motherandbaby.co.uk| June 2020 | 59Brace
yourselves!
Theperiod
between
fourandsix
monthscan
bea trickytimefor
sleep. Notforallbabies
someyoungsterssail
throughthesemonths,
snoozingsoundlyallthe
way butif yourbaby
isa sleeppickleat this
age,know this:you’re
notalone.‘I callthefour-to-
six-months-periodtheNo-Man’s-
Landof Sleep,’saysLucy. ‘It’s two
months when you have to keep trudging on
doing whatever your baby needs to get him
off to the Land of Nod.’
There’s not much parents can do to
improve their baby’s sleep at this age. That’s
because youngsters are too young for sleep
learningandtoooldforsleepshaping.
‘Sleep learningis thetermI usetodescribe
a methodof teachingyourbaby how to
self-settle,’saysLucy. ‘It’s somethingparents
canstarttodooncetheir baby is sixmonths
plus,butit doesn’t workwhenyourbaby is
younger. That’sbecause at thisage your
youngsterjustdoesn’t havethememory to
understandwhat’shappening.’
Sleepshapingis theever-so-gentle
approach ofputtingyourbaby downinto the
cotwhilehe’s stillawake,sohelearnsto nod
off on his own.We talked aboutthis in the last
issue,becausethetimewhensleep shaping
can hav e a powerfuleffectis when your baby
is agedbetweeneightand 14 weeks.
‘Itworkswondersforsomebabies,’
saysLucy, ‘butnotforothers.And
if yourbaby hasn’t clicked with
sleepshapingby thetimehe’s
14 weeks old, that window of
opportunity for influencing
his sleep closes.’ Why?
Because at 14 weeks
your baby matures a
bit and becomes
more aware of
what’s going on.
He’s not going to
start nodding off
to sleep on his
own because he’s
too aware of his
surroundings, too
aware of you, and
too aware of what he
wants. ‘And, by this age,MEET THE
EXPERTLucy Wolfe is a baby
sleep consultant, a
mum of four, and the
author of The Baby
Sleep Solution
(£14.99, Headline).
Her new book, All
About the Baby
Sleep Solution: Your
Questions Answered
(£14.99, Gill Books)
is out now
Welcome
to part three of our
six-part series on babies
and sleep, where you’ll
discover exactly what happens to
your baby’s sleep between birth
and the age of two. Find out what to
expect at different ages, common
sleep-saboteurs, and how to help
your baby get her snooze on.
Ready? Get prepped for
sweet dreams!what he wants is whatever he’s got used to
pre-sleep,’ says Lucy. ‘So, if you’ve been
feeding him to sleep, he’ll want you to keep
feeding him. If you’ve been rocking him,
he’ll want that. And if you’ve been singing a
hundred rounds of Row, Row, Row Your Boat,
he’ll be after that at bedtime!’
And, right now, the only thing you can do
is to give him what he wants... ‘This stage is
temporary,’ says Lucy. ‘From six months, your
baby will be big enough to start sleep learning.
But, right now, you have to dig deep, buckle
up and go with the flow...’WHAT’S GOING ON?
There are big neurological changes going
on for your baby as he hits the four-month
milestone. He’s gaining new skills – like
developing the depth perception that allows
him to see the world as a 3D space. He’s
building the muscle strength and the
coordination that he needs to roll, so he’s
starting to move independently. And his
sleep patterns are maturing.
‘Up until now, your baby’s sleep has been
governed by his tummy,’ says Lucy. ‘He’s
woken up whenever he needs milk. That
changes at this age. Now he’s bigger, he can
cope for longer stretches of time between
feeds. From this point onwards, your baby’s
sleep starts to be governed by sleep cycles.’COMMON ISSUES
● SHORT BURSTS OF SLEEP There’s lots of
variation in how well babies aged four to six
months sleep. Some can manage long chunks
at night (four hours, six hours, even eight
hours long). But other babies may be waking
up every 40 minutes or so. The same
is true when it comes to naps, with
some babies snoozing happily for 90
minutes or so, while others take cat
naps that last no more than 20 to
30 minutes. The reason this
happens is all to do with
theemergingpattern
ofsleep cycles.
‘Ina sleepcyclewe
gofromlightsleep
todeep sleep,
backtolight
sleep– andthen
wewakeup
momentarily,
before cycling
backintolight
sleepagain,’says
Lucy.‘Whenwe’re
usedtothispatternwe
move seamlesslyfromthe‘I’ve had very different
sleep journeys with my two girls.
Eloise slept through the night from
three moths. Niamh didn’t! At six
moths things changed, but in the
run-up to that we built in a regular
bedtime routine of teethbrushing, story,
sog, cot, which really helped.’
Jessica Finn, 34, from West
Sussex, is mum to Niamh,
o, and Eloise, fiveBaby&Toddler