Creating the Perfect Sleep Environment
One of the biggest fears of new parents to have is the lack of sleep and while yes sleep changes with a baby you can support your bub to sleep as soundly as possible by establishing positive sleep foundations from the beginning, but it is never too late to make changes. One of the key areas is creating a sleep environment that is supportive of sleep.
But there’s a caveat here – some little people will be more sensitive to others when it come to their environment, this is more temperament related than what you do so if you see your friends bub sleeping on the floor in the middle of a room of people just know that bubs temperament allows that, and while you can encourage flexibility you can’t force it if your bub is on the sensitive side!
So, what should be included in your baby’s sleep environment to optimise their sleep? Here are the top 5 things I recommend using:
1. Darkness – NO NOT PITCH BLACK but dark enough to remove distractions and show a contrast between it being daytime and being sleep time, help to signal sleep is coming soon. This also helps in the summer months when the days are a lot longer and the sun may be setting and rising when your bub is still sleeping to not wake them or signal wake up time with light beaming into the room.
2. White Noise – I am a huge fan of white noise for a quite a few reasons, but you don’t need to just be stuck with some irritating static sound… find a sound that your baby responds well to but also you like the sound of. You’ll be hearing it for a while, and it doesn’t help if it makes your skin crawl!
White noise or sleep music can be a fantastic cue that sleep is soon approaching which allows your baby to start to relax in the lead up to entering the land of slumber. Then being played for the duration of their sleep it can help to lull baby back to sleep between sleep periods because their environment is the same. It also provides a beautiful buffer for the unavoidable external and household noises – the dog barks, the neighbour starts mowing the lawn at nap time, the toddler meltdown, the post man and those wonderful birds that start chirping at the crack of dawn. White noise provides a buffer to those noises being the first thing bub hears and could shock them out of sleep – particularly while in a light sleep phase.
3. Temperature – the temperature matters because it will determine how comfortable your baby is for the duration of their sleep. As a guide, you could between 19-21 degrees but here’s the tricky part – you need to make sure it is suitable for your bub. Some babies (like adults) will run hot and others cold.
To understand this for your baby look at how they respond in different temperatures - does your baby get hot and clammy easily or settle easier when they are rugged up.
The way to check your bubs temperature is by touching the chest, neck or upper back – this will help you gauge their core temperature. If bub is feeling warm to touch, then that’s perfect! If you are checking the room temp it is important to check it as the height of your baby’s sleep space and close to the cot/bassinet – things such as windows or doors can great cooler spots in the room that aren’t reflective of the room temperature.
4. Sleeping Bag or Swaddle – when your baby is a newborn, they are used to being snuggled up in a little ball so being able to be snuggled up in a swaddle can help the feeling of safety and security to be able to sleep soundly without the disruption of their uncoordinated limbs flailing around and waking them up. Some babies will prefer their arms up and be able to have more movement, but others will respond much better to having arms down and firmly secured around their chest (just be sure to keep movement in the legs and hips). Once your baby is rolling, it is important to move to an arms out sleeping bag and I recommend keeping your bub in a sleeping bag until they are moving to a big bed. As your little one gets older you mind find times of resistance to putting the sleeping bag in (I get it, it’s a boring step) but the bag will continue to keep your little one warm for the duration of their sleep and keep them nice and snug. Great part is that you can layer up and down and increase/decrease the tog rating based on the temperature of the room. You want to try to dress your baby for the coolest part of the night which is typically between 3-5am to avoid extra wakes in that time.
5. Your Baby’s Room – contrary to what many “experts” will say your baby’s room does not need to be a stark boring space!! It needs to be a space that both of you enjoy being in. You want to keep it as an enjoyable yet calm space that you can spend having cuddles and connection to support sleep. You want to avoid bright, loud toys which can be distracting and don’t help the calming process, but it can include some toys, books, pictures and wall decals so make it an enjoyable space.
If you have an older baby or a toddler, you may find you need to keep more things packed away or out of the room if they are causing distractions or delays to sleep.
Spend time in your babies sleep space outside of sleep time to maintain a positive connection with the room so it isn’t just for sleep but for comfort and connection. The red nose safe sleep recommendation is to room share for 6-12 months so you might have a space for your child in your room for the first 6-12 months and then a set up for them in their own space when the time is right to move, if you can spend time in both spaces, it will help the familiarity to help the transition.
Sleep environment is just one piece of the sleep puzzle and there is more complexity and unique needs that come with every baby. If you’ve started with your sleep environment but still in need of more support to help your baby’s sleep to unlock your next steps to a better nights sleep BOOK A FREE 15 MINUTE CALL HERE to chat about how we can help.