If you are a parent of a newborn, chances are you are struggling to get your newborn to sleep. But there are some effective methods, which you can follow in order to help your baby sleep with minimum hassle. Here are a few useful tips, which are available for you to consider. Any parent who is looking for methods on how to get a newborn to sleep can try out these methods and end up with positive results.
1. Follow the Eat/Wake/Sleep Cycle
There is an Eat/Walke/Sleep cycle followed by your newborn baby. If you want to get your newborn to sleep with minimum frustration, you need to get to know this cycle. Then you will be able to understand the daily habits of your child and make appropriate arrangements to put him to sleep.
Keep your baby awake while they feed. I also recommend playing with them a bit after. Milk gives them a burst of energy that they need to burn off before they will be able to sleep again.
Don’t let them fall asleep while feeding your newborn. It is almost guaranteed that they will wake up a few minutes later.
Getting to know this cycle will not just help you when you are putting your baby to sleep, but it will also keep them asleep longer!
2. Use white noise
Using white noise is a proven method, which you can try when you are trying to get your newborn to sleep with minimum hassle. You can easily do this with the help of a fan. You just need to get a fan installed in the room of your baby.
However, you need to make sure that the wind doesn’t blow directly on the little one. The fan should not be too close to the sensitive ears of your newborn as well. You just need to place the fan on a medium pointed away from the child, so that you are creating the white noise, which will help the baby sleep.
3. Limit the length of daytime naps
Most parents of newborns find it difficult to get their newborn babies to go to sleep at night. That’s mainly because their newborn babies tend to sleep a lot during the daytime. It is perfectly fine for you to allow your newborn baby to sleep during the daytime. But you need to be careful enough to limit the length of all the daytime naps. This will be a great tip available for the parents who are looking for the most effective methods to get their newborn baby to sleep.
You need to keep an eye on your baby and see whether he/she sleeps beyond the 2-hour mark. If you notice it, you need to go ahead and wake up your baby. Then you can feed your newborn and keep him awake for a bit more. Then you can lay him down to allow him to get another nap. The maximum length that you should allow your newborn to sleep should be 2 and a half hours.
Then you will not have to struggle too much to get your newborn to sleep during the night time.
4. Figure out how your newborn baby sleeps
When you are putting a baby to sleep, you should have a clear understanding of how they sleep. This is another great strategy available for you to follow and make sure that your baby goes to sleep within a short period of time at night.
Just like you are limiting the length of the daytime naps, you should also be careful not to keep the baby awake during the daytime for long stretches. If you do that, your baby can easily get tired. Hence, you need to balance the sleep and wake up times, when you are trying to overcome frustration linked with putting the baby to sleep at night.
5. Dangers of Conventional Sleeping Techniques
Some of the conventional sleeping techniques are actually very dangerous and can cause children to have anxiety issues in their teens. I watched this video by Baby Sleep Miracle about the many physical and psychological dangers that many conventional sleeping methods have on a child.