How to quickly put a baby to sleep: the best progressive and conservative options

Ideally, a newborn baby wakes up every two hours.
However, in fact, a child cries much more often at night. Even if the baby sleeps with his mother, the mother shudders from his every movement and uneven sigh. Night after night she sleeps in one position on the edge of the bed, afraid to move. After a year, the sleep deficit becomes critical, and the woman wonders: shouldn’t she listen to advice like “let the baby scream”? Surely all the mothers who, tired, resorted to this method, cannot be wrong? There are two strict approaches to organizing children's sleep. The first is that the child should be allowed to cry to his heart's content, and then he will stop calling his parents every five minutes. The second boils down to the fact that the mother must fly up to the baby at his every squeak. Both have their positive and negative sides. Let's figure out how to put a child to sleep without any medications.

Traditional ways to put a baby to sleep

Our grandmothers used them, and modern mothers continue to use them. The advantage of traditional methods of putting to sleep is the complete absence of negative emotions for the baby. But mothers, in the process of putting the baby to sleep, sleeping together on a narrow bed, cannot fully relax, take care of themselves, household chores, or devote time to other family members.

Rocking in arms and in a cradle

An extremely costly method, in terms of physical energy, of going to bed during the day and night. The baby should be gently rocked in your arms or in the cradle. Smooth movements affect the child like hypnosis.

Pros: a newborn falls asleep quickly in your arms.

Cons: he may wake up when he is transferred to the crib and the procedure will begin again.

To make the process easier, modern mothers buy electronic rocking chairs in the form of a cradle. The mechanism moves carefully, as if the child is floating on a boat.

Feeding

With a bottle or mother's breast nipple, all babies fall asleep instantly. The child is well-fed and warmed by the warmth of his own body.

Pros: holding the baby in your arms, you don’t need to waste energy walking around the room for motion sickness. To breastfeed, you can sit on the parent's bed or in a chair.

Cons: Children do not always want to eat before falling asleep. By offering him the breast, you risk overfeeding the baby, causing colic through prolonged sucking, and vomiting .

Sleeping with mom

Children really like to sleep with their parents. Moms will have to adjust to the baby's rhythm and go to bed at the same time.

Pros: no need to get up at night to feed or change the baby. Everything is at hand.

Cons: Dad becomes superfluous in this tandem. Parents will have to forget about marital responsibilities, proper sleep and a comfortable resting position.

Wrapping up in a big blanket

A cozy nest is created from a soft blanket for the baby. There is no need to swaddle your baby, just place him in the blanket. There he will feel protected, as in the womb.

Pros: it is not necessary to make oscillatory movements; a child can fall asleep in a large blanket on an adult bed.

Cons: You can’t leave your baby wrapped to sleep. He may get tangled in the bedspread when he wakes up. Moms will have to transfer the baby to the crib. There is a risk of waking up the baby and disrupting the night's sleep until the morning.

We satisfy every whim

Modern neurophysiologists have proven that the future of a child depends entirely on the parents. The fact is that 85% of a person’s neural connections are formed before the age of three based on the experience of relationships with mom and dad. A child who grew up in an atmosphere of love and attention subsequently considers the world kind and generous. He grows into a happy, healthy and caring adult. Scientists assure that a child must be held in his arms when he cries. His brain is not yet ready for manipulation, and at this age he cannot be spoiled.

The same babies whose parents often left them to cry alone or reacted angrily to their cries often display aggressive antisocial behavior, mental illness, and an inability to cope with stress as adults.

The fact is that newborns are unable to express themselves in the words we are accustomed to.

Therefore, they are very sensitive to pheromones. If mom is not there when she is needed, the baby loses the sense of security that the smell and warmth of his mother's body gives him. Dr. Jay Gordon believes that children who are cuddled or fed throughout the night will sooner or later learn to calm down and sleep on their own.

However, not all women are able to selflessly serve a child. Many people do all these obligatory actions “because it’s necessary” and end up feeling unhappy.

Sleep is an important component of a happy life. If a mother does not get enough sleep regularly, she herself becomes aggressive. And often, having lost control, he can lash out at the child. Your children will always copy your behavior, and if you are unhappy and ignore your own needs, they will grow up to be the same adults.

Therefore, if you are already tired of sleeping like this, being completely at the disposal of your baby, think about your own well-being.

Author's methods

The method of putting a baby to sleep independently from birth is taken as a basis. They have one goal - to make the job of parents caring for their baby easier. In order for the baby to fall asleep quickly, and for the mother to be free at this moment, you need to perform a certain set of actions.

Estville method

According to many Russian parents, this is a barbaric way to put a child to sleep and teach him to be independent from birth. Mothers need to tell their baby all day long that today he will go to sleep in his crib without rocking or telling stories. In the evening, parents should put the child in the crib, wish him pleasant dreams, turn off the lights and leave, you can close the door.

Naturally, the baby will cry, even hysterical. Adults need to endure this torture, periodically looking into the nursery. You cannot pick up a baby. Be sure to explain again that he will sleep and leave. Dr. Estville claims that every day the baby will cry less and less until he gets used to such a ritual.

Nathan Dylo's technique

The most original way to put a newborn to sleep using a regular napkin. Pass it over the baby’s cheeks, neck, and face, do not make sudden movements. The baby will receive tactile pleasure, relax his muscles, and fall asleep blissfully.

This method is unlikely to be suitable for children after 6 months; parents will have to come up with a new option for the sleepy ritual.

Elizabeth Pantley Method

Based on the little person’s biological clock and associations associated with going to bed. Parents are encouraged to start preparing the procedure for the baby in advance, 1.5 hours before the usual time.

There is no need to drag him into the bedroom and put him to bed. Do not play with the baby, turn off the light in the room, walk with him in your arms for 20-30 minutes to calm him down and get him to sleep. Then sit in a rocking chair, put a scarf or a soft toy under the baby’s cheek. He must get used to the objects surrounding him before going to bed, their smell, and his tactile sensations. There is no need to change the toy in the first few weeks of training.

After a few days, the baby will get used to going to bed at the same time. You no longer need to hold him in your arms; put him straight into the crib along with a toy or scarf. Stay close until he falls asleep. When you touch your cheek to a familiar handkerchief with the smell of your mother, a soft bunny, your eyes will close on their own.

How to quickly put a child to sleep according to Spock

Dr. Benjamin Spock was very popular with our grandmothers. This extremely extraordinary person assured that babies should be taught to live according to a schedule. Feed - after 3-4 hours, not earlier. And don’t teach him to use his hands, otherwise you won’t wean him off. He assured that children often manipulate their parents, and therefore wake up every five minutes for no reason. For mom to come up and take her in her arms. The best way to get rid of this kind of “childish selfishness” is to let it cry out. He’ll yell and yell, but he’ll stop, says the eminent doctor. This will teach him to calm down on his own and not manipulate adults. “If a child is crying until he vomits, go into the room, clean up after him and leave without making contact with him,” advises Spock. As a result, children actually learned to sleep independently, but in adulthood this led to enormous psychological problems.

So, in the 70s, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton studied newborns to see if they might experience despair or depression. Babies who cry inconsolably, trying to get a reaction from their mother, were filmed. It is obvious on the film that at first the children try to cry louder, and after some time, having tried the entire arsenal of means and still not catching the mother’s gaze, they begin to turn away from her. In the end, they generally refuse to look at their mother, drop their heads, become quiet and seem to fall into despair.

As a result, such children learn only one thing - you can’t trust anyone, and my needs don’t matter. As adults, such children do not know how to set boundaries and say no, and consider loneliness and fear to be a natural form of human existence. They do not know how to build long-term love relationships, and they satisfy loneliness and pain with the help of alcohol and drugs. These will not betray you and are always available. And all because the need for emotional contact with the mother is innate.

Of course, as a result of implementing this approach to organizing children's sleep, you yourself will finally get enough sleep. And the baby will sleep all night. But at what cost? In addition, this method can hardly be classified as a method: “How to put a child to sleep in a minute”

Rules for healthy sleep from Dr. Komarovsky

The famous TV doctor suggests that parents build a clear system of actions in order to quickly put their newborn to sleep every evening. It consists of simple recommendations:

Decide where your baby sleeps and when he should go to bed. Let it be a parent's bedroom, a stroller, a cradle. This is not important, the main thing is to maintain the choice for a long time. Also choose any hour to go to bed, but try not to deviate from your schedule.
Be sure to feed your baby before bed. A hungry baby will wake up quickly or take a very long time to fall asleep.
Take a bath before your last feeding. The water should be cool.
Create comfortable conditions in the nursery for sleeping. Cool air, a humidifier, a clean bed, a light blanket - nothing else is needed for a sound sleep.
Put on a diaper . A wet child will not sleep on his own and will not allow his parents to sleep.
Wake your newborn during the day if he sleeps too long. But if you plan to stay awake at night, you may not need to follow this advice.

We recommend starting with traditional methods of putting your baby to sleep, so as not to traumatize the newborn’s psyche. For 9 months in the womb, he was never separated from his mother; in the first weeks of life, tactile contact with his family and his mother’s smell give him a feeling of happiness and security. Try progressive techniques for teaching yourself to fall asleep on your own from 2-3 months or later.

Attention! The use of any medications and dietary supplements, as well as the use of any therapeutic methods, is possible only with the permission of a doctor.