Valerie
Jackson tells us the importance of establishing a good sleeping
pattern for your child. Valerie, Operations Director at Primary
Steps, is responsible for the management of thirty-two day
nurseries and two crèches. Primary Steps, now a top
ten provider of nursery places in the UK, has one simple ambition
- to maximise the social and educational potential of each
child attending its nurseries.
One
of the most stressful experiences of being a parent is establishing
a sleep and rest routine with your child, so that they get the
important time to rest and grow and replenish energy lost during
waking hours through feeding, play and just being awake. It
is also important for parents that their baby gets regular rest,
as this means they too can gain some form of relaxation time.
There
are several different approaches to help babies develop sleep
within a regular pattern. Some of these are quite punitive in
their approach, with the emphasis being on the parent not to
let the ‘baby win’. If a battle for sleep supremacy
ensues, the inevitable losers will always be the parents.
Research
would indicate that the more a baby is picked up or tended to
as soon as they begin to whimper, the less they cry as they
get older. This links very well with the theory of Eric Erikson,
the esteemed psychologist who theorised that during the first
two years of life, a child starts to make choices about whether
the world is a place in which to feel safe or not.
Part
of this is linked to the baby’s development of trust.
We demonstrate our trustworthiness as adults to babies, for
example, by the fact that we feed them at regular intervals.
We play with them, we try to understand their needs and address
them. We also return for them once they have woken from sleep.
Going
to sleep, for some children, is the cause of great anxiety and
panic. Their experience of sleeping means that something frightening
or confusing can happen. From Erikson’s theoretical perspective,
if a baby can’t trust the adults who send him to sleep,
how can they relax enough to sleep?
Most
of us have endured sleepless nights, when we might be kept awake
by worry, anger, fear, pain or an over-active mind. Whatever
we do, we can’t seem to switch off. If we were asked to
put that fear into words, most of us would struggle to express
the underlying concern. I would hazard a guess and suggest it
probably had something to do with being scared we won’t
wake up, or of being abandoned during sleep or that things change
whilst we sleep and we have no control over them.
When
a baby cries, it is making a statement. Our task as carers is
to try to translate the cry into words we can understand. All
babies cry when they are hungry, cold, tired, in pain. How many
parents and, for that matter, child care professionals understand
that babies also cry when they are bored, lonely or frightened?
The best way to establish a sleep routine that meets everyone’s
needs is first, listen to the baby; check that it is warm enough,
has no colicky pain and is not hungry. Then,
•
If he or she cries, pick them up, hold them close and then
return them to the cot. Try to avoid speaking or rocking the
baby as this may stimulate the baby into wakefulness.
• If they cry again, repeat the process, making sure
that there is very little interaction, only hugs and quiet
kisses.
• Repeat this process for as long as it takes. Don’t
lose heart. Most strategies fail because parents or carers
expect instant results.
What
you should find is that eventually, the intervals between cries
get longer. The second and subsequent nights should become easier
except if the child is unwell or over tired.
Don’t
worry about ‘spoiling your baby’, That is impossible.
Babies are not trying to win battles; they just need us to notice
them. If this routine is carried out each time a sleep is due,
especially the night time sleep, eventually, the baby will feel
secure enough to really relax into a deep refreshing sleep.
Once children have established a good sleep pattern, very little
disturbs them and everyone is happy.
This
method of ‘pick up, put down’ is effective and easy
to carry out. The earlier it is established in the baby’s
life, the better for everyone.
