Removing Yourself from Baby’s Sleep Routine
So, perhaps that is a bit of a misleading title.
I am not suggesting that you can remove yourself from your baby’s bedtime routine altogether. “Alright. It’s almost bedtime. Go have a bath, brush your teeth, get into your PJs, read yourself a story and tuck yourself in. Mommy will be out here if you need me.”
Even if we could pull that off, I do not know a single mother that would actually enjoy removing themselves from the routine. (Well, maybe once a week.)
Most moms love putting their kids to bed. Watching them play in the bath, getting them dressed in their warm, fuzzy pajamas, cuddling and reading stories, we would not trade that for all the alone time in the world.
But the issue that I see with most parents whose babies will not sleep through the night takes place after their little one gets into bed.
Specifically, the problem stems from when a parent gets into bed with their child in order to help them fall asleep, and here’s why:
When you crawl into bed with your little one, they will almost always want to cuddle up to you in some manner. Even if it is just the slightest touch, they rely on the sensation of feeling you next to them in order to soothe themselves to sleep.
The problem with this arrangement is that babies, like their adult counterparts, do not just fall asleep and stay asleep for eight or ten hours. We all sleep in cycles, which transition from a stage of light sleep to one of deep sleep, and back again.
When adults wake from one of these cycles, we typically do not even remember it happening the next day, because we are barely awake for a minute or two before we fall back to sleep. We can do that easily because we are good at it. We know how to get back to sleep on our own.
But if baby is accustomed to falling asleep next to a parent, with the reassuring ability to reach out and touch that parent, then what are they supposed to do when they wake up after a sleep cycle and that parent is nowhere to be found?
Well, as I am sure everyone knows, when babies want their parents, they cry.
They cry until a parent shows up and gets back into that familiar spot, which baby recognizes as a cue to go to sleep.
So that is the reason why you will so often hear parents say some version of: “My baby absolutely won’t go to sleep without me next to her.” It is not because they need the reassurance that they are safe, or that your presence is necessarily calming to them, it is just part of their routine that they follow to get to sleep.
So what is the solution?
Well, you could co-sleep, so your baby can reach out and touch you every time she wakes up, but if you are reading this, I am guessing you have already given that a go, and found it is not the solution you had hoped for.
Or, and this suggestion comes with a much higher recommendation, you can let them learn some independent sleep skills which they can call on anytime they wake up, in order to get back to sleep all on their own.
I know that might sound like a tall order for a baby, but I am not suggesting anything too challenging, and you will be surprised at how quickly they adapt to new strategies for getting to sleep. Stroking a lovey, chewing on a blanket, or even just playing with their own fingers and toes can be effective little methods for making the transition into sleep, and the best part is, they can be done anytime baby wakes up, whatever time of the day or night.
