Help Your Baby to Sleep

Sleep Associations

As the name suggests, ‘sleep associations’ are the things your baby associates with going to sleep. The fact is that, whatever your baby is used to when he falls asleep in the evening, he may need again to get himself back to sleep if he wakes in the night.

Babies are incredibly adaptable – if you always sheared sheep in your baby’s bedroom whenever you wanted him to sleep, he would still sleep – he would just learn to associate sleep with the sound of bleating and sheep clippers. And you’d have to be ready to fleece another from your flock each time he woke at night. Most parents find that a teddy and a goodnight kiss work just as well.

After the first few months of life, a baby who routinely falls asleep on his own in a room that is fairly dark and quiet will recognize the same conditions when he wakes for the average five times a night – and so be able to return himself to sleep without needing you. Some parents start a routine earlier than others:

‘James and Richard have both slept well from the beginning. I put it down to some advice I had at the start. The first night home with James I didn’t get a bit of sleep, and then there was a knock at the door and it was the midwife. “Stick him on,” she said. “Hmm, he’s just using you as a dummy. Put him down. Go and play some music that you like.” We were a bit hesitant but did as we were told. It was the best advice I’ve ever had. He cried for ten minutes and then went to sleep. The midwife said, “When he’s fed and you know he’s satisfied, put him down.” He slept through the night by the time he was six weeks old. It was the same with Richard.’

Frances and Stuart

On the other hand, a baby who routinely falls asleep in your arms or at your breast will need to find a nipple and someone to hold him at night to do the same. Many parents who prefer this way of saying goodnight to their baby are also happy to share their beds with them, so that they can easily recreate the evening’s sleeping conditions:

‘In the evening I undress Sophie, sometimes she has a shower or a bath and then we lie down in bed, read a story and then she holds my breast and falls asleep. I’ve had her in bed with me since birth. I did the same with Sam and Rosie when they were smaller too.’

Clare, mother of Sam, eight, Rosie, five, and Sophie, two-and-a-half

But if you like your bed to yourself, it’s counterproductive to lull your baby to sleep in the evening with a feed or a cuddle – because you’ll probably spend a lot of the night in his bedroom doing the same thing again. If you want to spend your nights in your own bed with only adult company, sooner or later you’ll have to get your baby to go into his cot awake and alone in the evening.

Sleep associations can take a while to learn. Especially in the early days, it may be difficult to identify a strategy that works. Sometimes, putting him in his cot and leaving him to it makes him nod off and at other times he can remain determinedly awake through all 25 verses of ‘Oh my darling, Clementine’. Still, it is worth persisting with a structured bedtime formula that you like because eventually your baby will find the predictability of the formula reassuring and relaxing.

Safe Sleeping

The possibility of cot death worries many of us. But there are things that research has shown help to prevent it. Making sure we follow the recommended advice may help to put our minds at rest.

Many parents buy a baby monitor so that they can hear when their baby cries. These are a good idea, especially when your baby sleeps out of ear-shot. But there’s another sort of device called a ‘breathing monitor’ which is designed to sound only when your baby stops breathing. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths recommends that you only buy one of these breathing monitors if your baby has problems breathing. Talk to your doctor or health visitor before buying this type of monitor. In tests, parents found that breathing monitors tended to sound when there was no problem with the baby – making them more anxious rather than less. Parents also tend to check their baby less often when there is an alarm in the room, which means that they may not pick up the other predictor of cot death – that their baby is too hot.

Babies of less than four months old are less able to adapt to swings in temperature than the rest of us and need help to keep a steady temperature. Overheating can lead to cot death. So don’t use any bedclothes that make it difficult to regulate your baby’s body heat. Duvets and lambswool fleeces are out, but sheets and blankets are in. Babies regulate their temperature by losing heat from their heads so don’t dress him in a hat to sleep. Your baby can also wriggle his head under a cot bumper, soft toy or pillow, so it’s best not to put any of these into the cot until he is one year old.

‘We worried about having the duvet on our bed and that she would overheat but we’d move the pillow out of the bed and there would be an air space between us.’

Sally, mother of Laura and Annie

Other co-sleeping parents regulate their babies’ temperature by swopping their duvets for sheets and blankets and dressing their baby in fewer clothes.

The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths recommends:

• Laying your baby on his back to sleep (he is not more likely to choke).

• Don’t allow anyone to smoke near your baby or in the house.

• Keep your baby’s room at about 18°C/64°F.

• Cover him with a sheet and cellular blankets, rather than a duvet. (A folded blanket counts as two.)

• Don’t assume that, because it’s cold outside, your baby will be cold; judge it by feeling him.

• Check your baby by putting your hand inside his babygro and feeling his stomach. If he’s warm, that’s fine. Too cold and add another blanket, too hot and you need to remove one. (Don’t worry if his hands and feet are cold – this is normal.)

• Lie your baby with his feet at the end of the cot so he can’t wriggle down under the covers.

• If your baby seems unwell, seek medical advice early and quickly.

• Have your baby in a cot beside your own bed for the first six months.

If you are a smoker, have taken drugs or are drunk, you should not sleep with your baby in your bed because this increases the risk of cot death.

Cot death is rare, so don’t let it spoil those special first few months with your baby.

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