How to put a child to sleep without motion sickness, how to teach him to fall asleep on his own

Why do children have difficulty falling asleep?

Sleep problems in infants are not associated with spoilage or personality traits. When the body needs rest, children under one year old simply cannot consciously relax and disconnect from surrounding stimuli. Most parents suffer, not knowing how to teach their child to fall asleep on their own without motion sickness, or how to put their child to sleep quickly and without whims. But by accustoming your baby to a schedule, you can reduce children's tantrums and adults' hassle to a minimum. In the evening, the best time to go to bed is from 20:00 to 21:30.

What tricks can you use?

During retraining you need to follow several rules:

start putting the baby to bed at the first signs of drowsiness, without waiting for crying, this way he will relax faster and it will be easier for him to fall asleep without breastfeeding and rocking;
the evening ritual must be followed in the same sequence;
during this period, it is advisable to go to bed at the same time as the baby;
do not rush to the child at the slightest squeak - even babies can fall asleep on their own if they are given this right.

It is recommended to begin the retraining process before bedtime, at which time the child’s body is as ready as possible for rest. During the daytime, he will be able to learn to fall asleep on his own only after falling asleep at night without crying.

Co-sleeping, falling asleep at the breast, motion sickness: benefits and harms

The most popular method of putting a baby to sleep is rocking in your arms, in a cradle, or in a sling. Feeling the warmth and heartbeat of a loved one, babies quickly fall asleep. But mom needs angelic patience to apply the method day after day: if she doesn’t pump enough, she’ll have to start again. But children are still growing quickly, and soon it will take a lot of effort to get motion sickness.

Babies love to fall asleep during meals. The disadvantage of this method is the same as the previous one: as soon as you take the breast and put it in the crib, the baby wakes up. Adherents of co-sleeping have no less problems.

As a rule, one of the parents gives preference to sleeping together and convinces the partner of its necessity. Feeding at night ceases to be a problem, but, fearing to crush a small child, parents themselves are deprived of sleep. The one who succumbed to persuasion begins to be indignant.

The father of the family is sometimes banished to a separate sleeping place. When parents decide to separate the baby, he feels rejected, wakes up more often and is capricious.

Families have the right to choose any style of placement, but must be prepared for a challenge. Isn’t it better to immediately build the right behavioral tactics and simplify your life? Experts and parents of large families know how to put a baby to sleep without motion sickness, and are happy to share their experience.

Photo source: shutterstock.com

Can I take my child into my bed?

There is debate about whether it is possible to take a child into your bed to help him fall asleep faster. Of course, in this case, the child will get used to falling asleep in bed faster, but when making a decision, you need to pay attention to your own sleep pattern. If you sleep peacefully and do not toss and turn in your sleep, but wake up to turn over to the other side, you can safely sleep with your baby in the same bed. If you sleep restlessly, toss and turn a lot in your sleep, etc., it is better to leave your newborn in a separate crib. Place the beds nearby so you can reach out to your baby and calm him down.

If, after numerous tricks, you still fail to instill new rules for falling asleep in your baby, you should contact a child consultant. Based on observations of the child, a specialist will help identify possible problems and eliminate them.

How to put a baby to sleep between 6 and 12 months?

At 6 months, a baby sleeps 17-18 hours a day, and a 9-month-old baby sleeps 15-16 hours. At this age, the methods listed above work, but the following three can be used if the child does not fall asleep:

Sleepy ritual The main thing in the method is consistency. For it to work, stick to the same actions every day before going to bed: sing a lullaby, read a book, talk in a calm voice about the past day. Babies love to know what will happen next. Anticipating further events, they fall asleep without sleepiness faster and without tears.
Falling asleep alone When you notice the first signs of fatigue, transfer your baby to bed. As soon as he calms down, leave the room. You will probably hear crying, but do not immediately rush to the scream. Wait three minutes, and if the inconsolable child is drowning, wait one minute. Return to the room and calm him down without picking him up. As soon as the crying stops, leave the room and return to calm down in the same way. Dr. Richard Ferber recommends avoiding motion sickness and leaving crying unattended for increasingly longer periods of time. After a week, the first results of the work will be noticeable.
Alarm clock This method is suitable if the child has confused the time of sleep and wakefulness or goes to bed too late. Determine what time your baby usually wakes up and wake him up an hour earlier. Break your usual routine by increasing your waking time. Soon fatigue will take over and he will return to normal.

Why don't children want to sleep?

Put yourself in the shoes of a newborn. Recently he felt warm and cozy, albeit quite cramped. He did not need to breathe or eat himself - all nutrients and oxygen entered the body through the umbilical cord from the placenta. And suddenly the calm atmosphere changes dramatically - the baby’s eyes hurt from too bright light, it’s cold in the air, he begins to understand what hunger is. In the first months of a child’s life, he or she will suffer from abdominal pain because the digestive system has not fully adapted to the new type of diet. Of course, the baby is scared, birth is a lot of stress for him. The baby calms down when a warm and kind mother takes him in her arms and feeds him milk. After eating, the baby quickly falls asleep so soundly that only really loud noises or some kind of discomfort will wake him up.

Baby's sleep is sensitive to physical discomfort. Make sure that there are no folds or irregularities on the clothes that can rub the skin, periodically check the diapers - they should be clean and dry. Babies may not sleep because the room temperature is too cold or too hot. Small children do not yet have hair on their heads, so it is worth wearing hats even in a warm room to prevent them from freezing.

If the baby is restless due to colic, you need to wait a little after feeding. Pull the baby vertically so that excess air comes out of the digestive tract along with the burp. You should not feed too early - if the intestines are full before bedtime, then the child will not be able to sleep, he will constantly need to go to the toilet. Foods with a laxative effect can interfere with sweet sleep—dirty diapers definitely won’t help you fall asleep comfortably.

Watch your own diet too. Avoid drinks containing caffeine while breastfeeding. Together with milk, these active substances will enter the child’s body, and he will sleep worse.

Methods for falling asleep independently for children from one to two years old

The norm for daily sleep at this age is 13–15 hours. A deviation from the recommendations of 1 year is acceptable within an hour. This is a difficult period, as sometimes children refuse to rest during the day. Another challenge is ending breastfeeding. But how to put a child to bed without motion sickness and without breastfeeding when he is sobbing avidly?

Somnologists (specialists in the field of sleep) believe that children need to be taught to sleep without motion sickness, so that they fall asleep on their own in the same way as brushing their teeth, washing themselves, and getting dressed. The previous methods are applicable for both one-month and one-year-old babies. But if you need to change the association “sleep = food”, resort to the following methods:

Timer Before resting, the baby is breastfed, but is warned that the milk will run out after a sound signal (the timer is set for 10 minutes). At the signal, you need to take the breast and put the baby to bed, stroking the back. Most likely he will demand the breast, but do not give in to provocation. Every day, reduce the time on the timer a little. Read a book while feeding and continue reading for another 5-10 minutes afterward. After 4 days, stop daytime feeding before bedtime, and after 7–10 days, stop night feeding. Be patient and stick to the plan. Knowing how to put your child to sleep without crying, you will successfully solve the problem.
Fading Underfeed your baby at the penultimate feeding and feed him well before the night. Choose a ritual that best helps your baby sleep without breastfeeding, say traditional phrases at night. The number of night awakenings will gradually decrease.
Explanation Come up with a story explanation why there will be no milk at night. Tell it throughout the day and remind it before bed. Be prepared for indignation on the part of the baby.

Photo source: shutterstock.com

How to teach a child to fall asleep on his own without motion sickness?

It often happens that rocking becomes the only way to calm a child and put him to sleep. If this is the rocking of a newborn baby who weighs about 3.5 kg, then most likely there is no problem. But the child is getting older and heavier, and rocking him to sleep becomes a real problem. Especially if mom’s back hurts unbearably, her arms go numb, or she can’t lift weights, and you can’t expect help from dad.

Our tips on how to wean your baby from endless motion sickness and how to teach him to sleep are combined in this article.

Is motion sickness good or bad?

In the womb, the baby is accustomed to constant motion sickness. That is why gentle rocking helps a child fall asleep. In general, in the first months of life, absolutely everything that resembles intrauterine life helps the baby fall asleep - darkness, constant even noise (“white noise”), slight rocking and slight compression (swaddling).

Rocking motion and any other help when falling asleep are simply necessary for babies. Children themselves do not know how to calm down due to the immaturity of the brain and nervous system.

Parents of very young children in the first 3 months of life do not have to worry about “bad” habits and negative associations. The period from birth to three months is often called the period of “gestation” and adaptation of the baby.

But at the same time, it is important to gradually alternate your help and methods of resting, so that the child does not get used to one single method. A habit is formed when an adult constantly uses the same action (for example, rocking to sleep) under the same conditions (for example, falling asleep). And this repeats itself day after day. It turns out that the mother herself taught the baby to fall asleep with the help of one single “support” for sleep - rocking.

When the baby is already 3 months old, it is important to give the baby a chance to try to calm down on his own, without active help. What does this mean for parents?

For parents this means:

Gradually react to the baby’s crying: do not immediately run and grab him in your arms, give him a breast or a bottle, but try to calm him down with your presence, voice, touch.
Learn to recognize the baby’s crying and needs: remember that there are many reasons for crying, and the baby also has many needs, except food! Sometimes a child may be hot and stuffy, he “asks” to change his diaper or simply misses his mom or dad, thus demanding your attention. Therefore, you do not need to immediately rush to intensively rock the baby, pick him up or put the baby to the breast/bottle. Observe your child, analyze his behavior and try to find different ways to put your child to rest.

VIDEO LESSON

How to get rid of bad sleep habits?

More details

Why is it important to avoid motion sickness?

Parents are very creative when it comes to putting their babies to sleep. Someone jumps on a fitball with a baby in their arms, someone rocks a stroller or rolls it until the baby falls asleep, and someone rolls away in a car, because their child can only fall asleep when he is riding in a car ( This is a ritual before bed - a couple of laps around your neighborhood in a car so that the baby calms down and finally falls asleep!)

But when you rock your baby intensively, in any way, you should remember the following points:

Sleeping on the move is poor quality sleep. While a stroller or car is moving, the vestibular apparatus is in constant motion and reacts to changes in the position of the body in space. The brain constantly monitors changes and therefore cannot fall into a deep sleep phase.

With intense rocking, children do not fall asleep, but enter a sleep-like state . This is a borderline state, similar to sleeping in transport. Remember how we, adults, fall asleep on the road while traffic is moving. Is this deep sleep? Does it help you sleep and wake up refreshed? Probably not. Now, children experience a similar state of “pseudo-sleep” during movement or constant rocking.

With intense motion sickness, children do not fall asleep, but enter a sleep-like state. This means they don’t rest properly.

Motion sickness turns into a “bad habit” for falling asleep. A child who falls asleep with motion sickness will require this process to be repeated during short-term awakenings at night. After all, this is how he used to relax and fall asleep. Sometimes the mother herself gets used to being rocked to sleep. Often there is a feeling that “I’m doing something,” and it’s easier this way. But this is an illusion. It also happens that the child no longer needs rocking and he protests against it, but the mother, out of inertia or habit, continues to rock him when laying him down.

How to get rid of motion sickness?

Some children, by the age of 8 months, begin to resist motion sickness: bend over when they are rocked, become capricious. The kids themselves show that they have already grown up, and this method of calming down does not suit them. And here it is important for parents to find a new way. Observe what calms your fidget during the day, and try to transfer this experience to falling asleep.

But if your baby is already more than 3 months old, motion sickness has become established as a “bad habit” for falling asleep, we suggest implementing a plan to avoid rocking:

First , determine how long it takes you to get motion sick. Record the time, write it down in your diary.
Gradually reduce the intensity of your movements: slow down, train your baby to go to sleep with less intense movements.
Gradually reduce the time of motion sickness . If it took you 40 minutes to rock, slow down and stop at 35 minutes. Hold the child in your arms, look at the clock. The next day, remove for another 5 minutes. And so on. Until you come to a complete refusal of motion sickness.

The leading consultant tells more about all the steps and the algorithm of actions in our video lesson “How to get rid of bad sleep habits?” .

As a result of these successive steps, we aim to simply hold the baby and prevent him from falling asleep during the rocking process. The baby should have experience falling asleep while still.

If the mother abruptly removes the rocking, the child will strongly protest. This will happen because the baby does not know how to fall asleep differently. It is important to build this experience of calming with minimal rocking gradually every day. With this approach, children will gradually “launch” their own methods of self-regulation and self-soothing, and then falling asleep becomes easier.

And remember that children always need a “replacement”. When you get rid of motion sickness, replace it with some action or condition to calm you down. What to become a replacement? “White” noise, stroking, light pats, your kind words, a lullaby or a fairy tale. To prevent a certain action of yours from becoming a habit in your child, alternate your methods of calming, observe, analyze, and introduce new ones. And the next step on the path to independent sleep will be teaching your baby to sleep in his own bed.

The first step to falling asleep on your own

If you have taught your baby to fall asleep without motion sickness, that’s great! This is a direct confirmation of your consistency, patience and perseverance. But this does not mean that you have taught your child to fall asleep on his own. This is just the first step in preparing to learn to fall asleep on your own.

It is important for you to analyze whether your current sleep situation suits you. Or the baby still wakes up very often at night and requires an adult to be nearby until he falls asleep. In the latter case, you can and should start teaching yourself how to fall asleep on your own! In our video lesson How to teach your baby to fall asleep on his own, we will tell you how to gently and safely teach your baby to calm down with minimal help from an adult. For sleep training, we suggest using the safe Gentle Removal Method. The step-by-step detailed methodology is designed for 2-3 weeks. After completing the training program, your baby will fall asleep on his own, without requiring rocking, sitting next to him for hours, or reading the fourth fairy tale.

Self-Falling Sleep TrainingSleep FrequentWaking UpSleep Conditions

QualitySleep AssociationsDream

How to properly put a 2-year-old child to sleep

Sleep for children is the cessation of games and knowledge of the world. From the child’s point of view, it does not make any sense, which means that you need to increase the value of sleep and interest him in the process. Here again, sleep-related rituals come to the rescue: reading poetry, listening to relaxing music, jointly inventing stories about a constant character.

When putting a 2-year-old baby to bed, parents may encounter the following problems:

Fear of separation from mother Fear of separation during sleep worsens at 2 years of age. A smooth transition to sleep will help soften unpleasant emotions. Try to spend more time with your baby in the evening, and the fear will subside.
Favorite toys Children become attached to toys when they already feel independent, but still need security. It would seem that there is nothing wrong with this, but if the toy gets lost or you don’t take it on a trip, the apocalypse awaits you. Therefore, immediately limit the use of your pets to your home (you may be allowed to take them with you to a doctor’s appointment). It is advisable to buy a double in case of loss.
Moving to a bed without sides Up to 2.5 years, it is better not to change the crib, but to make it more difficult for the baby to get out by lowering the mattress lower. If he gets out, bring him back, try not to communicate and just say in a serious tone that you can’t do that.

What should you not do when putting your newborn to bed?

Before experimenting with toys, understand for yourself what advice from kind grandmothers, aunts and friends you absolutely should not listen to.

Ignore crying

Yes, there are such tips when you need to ignore the baby’s crying and not approach the crib until he calms down and falls asleep. There is a chance that this will happen, but in most cases you will get a neurasthenic child who, in addition to problems with nerves, has developed an umbilical hernia from crying.

Rock the baby in your arms

They may try to convince you with standard arguments like: “They used to rock children in their arms half the night and not break.” The baby quickly gets used to rocking in your arms and when you stop and put him in bed, he will wake up. There is no need to make unnecessary sacrifices and not sleep at night with the child; he needs a well-rested mother, and not a half-asleep one with bags under her eyes from eternal lack of sleep.

Give sedatives

Various sedatives are given to the baby only as directed by a doctor in case of overexcitability, headaches due to intracranial pressure or other reasons. Healthy children do not need medications.

Exhaust your child before bed

A common misconception is that keeping your newborn awake will not give you the expected effect. Instead of falling asleep from fatigue, the baby will begin to resist sleep more strongly.