Teaching your baby healthy sleeping habits is the earliest and most essential thing that new parents can do to help their children grow up to be healthy and successful adults, says Dr. Daniel Golshevsky.
Those habits, known as “sleep hygiene,” help babies get the deep and consistent sleep they need for healthy physical, mental and emotional development, says Golshevsky, a Melbourne, Australia-based pediatrician and bestselling author of “Your Baby Doesn’t Come With a Book.”
“You can change your sleep habits at any age,” says Golshevsky, who goes by “Dr. Golly” on social media. “But, without question, the easiest time to change sleep habits is to … set up the foundation from the newborn [stage]. That’s where sleep hygiene and preparation becomes key.”
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Healthy sleep habits are linked to babies’ cognitive development and mental health and older kids’ ability to learn, concentrate and regulate their emotions — helping them develop the resilience they’ll need to eventually navigate life’s ups and downs as adults.
Adults who have trouble sleeping or don’t maintain healthy sleeping habits can often trace those issues back to their first few months of life, says Golshevky. “It almost always starts in infancy,” he says, adding: “There’s no question that the easiest time to [instill] these habits is with a newborn baby.”
As much as new parents stress over their babies’ sleeping schedules — and their own lack of sleep — helping newborns learn healthy habits “doesn’t have to be terribly complicated,” Golshevsky says. In his book, he suggests several sleep hygiene techniques:
Avoid ‘absolute’ silence and stillness
Your baby recently spent nine cozy months in a dark, warm place filled with the rhythmic, low-frequency sounds of their mother’s heartbeat. Recreating that environment can include placing babies in a warm, dark space, wrapping them in a swaddle “designed to envelop them in a tight hug,” and using a white-noise machine, Golshevsky says.
If your baby is having trouble settling, you can slowly walk them around the room and gently pat their back — “just a tap,” he says — once per second to match a relaxed heart-rate. “Babies are not used to absolute silence and they’re not used to being still, so moving around is really important,” says Golshevsky.
When possible, get both parents involved
When a baby is crying instead of sleeping, a parent who’s breastfeeding will likely react by trying to feed them, due to the hormones coursing through their body, Golshevsky says. But that’s not always the best approach, particularly when the baby’s stomach is already full.
Instead, have a non-breastfeeding caretaker take charge of the post-feeding settling process, recommends Golshevksy. They’ll be more likely to try other methods beyond additional feeding, and the baby won’t get distracted by being close to their “food source,” he says.
“If that baby wakes up and it’s not due for a feed, Dad is going to be able to settle that baby again, going through that mental checklist,” says Golshevsky. “And Mom, with her ear plugs, should be sleeping through it.”
Make sure your baby is well-fed and burped
A full stomach can help a baby fall asleep more easily, but if their meal creates any trapped gas in their system, the discomfort might wake them up too early, says Golshevsky. Try burping them or using another technique to help release that gas and ward off those sleep disturbances, he recommends.
Create a routine, but be flexible
Sticking to a routine can help create and maintain healthy sleeping habits, Golshevksy says. But babies aren’t always predictable: You might put them down to sleep every three or four hours, and one day, they wake up after just one hour.
When that happens, don’t panic. Instead, go through a mental checklist to determine what might’ve roused them, recommends Golshevsky: Are they cold? Gassy? Do they have a dirty diaper?
“Rigid routines [can actually] be an enormous source of stress,” Golshevsky says. “It’s like a noose around your neck [if] your baby’s not doing this routine … You start to doubt yourself. And when you doubt yourself, your baby drinks that up, and then they become more unsettled [by your stress].”
Figure out what works for you and your child, and tailor your approach to those findings, he advises: Doing so can can help set them up for sound sleeping that will benefit them as children and adults.
“That old adage of teaching a man to fish so that he can eat for a lifetime, that is the key here,” Golshevsky says. “You’ve got to learn to interpret your baby’s cues. You find out how you can settle your baby, because there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all routine.”
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