Though it might not feel like it sometimes, your baby or child is wired for sleep. In fact, we all are! The reason most babies don’t sleep well is that they’re up against a roadblock or two – something in their environment that’s not allowing them to sleep according to their natural pattern. One of the most common roadblocks I see is the use of sleep aids.

A sleep aid is any item you introduce or anything you do to help your baby or child fall asleep. Dummies, light machines, white noise, rocking, patting, feeding, even taking them for a walk in the pram around nap time to lull them off to sleep – these are all sleep aids and many families use them.  

If you’ve tried a sleep aid for your little one, you might have had some short-term success. This is really common. But longer term, what happens is your baby or child becomes dependent on it every time they need to sleep. This is because these processes and items actually interfere with your little one’s natural ability to fall off to sleep and put themselves back to sleep when they rouse between sleep cycles.

Let’s imagine your baby falls asleep sucking a dummy. When they’re asleep, they’ll often lose it, so when they wake, it won’t be where they need it to go back to sleep. This makes for a lot of disrupted sleep for both baby and parents, and before you know it, everyone’s exhausted and the dummy that seemed to work so well in the beginning is now making a good night’s sleep feel impossible.

It doesn’t matter what sleep aid you use, the same thing happens. Instead of allowing our bubs to use their natural sleep cue – tiredness – to go to sleep, what we’re actually doing is teaching them to associate nap and bedtimes with being rocked, walked, patted, or whatever else we do.

Now, if you have a really young baby, people may tell you to use whatever aids you can to get them to sleep because they’re too young to become dependent on any kind of sleep aid, and it won’t be a problem to wean them off these aids later on. The truth is though that these little ones CAN and DO come to rely on the sleep conditions we set up for them. That’s why I believe you should try to avoid introducing any sleep aids and interfering with your baby’s sleep right from the start.

Many of the families I support with older babies and children struggle with the idea of moving on from using sleep aids because one, it’s definitely a challenge, and two, because they feel like they have to give up on bedtime cuddles. This is absolutely not the case! You can still have that time to connect with your little one AND give them the space and support they need to learn to settle themselves to sleep.

So, when you’re ready to stop relying on sleep aids, how do you actually do it? My advice is to go ‘cold turkey’ and just stop. There WILL be an adjustment period, and there WILL be some crying – and we expect this because when your baby is already tired and whatever they used to fall asleep is gone, they’ll become even more tired and in need of sleep. It’s the same thing that happens when they wake up crying at the end of a sleep cycle because they find the conditions they fell asleep in have changed. The difference now is that you’re supporting them to break their dependence on you or something else to get the great quality sleep they need.

The information in this Blog Article relates to healthy babies and children with no undiagnosed, untreated medical issues or concerns. If you have any concerns about the health of the baby or child in your care, please see their GP or paediatrician.

For more sensible, straightforward, safe advice and resources on getting your family the sleep you all deserve, explore my website – sleepbysteph.com.au