Try not to turn on a bright overhead light. Give night feeds in the bedroom. This will help to keep these feeds brief and make them different from daytime feeds. Try to keep play for daytime. Putting babies to bed drowsy but awake Try to put your baby to bed drowsy but awake. Here are some ways you can help your baby settle in bed, drowsy but awake : Give your baby some time to settle. Avoid picking up your baby as soon as they grizzle.
Many babies grizzle when you first put them into the cot, and giving them a minute or two to settle can help.
But if your baby starts crying, they need comforting. As your baby gets older, give baby some time to settle if they grizzle when they wake during the night — baby might re-settle without your help. So many experts seem to think that once a baby is fed, changed, winded and warm that they have no further needs, they do. Their emotional needs are every bit as valid as their physical ones, why do we not pay these as much attention?
Although babies experience the fight or flight response from a very young age, they are not neurologically developed enough to regulate the resulting emotions themselves — they need us for that. The brain stem and cerebellum, or the hindbrain, are fairly well developed and are the first part of the brain to develop throughout the first year and a half of life. This area of the brain is responsible for survival — temperature regulation, breathing, digestion and raw basic emotions.
This part of the brain is the next to develop over the first three years. It is responsible for emotions and relationships with others. This part of the brain includes the hippocampus and the amygdala amongst others. The neocortex is by far the most sophisticated area of our brains and develops throughout childhood and adolescence and even into early adulthood throughout the early twenties. This part of our brain is responsible for critical, analytical and rational thought.
What about the limbic system? How do we manipulate these emotions? Our neocortex can help us to rationalise and analyse a situation in order to come up with a solution to regulate our emotions.
Only babies have incredibly underdeveloped neocortexes………. The real issue here however is our misinterpretation of what is working and what is actually happening. You absolutely are not, unless you have a wonder kid about five years advanced in their brain development!
What is really happening? Parents and caregivers can try:. A study found that newborns whose caregivers soothed them using different techniques slept for longer than other newborns.
The researchers taught caregivers the 4S soothing techniques , which are:. These techniques may help parents and caregivers get better sleep until the baby can start sleeping through the night.
Many families use some form of the CIO or extinction method to encourage babies to self-soothe. This involves putting babies in their crib while awake and letting them cry for a certain amount of time until soothing them, or avoiding soothing entirely until they fall asleep unassisted.
This parenting choice is the subject of ongoing debate among families and child development researchers. Studies differ on whether CIO techniques are beneficial, harmful, or neither. A paper looking at the evolution of parenting techniques over the last years argues that CIO became a common practice due to fear-based messages, such as the idea that comforting a crying baby will spoil them.
A article also notes that many online sources teaching caregivers how to sleep-train their babies are not based on evidence. Caregivers who wish to try CIO methods may benefit from speaking with a pediatrician or another medical professional about the potential advantages and disadvantages.
People must consider which approach works best for them and their baby and is most consistent with their parenting philosophy.
However, if a baby is frequently waking up at 6 months or older, caregivers may wish to speak to a pediatrician. Pediatricians may have differing views on sleep and self-soothing. As a result, it can help to choose a pediatrician with a similar philosophy on parenting. There are many viable options for getting a baby to sleep, and not all strategies will work for everyone. Babies have different sleeping patterns from adults. Check out what else to expect from your baby. Follow their milestones here!
Related Articles. Related Resources. Why is Baby Crying? Here Are the Top 5 Reasons.
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