How To Get Your Baby's Sleep Routine Back
While it can be difficult to incorporate holidays and other everyday changes into your baby routine, when the routine gets disrupted it can affect the whole family. Whether it’s disruption due to illness, the excitement of boisterous holiday celebrations, or overseas travel, the over-stimulation of pushed-out bedtimes, jetlag, sleeping somewhere new, and napping on the fly can have your whole schedule thrown out. Exhausted parents just want to get their kids back into their baby sleep routine.
We take a look at how to get your sleep schedule back on track and see your little ones return to the calm and comfort of their bedtime routine.
Why is my baby’s sleep schedule messed up?
When there are changes of environment, even minor ones, it can mess up a baby’s sleep routines temporarily. It may simply be that your baby is unwell, or experiencing a sleep regression in line with their developmental stage. Perhaps you have a visiting relative, or you’ve taken your family to the other side of the world for a holiday. Life is unpredictable and sometimes you can’t provide your baby with exactly the same conditions for every nap. Changes like these can disrupt your baby’s sleep schedule.
Why is a baby’s sleep routine important?
Creating a routine for your baby’s sleep can be key to establishing healthy sleep habits now and well into the future. When your baby first arrives, nothing is familiar to them and they are unable to differentiate between night and day. Creating a bedtime routine helps create cues, familiarity, and a consistency that your baby grows to rely on for nap times. Naptime routines can:
- Help regulate baby’s sleep patterns
- Can help inform and establish baby’s body clock
- Can help prevent overtiredness
- Can help encourage sleep independence
- Can help during times of transition
- Can help settle in unfamiliar environments
How do I get my baby back to an effective sleep schedule?
If you were happily enjoying an established baby sleep routine that has been messed up, here are a few things you can do to get it back on track:
1. Create the ideal sleep environment
Where your baby sleeps, and how you set up their sleep space, can make all the difference to establishing a good sleep routine. The quality of your baby’s sleep is greatly affected by their sleeping space and how familiar your little one is with the space around them.
Putting your baby down to sleep in multiple locations around the house, like the lounge room, or in their pram, can become confusing and unsettling for them. This is why it’s important where possible to always put your baby down in the same, well-established, safe sleep location, each time they sleep. This creates familiarity and sends a simple, clear message ‘When I’m put in my bassinet or cot or crib, it’s time to sleep’. It will also help give your baby a strong and positive sleep association with their own sleep space, which will continue as they grow.
2. Work to a flexible routine
You may not re-establish the same time frames as your original routine straight away, particularly if you’ve been travelling. Work flexibly, adjust both feeding times and nap times to suit your baby’s wake windows and if you need to adjust the existing schedule slightly, you can.
3. Get your baby active during their awake time
Your baby’s day will be made up of naps interspersed with wake windows. During these uptimes you’ll feed, burp, change, cuddle, and play, then get your little one ready for the next nap. During your baby’s wake windows, ensure they are getting sufficient stimulation so they are tired come their nap time. This may be as simple as:
- Reading them a story or playing simple games like peekaboo
- Offering sensory activities
- Some supervised tummy time on a play mat
- For older children some time in an activity station
- Taking them for a walk outside in the stroller
4. Use daylight and darkness to your advantage
Natural light helps reset body clocks in both children and adults. It’s particularly useful if you’ve been travelling in another time zone to use daylight and darkness to your advantage. Taking baby on a walk outside in their pram or stroller for example can help reset their body clock and re-establish the appropriate circadian rhythm.
Similarly, when trying to help baby to readjust to their established routine, use a darkened room at nap times to help cue time for sleep.
5. Temperature
Babies tend to sleep best when they’re comfortably warm, not too hot, and not too cold. Using a temperature-appropriate sleeping bag or swaddle not only helps as a cue for sleep but can help baby maintain a consistent temperature during sleep.
Ensure the room is also at an ideal comfort temperature for baby. Follow our Clothing Guide to ensure your baby is sleeping at a comfortable temperature overnight.
Afternoon/evening routine tips
Routine is key to helping your baby understand that the day is coming to an end and it will soon be time to sleep.
Last nap of the day: Your baby’s last nap should finish by 4.30 pm at the latest, to help ensure they’re tired enough to drift off into a deeper sleep when it’s bedtime Once your baby wakes from this last nap at 4.30 pm, they’ll have their last wake window for the evening.
Evening bath: In the last wake window for the day, you’ll likely bath your baby. This can be really helpful in showing your baby that a nice, warm, relaxing bath means the day is starting to wind down, and it’s time to get clean and snug for bedtime.
Reduce stimulation, and increase relaxation: Avoid bright lights, like TVs and phones which can stimulate them, and try to avoid any play or activity that will make your little one excited or hyped up, undoing all your hard work. Try playing relaxing music, or reading a calm story to your baby - it’s just as important to soothe their minds as it is to soothe their bodies.
Night time routine tips
The final aspect to think about when it comes to getting your baby back into their sleep cycle is the night-time routine. This covers the next 12 or so hours and is mainly focused on feeding cues to help support your baby in re-establishing their routine and reaching deeper, higher-quality stretches of overnight sleep.
Feeding newborns: Feeding overnight is essential, and most babies will continue with overnight feeds until they are around six months old. Allow your baby to sleep and wake naturally throughout the night for a feed, rather than waking them to a set schedule.
Wait and listen: Not every wake-up overnight means your baby needs a feed. If you hear your little one make a noise or wake up throughout the night, wait and listen rather than rushing over immediately to feed them as this could encourage snack feeding, which results in shorter bursts of lower-quality sleep.
Space out feeds: Space out your baby’s feeds during the night, so baby is taking a full feed when they’re hungry. With a nice full tummy, they can sleep longer! If you do this, their night-time feeding and sleeping pattern should naturally fall back into place, and over time, the periods of uninterrupted sleep will increase, and the feeds will decrease.
Follow these simple tips by creating an ideal sleep environment for your little one, managing their afternoon and evening routine, and ensuring their night-time routine is calm and relaxing. Pretty soon, the disruptions will be a thing of the past, and your baby back on sleep schedule and into their familiar sleep cycle - and so will you!