34 | SEPTEMBER 2019 | L&L
IF YOU CAN’T PREDICT HOW LONG YOUR BABY WILL NAP FOR...
his sleep cycles are erratic.
“If your baby’s nap length is
unpredictable, it shows that there’s
a sleep issue going on,” says Lucy.
“Your baby’s sleep cycles have
probably become erratic because
he’s overtired.” That sounds
contradictory, but babies have
a stress response to being tired.
Their brain thinks there must be a
reason to stay awake, so it releases
the hormone cortisol, which has a
stimulating “wake-up” effect. That
makes it harder for babies to get
to sleep and stay asleep, which
leads to broken nights, tricky nap
times and out-of-sync sleep cycles.
“Dealing with this starts at
bedtime,” says Lucy, “because it’s
at night that your baby will get most
of his sleep, which sets his sleepcycles up for the next 24 hours. So,
if you can get the night-time sorted,
it becomes easier to resolve the
daytime sleep.” Plus, it’s in the early
part of the night – up until midnight- that your baby spends most of
his sleep cycle in deep, brain-
soothing slumber. You need to:
● SET BED AND WAKE-UP TIMES
“Aim for a bedtime between 6pm
and 7.30pm, and a wake-up
time between 6am and 7.30am,”
says Lucy. “This coincides with
your baby’s natural sleep cycle,
so he’ll benefit from a wave of
body-clock-induced tiredness.
● HAVE A CONSISTENT ROUTINE
“Bedtime routines help babies
settle into their sleep cycles
because they cue them to
know sleep is coming,” says
Lucy. “Have a simple routine
no more than 30 minutes
long – change nappy, into
sleepwear, song, cuddle, bed.”
● HELP YOUR BABY SETTLE HIMSELF
“The more help you give your
baby to get to sleep, the more
help he’ll need each time he
wakes out of his sleep cycle,”
says Lucy. “Don’t rock him off
to sleep. Put him into his cot
when he’s awake and slowly
and gradually reduce what
you do to get him snoozing,
so he learns to settle himself.”
This might take weeks but, as
your tot gains the skills to settle
himself, he’ll use them to stitch
his sleep cycles together.