Establish Regular Sleep Habits and Routines
Regular sleep habits are useful. It helps if he gets used to being put down for the night at around the same time every day. Before your baby reaches the age of six weeks or so, it's too early to try to help him learn this necessary skill, even though he may sometimes fall asleep on his own in the crib. Around the age of six weeks, he's old enough that you can start helping him learn to go to sleep without being rocked, put in a swing, or otherwise helped by you. Now he's ready for you to try to regulate the times he's awake and the times he sleeps, as well as his feeding times.
Essential
Though some babies sleep happily in the dark without a night-light, especially those whose rooms receive some light even through closed blinds or curtains, most babies will be more comfortable if the room has a soft glow to it. Your baby may be made fearful by the darkness or by shadows that appear on his walls or ceiling. Perhaps a tree branch, backlit by a streetlight, shows up as a menacingly moving figure on his wall due to an improperly closing shade, or maybe a hall light outside the open door of his room casts the shadow of his door or of something in the hallway. A night-light can dispel the darkness, the shadows, and the fears that go with them.
More Elements of a Bedtime Routine
You can make the bedtime routine as simple or as elaborate as you want. Older kids brush their teeth before they go to bed; babies, still toothless at six weeks, obviously are too young for brushing teeth. But there are other things you can do with babies to signal to them that settle-down time is approaching.
How does your baby feel about baths? While many babies go through a brief period of being afraid of bathing, most babies enjoy it most of the time. If your baby enjoys the warm, soothing water, his bath can be part of his prebed routine. Not only is the water soothing to your baby, but your touch as you wash him gently also soothes him. If your baby is a child who finds his bath a relaxing experience, there's a natural way to get him calm and ready to drift off to sleep when he gets into his crib.
After he's had his bath and you've toweled him off, get him into his pajamas or whatever clothing he customarily wears to bed. Now is a good time to close the blinds and/or curtains and to turn off all the lights except his night-light. You can carry him as you perform these tasks. He'll soon learn to associate all these activities with the fact that it's time to go to bed and go to sleep.
Beyond the Bath
After the bath, what's next? Perhaps a lullaby. A lullaby doesn't have to be a traditional song about going to sleep, such as
Too many parents are inhibited about singing to their babies because, at best, they have poor singing voices and, at worst, they can't carry a tune. But the reality is that your baby is no music critic. She cares only that her mom or dad is singing to her and holding her or singing to her and touching her as she lies there in her crib. She's not listening to you critically.
Fact
At age six weeks or six months or eighteen months, your baby is no judge of singing ability. All she hears is the love in your voice, and that's all you should be concerned about, too. Squeaky voice? Rusty voice? Off-tune or off-key? It doesn't matter. All she needs to hear is a soothing tune, sung with love.
Besides singing a lullaby or some other soothing song that can serve as a lullaby, you can talk to your child or tell her a story. Though some parents think that telling fairy tales to a child six months old (or a child of any age too young to understand what you're saying) seems silly, many others understand that it's actually very wise and helpful.
The Soothing, Familiar Voice
Your child learns to recognize your voice at an early age. Even though she doesn't understand the words or the concepts of angry, teasing, happy, or soothing, she can differentiate at an early age between a scolding tone and a loving one. She will be upset by the former and soothed by the latter. You can use your voice — your speaking voice, not just your singing voice — to comfort and soothe your child, not only at any time when she's upset and crying, but also at bedtime when you want to settle her down.
One way to do this is certainly to tell her a bedtime story, whether you read fairy tales or other suitable fare from a book, tell her a story from memory, or even make one up. Another thing you can do is tell her a make-believe story about herself: “Once upon a time, there was a baby named Jill who lived on a fluffy pink cloud” or tell her a true story about herself — perhaps about something that happened that day.
One more thing you can say and do that may be meaningful to both of you is to offer up a bedtime meditation or prayer. Just as is true of
When to Break the Rules
You know that it's important to put your baby to sleep at a regular time, but you also know that it's important to put him to sleep when he shows signs of sleepiness. Suppose that because of an interrupted nap or for some other reason, your baby shows signs of sleepiness an hour before his usual bedtime. You may be wondering what you should do then: put him in an hour early or try to keep him awake for an hour longer?
You're better off putting him in an hour early, regardless of the fact that you're trying to get him on a schedule. If you keep him up, one or both of two things will happen: He'll get fussy and cranky because he's tired, and/or he'll get overtired and have trouble falling asleep when you do put him to bed. Better to forgo the schedule and put him in when he shows signs of needing to sleep.
Alert!
If you do rock him, hold him, or cuddle him in your effort to soothe him to sleep, do it only to the point of his growing drowsy, not to the point of his falling asleep. You can also put him in his crib and keep your hand on him and sing to him or talk to him. But remove your hand, and remove yourself from his room, before he falls asleep.
Don't Establish Bad Habits
You don't want your baby to learn to need to be rocked, cuddled, held, or even just to be in contact with your hand, or to need to hear your voice, or to be aware of your presence in order to fall asleep. The goal is to learn to help your baby to become able to go to sleep on his own without your help. This is, of course, helpful when you first put him in bed for the night, but it is a particularly important skill for him to learn in order that he can get himself back to sleep on his own when he awakens during the night.
Naturally, if he awakens because he's too hot, he's hungry, a diaper rash is bothering him, or he has some other real need, he's still likely to cry for you. If he awakens in order to move around a bit in his crib or simply because he's moving from one phase of sleep to another, you want him to be able to settle back down to sleep again on his own.
