Sleep consultants are infant and toddler sleep specialists that can help families get their nights back to normal by providing remote or in-home sleep training. They can give you the relief and the supportive care needed for you and your baby to get back to your beauty rest. Sleep Shop is staffed with many certified sleep consultants that not only have great techniques, but also plenty of their own personal experience. Our goal is to use these techniques to restore your peace of mind while tailoring our tactics to each family’s unique goals.
About The Sleep Shop
The Sleep Shop is led by Melissa, a mother of four, and is a member of the International Association of Professional Sleep Consultants.
We offer one-one-one unlimited consulting, sleep classes with our founder, phone consultations, 1-week jumpstarts, infant sleep guides, 2 weeks of consulting, toddler nap guides, toddler sleep guides, toddler total resets, and “the toddler tune-up”.
We offer sleep consulting services in all of New York City including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Flat Iron District, Turtle Bay, Tribeca, Upper East Side, Soho, Staten Island, and the greater NYC area.
Contact us today to learn more.
