Becoming a parent is a special experience.You welcome a whole bundle of love and joy in your life. While it is exciting and gleeful, it also brings a bunch of responsibilities. These start with sacrifice of your sleep because of the multiple trips to your baby’s cradle to put them back to sleep. Sleep deprivation can be a major problem for both adults as well as the toddlers. But there are several ways you can ensure a sound sleep for your little one and thus for yourself.
Here are a few of them:
Find The Reason
There can be multiple reasons behind your baby’s night waking. To find the best suited solution, you should first find the reason behind it. If the problem isn’t overt, you can use the ‘try and eliminate’ approach. Overt problems like wet diaper or empty stomach can be solved easily. However, there can be other covert problems like separation issues or sleep time anxiety which need careful handling and customized solutions.
Ensure Enough Activity During The Day
A major reason behind kids not sleeping on time can be excess energy at bedtime. This may be because of lack of energy demanding activities in their day schedule. Make sure their day is filled with some tiring activities and not just laying around the house all day long.
Find An Ideal Bedtime For Your Baby
Every kid is different and so are their needs. Thus, you need to find an ideal bedtime for your kid and not just follow a standard rule. Some kids need more sleep than others. Thus, forcing your kid to sleep may not work as wonderfully as one might think.
Strict “No Gadgets Before Bed” Rule
A major reason for lack of sleep for almost every age group is excess use of gadgets and digital devices like phones and tablets right before bed. The light emitting from such screens doesn’t let the brain release melatonin, the hormone responsible for inducing sleep, and thus disturbs the normal sleep cycle. You can ensure a better sleep by putting such devices away at least an hour before bedtime and engage in other activities like story telling or discussing about the day.
Calming Instrumental Music
A lot of kids find it difficult to calm down at night and thus find it difficult to fall asleep. In such cases, calming lullabies or instrumental music can work wonders. Such music can also reduce night waking considerably as well as help in sleep time anxiety.
Soothing Sleep Time Associations
Many kids associate sleep time with different things like one of their toys or gentle pats or any such activity. Ensuring the presence of such things or repetition of such activities can soothe them and help put them to sleep.
While a sound sleep is very important for kids to be energetic all day, it also ensures a healthy sleep cycle for them which will help them life long. Moreover, a good sleep for kids means a good sleep for parents, which is necessary because parenting is tiring and attention demanding which isn’t possible with sleep deprivation.
