Teach Your Child To Sleep All Night

Do you want to teach your child to sleep? It is not realistic to expect a baby to sleep through the night. It is perfectly normal for a baby to wake up several times during the night. Many parents want their child to sleep through the night, but not even adults sleep through the night.

Adults’ sleep cycle does not allow them to sleep through the night, but when they wake up, they usually go back to sleep. A baby can spend 17 hours sleeping every day, which includes periods when they wake up. There is not much you can teach them about sleeping. They are really good for sleeping!

See also: Soothe your baby’s colic with these four home remedies

What should we know about how children sleep?

Sleep is a natural process in all people. In the newborn brain, the sleep cycle lasts 2 to 3 hours. The point is, when the baby wakes up, it’s hard to get them to fall asleep again and they cry.

During the 9 months they have spent in the womb, they have spent a great deal of time sleeping. They alternated between this and getting nourishment through the name string. When they woke up, they could hear their mother’s heartbeat and voice and then quickly fell asleep again. When they are born, they literally wake up.

Newborns wake up, cry, eat and then fall asleep again. This is how they spend their days. If a baby gets breast milk, it takes about 20 minutes to digest it. If they get milk substitute, it takes about 2 hours to digest it. Then they wake up again and the cycle starts all over again.

My baby used to sleep but doesn’t do it anymore

In the first two months of the baby’s life, the sleep tends to be deeper, but  after the third or fourth month, the sleep becomes easier. This is when the baby wakes up several times each night. Many mothers blame themselves for not teaching their child to sleep all night. In fact, this sleep pattern is quite normal in babies as they mature in their sleep cycle.

When the baby is 8 months old, it has acquired all the phases of sleep (the four phases of deep sleep and the phase of light sleep.) When the baby is 3 years old, its sleep is like that of an adult, except that it still does not sleep for long periods at a time, just as adults do. It is not until the age of 5 or 6 that the child overcomes all the problems of sleeping through the night. With it is not difficult to teach your child to sleep.

How do you teach your child to sleep all night long?

It is quite normal for parents to ask themselves if something is wrong when their child does not want to sleep and instead cries. However, an atmosphere full of worry, anxiety and tension is the worst situation to teach your child to sleep through the night without waking up.

There are the Ferber and Estivill methods which recommend that you let the baby cry until it calms down again. Results are that after your child has cried for a long time, it will fall asleep out of exhaustion of waiting for attention. You have to decide if this is the way you want to do it.

Expert advice

According to Dr. Rosa Jove, author of  Sleep Without Tears ,  can cause emotional shock and make your baby cry. It changes the hormones that regulate the baby’s emotions. It also teaches the child that there is no point in crying, because mother does not come and help anyway.

The pediatrician, Carlos Ganzález, is the author of the books  Kiss Me Much and How to Raise Your Child With Love. He explains that  when a baby wakes up and cries for his parents, it obviously hopes that they will come after it. If the child’s parents respond, the child learns that there are answers to his needs.

Still, he encourages parents to reduce their contact with the child and not always comfort the child, as this can also have bad effects. It is perfectly normal for children to wake up during the night and have help to  fall asleep again.

How to help your child

After your child is waking up many times during the night, you are tired. Therefore, you want to do something that can help both you and the little one. We know that it is not easy to be calm. If you agree with the ethical upbringing methods, you also know that it is not an option to let the child cry.

The common recommendation is to be  patient and wait for your baby to mature and its sleep cycle to develop. Even if you are told that a certain method works for some children, it is not certain that those children are like your child. Your daily life with your child will show you what works for both of you.

Fixed routines and methods that teach your child to sleep

However, it helps to have some regular routines that help calm your child when he needs to sleep. And that also helps you teach your child to sleep through the night. Among these are:

• Give the child a bath before bedtime.
• Avoid toys and bright disturbances over the crib, as they can keep the baby awake.
• If the child is over 2 years old and watching TV or using tablets, this should be limited to one hour a day.
• When a baby is overtired, it can be difficult to get it to sleep. Therefore, it is a good idea to let the child take a nap from time to time.
• If the child does not like darkness, leave a lamp with dim light.
• Do not scold just before bedtime and do not use bedtime as punishment. This gives the child bad associations with bedtime.
• Have a ritual when the child goes to bed. You can sing a song, read a story or talk a little with the child.

The style and methods parents decide to bring up their child from is entirely their decision. Still, we insist on respecting each child’s cycles and quirks. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that what works for one child does not necessarily work for another.

Your baby will not remain a baby. The sleepless nights for parents are part of watching a child mature and grow. Have patience and very soon it’s over. What is a problem today will be over tomorrow. You will have time to relax in the future.