I was inspired to write this series of posts after hearing a friend say they weren’t sleeping because their baby wasn’t sleeping, and I felt for her! I, being the helpful sort of person I am, of course offered some advice, and I suppose much of my advice isn’t just for new parents but for parents in general, but I thought I’d share it here, too. A sort of PSA for parents, a reminder of many things they probably already know, but is nice to be reminded of.
Trust Your Instincts: Embrace Your Own Parenting Style
Firstly, you don’t need to take anyone’s advice if it doesn’t sound good to you. When it comes to parenting our tiny humans, nearly everyone who’s done it (whether they were good or bad at it), will have a mountain of tips for other parents, especially new ones. Sometimes the advice is good, sometimes bad, sometimes irrelevant, sometimes unwanted, but always on offer! It can be utterly overwhelming! But really, it comes down to this, love your little bundle of joy with gusto! Of course, you should try to be up-to-date on health and safety issues, but for the other stuff, the day-to-day doings of you and your baby or child, try not to stress, and just go with the flow. Your baby will have their own way of doing things, and no matter what your preference is, they will do what they want to do! So here’s a few anecdotes and tips from me, in case they do help any of you out there!
Tips and Advice for New Parents For Better Sleep and Rest
Even in utero, my daughter was a night-owl. She seemed to feel that 3am was the perfect time for back-flips and kick-boxing! Once she was born, for many months, she was still wakeful around this time. But she loved to sleep later into the morning, and my husband and I were fine with this. Our child-maternal health nurse, however, dismissed us outright and said we needed to have her sleeping earlier and getting up earlier. Now, our baby was perfectly healthy, getting good sleep each night, putting on weight, eating well, but here was this woman trying to convince us to check into a baby sleep-clinic because she didn’t like the times our baby was sleeping at! That, to me, is ridiculous! Instead of trying out this sleep-clinic, we made our next appointment with a different child-maternal health nurse.
That’s not to say our girl didn’t need some help in the sleeping department. From ages 3-months to 7-months, she would only sleep whilst physically on me! I accommodated this, but after four months of no personal space, I needed her to be able to sleep in her cot. My husband and I did some research online and decided on a ‘controlled crying’ method. We prepared the perfect baby bed for her, we set a bed-time routine of me singing her a lullaby, and popping her in her cot with her dummy (pacifier to those in the U.S.) and leaving the room. Baby-girl cried of course, so after ten minutes I went back in, gave her a quick kiss, popped her dummy back in her mouth, and left the room. She cried for 50 minutes the first night. I went in there four times to quickly snuggle and soothe her, to let her know she wasn’t alone, just that it was time to sleep, and finally she was asleep in her cot.
The second night she cried for half and hour, with three visits from me, then she was asleep.
The third night she went straight to sleep, and slept for twelve hours. Pretty much every night since then has been the same, though now that she’s 9-years-old she doesn’t sleep quite as long, more like nine or ten hours each night.
Your Child Sleeping Habits Changes
Over the years her bed-time needs changed, and we adapted her routine. When she was around 3-years-old she began to have nightmares, so we got her this night-light (Mrs Octi) and this owl (Hedwig) that lights-up and plays music. What I love about these is that Mrs Octi is very easy to turn on, two big buttons on the back, but then turns off after 45-minutes, and Hedwig only stays lit for a few minutes and the music shuts off after 15-minutes. These were so helpful for my daughter to self-soothe if she woke up in the night. It worked like magic! They’re still a part of her bedtime routine, to this day. We also added ‘Soft Kitty’ (of Big Bang Theory fame) to her bedtime song. She has always been obsessed with cats so this was a must!
When she was around 5-years-old she once again began to have nightmares, so we added something called ‘dream cake’ to her bedtime routine. She pretends to eat a piece of cake that she imagines is decorated with things she’d like to dream about that night. I also make some ‘dream magic’ that is essentially a clap, followed by a kiss blown into the air above her, and a smooch on each of her cheeks to seal the magic. It’s not about the mannerisms but that these things put her into a good mind-set before sleep and it’s really helped her.
Before all that it’s toilet, teeth, saying goodnight to Daddy, and then our bedtime routine. It seems like a lot, but it takes about 5-minutes total, and she happily and confidently goes to sleep and sleeps well!
Sharing Our Sleep Routine: Take What Works and Leave the Rest!
This is the way we do it, and I’m not suggesting this is the way anyone else should do it, exactly, but I’m putting it out there in case any or all of it helps or inspires other parents with their little-ones sleeping routine. It can be super daunting, and I know that we’re lucky because our girl is a great sleeper, but if we share our experiences, we can learn from each other, and hopefully have an easier time of it. Ultimately, try to not worry about it because it will all work itself out eventually. Every time I start to get worried about some minor issue, I think to myself, will I care about this in ten-years-time? If the answer is no, then I know I can chill-out and stop stressing about it! Sometimes that’s what we need, really, permission to stop stressing about the minutia of parenthood. So, you have my permission, if that helps, and I hope it does!
