Babies and sleep

Sleep! Many new parents would do anything to get even a little more. All babies are different, but the ideas below may help you. Put simply, it depends on you providing your baby with a routine; a restful sleeping environment; and above all, lots of loving cuddles, touching, and talking.

Helpful tips

• Begin bedtime rituals right from the start – for example, gentle kisses and cuddles, bathing, pyjamas, a feed, dim lights, soft music, baby massage.
• Have one restful place for sleep. Keep this place the same, and make sure you don't need to stay in it. Your baby will soon learn that going down in their cot, maybe with a familiar wrapping or gentle music, means it's time for sleep.
  
• Put them down when they're drowsy but not already asleep, so they learn to settle on their own.
• Help them learn that darkness means sleep. When you feed or change them at night, stay quiet, keep lights dim, and don't linger.
• Some newborns are more secure, and calm, when wrapped.
• Most babies can sleep through normal household noise so don't stress about keeping quiet.

Plunket offers more on sleep: The_Early_Weeks.pdf