Baby Sleep Help - Natalie's Response

Mum Zone's resident Sleep Expert Natalie of Sleep and Settle is available to answer some of your questions about settling your baby and more.

Topics include: Sleeping and settling, moving from bassinette to cot, cot to bed, breastfeeding/formula, solids, floorplay for babies and play for toddlers/children, wrapping/sleeping bags/dressing baby, behaviour/tantrums, what's normal? bedroom environments, music, lights, entertainment, mattresses, mattress protectors, sheets, unsettled babies and the 0-12 week afternoon arsenic hours, reflux/colic, teething, worms, toilet training, night terrors/nightmares, the older child issues 5-10 years and single parenting/separation/divorce.

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Reader's Question

I have a 19 month year old, and he sleeps in our bed. It is not a good situation and I need some advice on how to get him in to his own bed, because he won't stay in a cot either. Also he suddenly has separation anxiety when I go to work and won't go to sleep until I come home. Please help, thank you.

Natalie's Response

Hi,

If your sleeping situation is working for your family there is no need to change it. Every family makes the right parenting decisions for their family and their decisions should be respected. However, if you feel that your sleeping situation is not working for you then I have some suggestions.

You could consider the following options:

• I encourage parents to communicate work days and staying at home days with the child the night before and the next morning. For example hang your work uniform or bag on the bedroom door and say "mummy's work day tomorrow/today", "you are going to nan's, daycare, etc" and then for stay at home days have your slippers at the bedroom door and say "stay at home day today, or mummy and... day today".
  
  
• You may like to bring the cot into your room and encourage your son to sleep in his cot next to your bed, either as a side car or the cot in the room but not near the bed. You would apply a self settling routine that suited your family and be consistent and persistent with it from here on. If you are aiming for him to sleep in his own room at a later time, you could wait till be was settling better and move the cot closer to the door and then into his own room.
  
  
• You might like to try lying his cot mattress next to you on the floor and encourage your son to sleep there. Again if your goal is for him to move into his own room you could gradually move the mattress closer to the door and then into his own room.
  
  
• If you would like your son to sleep in his own room you could start on a designated day to commit to all sleeps in your son's cot in his room, with a clear and confident self-settling plan. The key to success in any routine is feeling confident, communicating clearly, being consistent and persistent. Changing sleep habits in your children is not actually about what we do to the child, it's about re-establishing our routines as the parents. We are the ones who create routines with our consistency, the good routines and not so good ones. Tying your pyjama top to a teddy or comfort object will help soothe your son overnight in his bed. I would encourage responding to him and reassuring him as often as needed overnight (in consideration of the separation anxiety) however he remains in his bedroom and is encouraged to sleep only in his cot and you stick with your chosen sleep routine. I do not encourage Controlled Crying (leaving baby for extended periods of time before returning to settle) I prefer a gentle, reassuring but not 'entertaining' strategy to encourage self-settling.
  
  
• A sleeping bag is essential for all sleeps in a cot when baby is mobile.
  
  
• If your son at 19 months is not falling asleep until very late at night when you return home, I would discuss with his carer's the daily routine encouraging healthy meals and lots of active play outside especially in the afternoon. Even though he is waiting for you he would be really tired by 7.30pm and staying awake on adrenalin. The adults in the house can encourage a reasonable bedtime with a soothing routine and persistency, your 19 month old needs the routine, the sleep and the boundaries.

Happy Sleeping,

Natalie

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The opinions expressed on these pages are of a general nature and are by no means a substitute for professional advice. Therefore neither Mum Zone or Natalie Ebrill of Sleep and Settle are liable for any actions pertaining to the use of the supplied information.