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

My daughter sleeps quite well when we don't venture on an outing. However, I am struggling to reduce the chance of her getting overtired when we go to the shops. She is 6-7 weeks old and I give her a good feed before we venture out. I am normally out for an hour (max.) and back to feed her again so she can go to sleep. This is where the problems begin as she is quite happy to stay awake when we are out. The time frame from beginning of her first feed to the beginning of the next can be 3 hours which leads to an overtired state. She won't sleep after this and it is hell trying to get her down again. How do I get out and about, with her, without her suffering? Help! I don't want to lead a life of isolation.

Natalie's Response

I don't want you to feel stuck at home either and now is a great age to help your daughter become more flexible in her sleeping environment and be able to sleep anywhere. There are a few issues to address in creating flexible sleepers.

• Baby's bedroom environment: If your baby's room is quiet at home this is what they will be accustomed to. In order to help your baby sleep easily outside the home encourage background noise that is similar to café, restaurant, shopping centre and visitors noises. The noise should cover the phone and visitors in your home.
  
  
• Sleep cues: babies appreciate sleep cues. Establish a 'going to bed' routine for your baby and apply this for all sleeps wherever you are.
  
  
• If wrapping baby at home, wrap when out as well.
  
  
• If baby requires a dark room at home re-create this outside the home as well. Cover the stroller with the darkest cover you can buy. If it's not dark enough, make one yourself. This reduces stimulation of your baby and encourages sleep. Place the straps over the baby in the stroller to keep them feeling tucked in.
  
  
• I recommend in order for parents to have a life outside the home and baby sleep as well as possible that you hire a capsule for the first 6 months. If you are currently using a car seat don't panic, you will use this for the next 2-3 years for this baby but right now they need the comfort and flexibility of a capsule. A capsule enables you to put the baby to sleep when ready at home and then go into the car and transfer out and back in the car without unwrapping/rewrapping and waking baby. They are usually available for 3 and 6 month hire. You can wrap baby legally in the capsule using a different technique to in the bed and then cover the capsule with a dark cover to encourage sleep.
  
  
• Use the same settling technique for all sleeps whether home or out.
  
  
• Lower your expectations of your baby's sleep when out and about. It is usually noisy and the stroller is not the same as the cot. Expect shorter more frequent sleeps, if you achieve longer ones great! If having a 'going out' day try and have 1-2 stay at home days after to allow baby to have settled sleeps and catch up.

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.