Your baby will sleep most comfortably in a room heated to between 16 degrees C and 20 degrees C. But, during hot periods the temperature in your baby’s room may be hotter than this.
Here are 10 quick tips for keeping your baby cool and comfortable while he sleeps:
Try these tips to help your baby get enough sleep during the day:
Establish a routine
A routine helps your baby to know what to expect. It also encourages you to work out at what time of the day your child is usually tired, hungry or wanting to play. You don’t need to be rigid and watch the clock, but having some things happen at roughly the same time every day may help keep you and your baby on track. Continue reading “If your baby does not want to sleep” »
On average, babies under three months sleep twice as much as their parents, but half of this will be in the daytime.
Young babies do not take all this sleep in one long stretch, though, because they need to wake up for feeds. Up to three months, babies sleep in sleep-wake cycles through the day, with longer spells at night.
The length of these cycles varies greatly from baby to baby, but on average your baby will sleep for blocks of about two hours in the day, and four to six hours at night. Continue reading “The phases of your baby’s sleep” »
Some parents report that their baby develops a temperature or diarrhoea just before a tooth breaks through, but it’s unlikely that teething causes these conditions, so treat them separately and always see your doctor if you’re worried.
You may, but, find that your baby gets a red rash on her chin and lower lip from all the dribbling. Gently wipe the dribble off with a soft cotton cloth, making sure that you don’t rub. Smoothing a barrier cream such as petroleum jelly on her chin at bedtime and before she goes out will help to protect her skin from getting sore. Continue reading “Teething pain has disrupted my baby’s sleep” »
All babies wake up a number of times throughout the night. Most just doze off again. If you regularly feed your baby to sleep, but, he’ll need that same cue to help him drop off. This is right whether your baby sleeps in a cot or shares your bed. Although it may be much simpler to breastfeed during the night if you and your baby are co-sleeping, it will result in more middle-of-the-night awakenings for both of you.
Breastfed babies take longer than formula-fed babies to develop a pattern of sleeping through the night. This is because breastmilk is simpler to digest than formula milk, so babies get hungry more quickly and wake more often. Continue reading “Feeding your baby to sleep” »
Cry it out simply refers to any sleep-training approach that says it’s fine to let a baby cry for a specified, usually small, period of time before offering comfort.
The theory goes that without a rewarding response to his cries, a baby learns that it’s not worth the distress to cry so hard.
Most babies should be sleeping through the night by the time they are three or four months old. Continue reading “Should we let our baby cry it out?” »
Buying a new cot: It means that:
Using a second-hand cot: If don’t want to pay for a groundbreaking new cot, or maybe a relative or friend has passed on a used cot to you, you’ll need to check it’s safe for your baby. Continue reading “Safe sleep environment for your baby” »
You can use your cot from the day your baby is born, if you like. But, many parents choose a Moses basket, crib or carrycot for the first few months, or have their babies in the same bed as them. This is often because a newborn baby can look and feel a small lost in a huge cot.
Cots can be expensive, so you might want to reckon about buying one second-hand. They come in many shapes and sizes, including corner shaped to sit neatly in the corner of your baby’s room. Oval shaped cots can often be converted into a junior bed, chairs or even a sofa, later on. Continue reading “Choose a cot” »
