Gone are the tips to put a baby to sleep by letting him cry (fortunately). You already know the bad emotional consequences that not feeling calm, loved and comforted can bring for a baby. Just as we educate and show love to our children will affect all their psychological and emotional development. Let's see how to teach your baby to sleep alone.
Co-sleeping or not
The fact of making use of co-sleeping or not, it is a decision of each family that must be respected. If you want to make use of it, it will be fine and if not too. There is no need to judge or punish these decisions since there is nothing at hand either in one option or the other.
But if you were co-sleeping and you think that the time has come for your baby to sleep alone or you have tried but cannot, we leave you some tips recommended by experts to get you your baby sleep alone. What works for some children does not have to work for others, you will have to try and discard until you find what works best for your baby.
How to teach your baby to sleep alone?
Children tend to wake up many times at night for various reasons: discomfort, thirst, hunger, need for affection ... And what we will try is that these awakenings are the least possible or at least that they go back to sleep alone.
The first thing we should see is what is the ritual to fall asleep that the baby has. Does he fall asleep in your arms? Do you have the pacifier on? Any secondary lights on? Observe what are the conditions under which your child falls asleep. When you wake up, what you are looking for to be able to calm down and go back to sleep is only to have the same conditions you had before falling asleep.
That is, if he fell asleep in your arms he will want to return to them, if he had a light on and woke up in the dark he will cry, if he had the pacifier on and lost it he will want to get it back ... If your parents are involved in your routine, you will call for them to go back to sleep. Then the class would change those routines for others where the parents are not included, so that he can self-regulate and go back to sleep alone.
This change has to be progressive, do not expect it to work from one day to the next. There has to be an adaptation and assimilation on the part of the baby so that it integrates it and neither the child nor the parents have a bad time. If your decision is to return to work, try to start earlier so that the child can adjust to the new change.
How can we change routines
Children need some good sleep routines. They also include previous actions, such as a relaxing bath, a massage and a story. Thus, children associate that after this act, they then fall asleep.
Some experts recommend that if your baby or bottle is still breastfeeding, you give it to him as always and when you see the first signs of sleep, hold him in your arms. When he's calm (not asleep) put him in his crib. If he gets angry or cries, they recommend picking him up again, cradling him and putting him back in his crib before going to sleep. So over and over again until he falls asleep. Sometimes it will be the first and others at 15. The point is that your son do not fall asleep in your arms so as not to associate it with your routine.
Another tip is give him a garment that smells like you. Babies have a very developed sense of smell and your smell will calm them if they wake up. It is not recommended to use a pacifier if you have not used it before. It is introducing a new element that will further complicate the equation. It is better to use the already known elements so as not to complicate it more.
Because remember ... the choice to sleep with your baby or not is yours. Everyone knows their circumstances and how they want to raise their children.