When getting them to sleep is a problem!
It’s time to sleep. Tips and theories for getting the babies to sleep without problems.
When you are pregnant, everyone repeats “sleep now because later you will not…” and you wonder if it will really be that difficult for a baby to sleep 6, 7 hours in a row throughout the night. Then you discover that they were right.
To sleep a night of uninterrupted sleep becomes almost a dream. If your baby does not sleep, neither do you, and the night truly becomes a nightmare. There are many mothers that wander through the house like zombies, thinking how to solve the problem.
The baby’s sleep is related to a thousand variables, and there is no correct recipe that can be adapted to all babies and all situations. The best thing you can do is to take everything you’ve read about the subject, the tips that best suit you and your personality, and that do not create conflict with your way of doing things. You can try to put into practice indications found in books, the pediatrician or a friend, but remember that the important thing is to never force our nature.
There are two books, one opposed to the other in regard to approach and methodology to be applied, but both have made history about this topic.
We summarize the principal features and elements of both of them, without holding positions in favor or against neither.
Estivill Method –“Sleep, baby, sleep”
Surely you already know the book “Duérmete niño – 5 Days to a Perfect Night’s Sleep for your Child” by Eduard Estivill. It is a small manual with practical and exact instructions on how to “teach” the child to fall asleep.
According to the author, sleep is a pleasure and the baby, already at six or seven months old, should be able to sleep alone and go back to sleep alone when he wakes up at night. You just have to teach him the right way by giving him the appropriate instructions. Forbidding to cuddle or hold them in your arms. The child has to understand that it is time to sleep and that, in the case of desperate crying, the father or mother will not catch him. He has to learn to calm down only with the objects he has available, such as a pacifier, a bear, etc.
In the book, there is a table that must be followed during the minutes that must be let go in the case that the child cries, before reassuring him again.
According to the authors and according to many parents, this method works and in four, five days the child will have learned to sleep.
Estivill explained later that his method is applicable to children over 3 years old who during their life have learned wrong habits and are not valid for babies.
Sears Method – “Your child will be able to sleep… and so do you”
The philosophy of this book is exactly the opposite of that of Estivill. In this case, we want to create a harmony between parents and newborn, trying to react intuitively and positively to the needs of the baby.
Parents adapt to the baby’s demands without “forcing” their rhythms. The child and his needs are respected so that a climate of trust and harmony is created.
According to Sears, the baby should never be let to cry, because it is not through fear that the baby should learn to sleep. The baby squeezes with his weeping demands and if a need is to sleep in bed with the parents, you have to satisfy that need.
If you meet the needs of your child, he will sleep better and will make you sleep better too. Why should it be so negative to put our baby to sleep with us if this makes her safer and more serene?
In addition to these two methods that everyone can try in the way that most consider appropriate, there are some small actions that are valid for all children and can help them fall asleep:
Make sure that the temperature of the room where they sleep is around 20º.
- Put some of your clothes in their bed, so they can smell you.
- Stop giving them stimuli at least an hour before putting them to sleep.
- Do not cover them too much.
- Try to create a ritual: for example, they saying goodbye to their little brothers, their bears, you singing them a song…