Baby Sleep Tricks: Simple, Practical Way to Soothe a Baby to Sleep

Sleep Through the Night Strategies for your Baby

When babies and children are tired, they get ‘wired’ and do not sleep. So, a cycle of sleep deprivation (when baby is put to bed later and waking up too early in the morning) can start easily in babies and kids. Counter-intuitively, they need to go to bed earlier and have proper dose of naps in between during the day so they can sleep longer and better through the night.

Here are some simple, practical steps we can take to help soothe the baby:

• Keeping a tight swaddle over baby prevents your baby from startling themselves awake. From birth to about 5 months of age, babies innately possess a startle reflex (they feel as if they are falling), which can cause jerking movements that incidentally wake up your baby.

• Replicate our ancestor’s cave dwelling: lower temperature and darken the lights. These two factors trigger melatonin production which in turn helps trigger sleep.

• Specific essential oils in proper and safe dilution can be helpful for soothing babies. Oils such as Lavender and Roman Chamomile are well known for their calming and relaxing properties. Just before bed or right after bath, give your baby a nice massage with our Infant Night Sleep natural balm along the chest, back, arms, behind ears or at the soles of the feet. The gentle massage itself is extremely relaxing and natural fragrance of the oils will set a soothing tone for a peaceful night.

• Turn off TV or screens of computer, laptops, i-pad or phone at least an hour before bedtime.

• Enforce a bedtime routine for your baby will help bring order to a very chaotic world. Following the same exact routine as consistently as possible cues the baby for sleep, and over time, the baby will learn that sleep immediately follows the nap and bedtime routine.

• Create white noise. Use a fan to create a gentle hum that masks other sounds and if you turn on the whooshing white noise as part of your baby’s bedtime routine, it will cue him to relax and sleep.

• Follow the eat, wake, sleep cycle. By encouraging full feedings of baby immediately after waking, he will have the most energy, making him more inclined to go longer between feedings. By feeding after rather than before sleep, the cycle prevents the baby from associating food with sleep. When using this cycle, a feeding before bedtime is typically the only feeding before sleep.