Experiencing trouble getting your baby to sleep?
You can learn a lot from analyzing your babies, including sleep, behavior, pattern, and behavioral response.
First, all parents experience difficulties during the baby period, especially if it's your first kid.
Secondly, it's important to understand is that newborns need to be programmed; they are not equipped with knowledge of how everything should be synchronized.
That's your important task — You are their master clock.
What can work as a self-motivator? At least for my wife and me, this worked, and we have four kids, of which the last two are twins.
"Set your aim at adjusting your baby's sleep and schedule accordingly, and make it a sport to get your kids to sleep as well as possible."
In earlier posts, I've told about the SCN (Suprachiasmatic Nucleus or master clock), a brief sketch; this is a cross-section of neurons located behind your eyeballs.
This clock mechanism synchronizes your other organic clocks within the body.
In babies, this is not fully operational yet; babies can't produce melatonin yet or are at least not good enough at first, so that is why it's of great importance that you take over that role as well as possible.
But preferably better since they require sleep periods during the day as well.
It's extremely important to associate darkness with sleep. Other associations can help; I'll explain further in this post.
Here Are Some Of The Most Familiar Problems:
Acidic Reflux
This is a well-known problem in babies, and even adults experience this hidden snake of a problem. Because babies must be fed so frequently, they always go to sleep with a full stomach; it's almost inevitable.
If possible, you could try to leave a couple of minutes between the bottle and sleep. When they are put to bed, it's wise to have them in a slightly inclined angle to prevent most of the acid reflux from coming up and irritating them.
Frankly, the same advice counts for adults. And they can make sure they don't eat for a couple of hours before attending bed.
Further, you could blend their milk with acidic lowering milk variations.
Rhythm
Chronobiology teaches us that rhythm is important.
Having a consistent rhythm is somewhat the best health advice there is; it makes your body operate at its best. Babies will benefit largely from this. Since they don't have a rhythm programmed to rely on, they'll follow your rhythm.
At least if you have a rhythm, the more chaos your lifestyle is, the worse your baby will sleep. At least it will be a great receipt to run into sleep problems.
Pro tip:
As a parent, you are missing out on sleep too, and if you aren't running optimally, you can't hand over a great confident feeling to your kids.
On paper, it's a piece of cake, no matter what everyone tells you.
On average, a baby requires 16 to 18 hours of sleep in the beginning. This equals 16 sleep cycles (babies' sleep cycles are only 60 minutes), making it easier not to confuse hours and cycles.
On average, adult men require five full sleep cycles (7.5–9 hours), and women will do better completing six sleep cycles.
Your hormones follow circadian rhythms, so you want to adjust your daily rhythm to something consistent.
Some believe that the better you perform this task by getting your baby into a great rhythm, the better you'll set them up for later in life.
Perhaps in this early phase of life, some adults have acquired their sleep problems already?
Temperature
Chronobiology tells us that rhythm is important, but perhaps temperature is as important as rhythm.
The temperature in biology is known for its clock allures.
So, knowing this means you can play with temperature to trigger sleep.
A cold room and ventilated room are of great importance for sleep. Make sure that this is the environment where you lay your baby to sleep. Doing this will have you eliminating most of the problems already.
The room temperature can be quite low if babies are tufted in well.
There a Belgium daycare often uses the temperature trick and has babies sleeping outside (Not all parents are a big fan of it, mainly because they aren't fully aware of the biological aspects)
One can argue about what's appropriate or not. Still, there is no denying the effects of temperature. And babies are more sensitive than grown-ups, so their setup needs to be perfect to sleep well.
The temperature of babies' milk is also of great importance.
Food timing
Knowing that chronobiology listens to rhythm and temperature, there is another great aspect here.
Something is operating independently.
"The liver clock."
Make sure feeding times are strictly timed; it will save you a lot of hassle and contributes to great sleep for your baby.
When there is light regulating sensory input to rely on, the body needs to seek another reference point, especially during the early start of life; the liver clock will be a great reference. Abuse it to your needs and trigger your baby to sleep.
Pro tip:
Tough, strict feeding times will also enable breast milk production in the mother because the circadian rhythm hormone production will respond to. Additionally, stimulation and a relaxed mindset will do the trick.
Nutrients
Appropriate nutrition and hydration contribute to a well-regulating sleep mechanism. Make sure that electrolyte and vitamin levels are covered (I'm not digging into this, for babies, you'll need a nutritional advisor.)
One thing to consider is perhaps knowing that depending on your location on earth, certain source nutrients are more depleted than in other parts of the world; you might want to pay attention and see if this can help.
Women who breastfeed, what's preferable, of course, will need to pay attention to their own food pallets and ensure they have what they need. What I can point out is that calcium and magnesium deficiency often occurs. (But be careful and never over supplement with these too, more than 400mg of magnesium can even lead to strokes! Better perform bloodwork to make sure whether you are deficient or not.)
Perhaps you want to know more about how important food is for your sleep, then check this post:
Associations
As mentioned, babies are more sensitive; they absorb their environment much more intensely, and therefore, unpleasant or unwanted items, smells, temperatures, lights, noises, etc. could interfere with their sleep.
Everyone is genetically preset.
Genotype if you want.
At birth, you have a certain preferenced base DNA code that makes you you.
This can change along the course of life, which is called epigenetics. Babies don't have this epigenetic layer yet, so it's wise to analyze your child's behavior early on and see the response to what they like and dislike.
The same room, the same direction of the bed, a diffuser, a small light, music trigger. It can all influence and help or work against.
If your baby is leaning more towards the introverted spectrum, for instance, you'll find that this kid will most probably not benefit from much noise or music. An extroverted baby, on the other hand, could benefit well from sleep from that distraction.
To sketch you our twin image,
We have twins, and they don't sleep in exact synchronization with each other. What do we do?
We don't separate them; they sleep in the same room. They can sense each other.
When one is up earlier, we take that kid out of the room straight away so they don't wake each other up. We found that the best thing to do is to keep them as much as possible together but treat them as their unique genotypes.
During the day also, feeding times often differ from one another. We don't try to schedule them toward the same rhythm; they slightly differ.
How do you prioritize your sleep so it doesn't interfere with your child's sleep?
Something I used to do was napping during the moments just to put the babies to bed. This during the day, now you'll say I can't do that.
Look, there is always a bit of time as long as you commit to it. Even if it's only a 10-minute nap, blend it in, don't neglect this. If you prioritize these, it can save your but later that week or month.
"Don't underestimate what the power of closing your eyes does to your brain."
Let's say you can close your eyes, meditate if you want, and do that twice or perhaps three times a day.
That's a half hour of balancing your senses. Take it before it gets taken from you. Synchronize your naps to the sleep of your baby.
How To Make Your Baby Sleep Better Within As Short As Possible Time?
"Set your aim at adjusting your baby's sleep and schedule accordingly, and make it a sport to get your kids to sleep as well as possible."
By focussing on the following elements and applying your own creative solutions to them:
- Understand that you are their master clock. So the melatonin route won't work in the early phase of life.
- Make sure the sleep slightly inclined to avoid or counter the acidic reflux
- Optimal nutrition for kid and mother, preferably breastfeeding
- Trigger them to sleep by timing bottle-time
- Play with temperature
- Sensoric associations
- Have a rhythm
My subheader was A lie, my apologies for that.
There isn't a manual for babies.
But there are a few basic elements that you, as a parent, want to have integrated into your system, eliminating most of the hassle, doubt, and infinite seeking.
Those basics:
- Make sure the baby is well diapered (When they become awake, this could be the only problem, so once that's done, they might just sleep back in.)
- Make sure your house and social interaction have a positive vibe
- Kuddle and tough before sleep (Touching triggers oxytocin which induces sleep)
- The might pacifier. The pacifier is great for learning nasal breathing early in life (Perhaps some grown-ups would do great with a pacifier.)
- When a baby doesn't want to sleep, take it out of its bed, destress the crying, walk around and disassociate from the environment for a few minutes, and attend to their sleep environment back when they are calm.
Oh, and don't forget the make it a sport to get your baby to sleep as well as possible in as short as possible time. Doing this by with these tricks.
I am not an expert in any field.
We are not perfect parents.
We don't have the perfect sleeping kids.
Telling you this merely from what we've learned to try and save new parents some hassle and a lot of time.
One thing I can tell is that we saw a lot of improvements in how our babies slept by applying the elements addressed in this post.
And if you are still struggling to acquire great sleep, this might help you out:
Absorb, Read, Write, Sleep, Exercise, Thrive!
Thanks for reading this post! Make your baby sleep better and focus on your own sleep too.
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