In the next part of this series, we’re going to take a look at some of the best ways to overcome a restless night’s sleep for your baby. We’ll be examining everything from making sure the sleep environment is just right, to looking at any tips you can put into place before your little one has nodded off to ensure their sleep is as uninterrupted as possible.
First and foremost, we’re going to look at the sleep environment of your baby, this specifically refers to both the lighting and temperature in the room. When it comes to temperature, there’s lots of great advice out there about what is the best temperature to keep the room at overnight. But what we want to focus on is what happens around 3am, this is when your baby’s body clock naturally drops in temperature.
Often when baby wakes up at this time, they are sometimes slightly chilly, even if the room temperature is the same as when you put them down to sleep. So if you find that is happening, you can give your little one an extra layer at this point to see if that helps them settle.
As well as this, it’s important to keep the room nice and dark as that helps to promote melatonin, which is the sleep hormone that’s produced in the brain and released into the bloodstream during sleep.
Where possible, it’s recommended that you use blackout curtains or blinds, especially if you find that the light is seeping into your room early in the morning. Another thing to add is to be mindful while using your phone in the middle of the night during a feed for example. The blue light your phone emites helps to increase the levels of cortisol in your baby which will reduce the quality of their sleep.
Another contributing factor to your baby’s night time routine is how much sleep they’re getting during the day. There is definitely a correlation between the quality of sleep that’s had during the day and the quality of sleep at night - this is where the sleep tracking data Owlet provides becomes so useful.
Having that kind of data to hand means you can start working with a sleep consultant, use a baby book, or do further research online to then compare what your little one’s sleep patterns are looking like and track any changes easily.
It’s very common - especially in the earlier stages of development - that your baby will be a “noisy” sleeper. It’s equally common for parents to react to these noises and go straight to their babies when they hear them, although sometimes your baby just needs a bit of time to resettle. This is where the reassurance of Owlet is vital, as it provides parents with the safety net of knowledge that nothing serious has changed unless they have been notified.
These sleep noises could be down to a number of things, from passing a bit of wind to just getting used to digesting from their most recent feed. A couple of tips preventing some of the possible sleep noises: first of all, after you’ve finished the night time feed, make sure you get that extra burp out. You can also hold your baby upright for about 20 minutes post-feed to allow extra time for digestion.
