6 Tips to Deal With Baby Waking And Crying
If, after introducing a bedtime routine with your baby, she is still waking and crying for you during the night, don’t blame yourself. You’re probably not doing anything wrong, and neither is she. A baby’s sleep patterns can be quite puzzling for some parents. It can sometimes happen that a baby who has fitted In with her bedtime routine happily at first and her parents have seen real results in getting her to sleep through, will all of a sudden start to wake and cry in the night once more!
Don’t despair. Remember that crying is the only way a baby has of getting your attention, to ask for a cuddle, or to tell you that she is hungry or there is something wrong. She may not even know why she is crying – she just knows that something isn’t right and she needs mum or dad to make her feel happy again.
Baby Care:
Understanding Your Baby’s Crying
If you still have problems with your baby waking and crying for you at night, try the following tips just one at a time.
- Your baby may be hungry. In the early months, this is almost certain to be the cause of your baby’s tears when more frequent feeds are required throughout the day. As baby gets older, she could be waking at night just because she needs larger feeds. If you are breastfeeding, you could try feeding more frequently, or for bottle-fed babies, give a few extra millilitres at each feed. You could also try increasing the amount you give for her bedtime feed.
- If you’ve always fed your baby whenever she cries at night to get her back off to sleep, she might just have got into the habit of crying to bring you running with food! If she takes a bottle or a cup, only offer her water and not milk. You might find she gets bored with crying at night if all she’s going to get out of it is a drink of water.
- Give your baby a chance to go back to sleep on her own. Don’t go in to see to her at the slightest whimper. This doesn’t mean leaving baby to cry it out, or to cry herself back to sleep. But you’re not being a bad parent if you teach yourself to wait a couple of minutes before you go into your baby. A few whimpers may be all there is to it, and it could let her go back to sleep without fully waking up. In fact, your efforts to soothe her to sleep could be making her fully awake! However, if your baby’s cries are frantic and persistent, this is a sign that something is wrong with baby, and should never be ignored.
- She might just need a cuddle. If you do pick her up, rock her gently and speak to her softly. But keep everything low key. Don’t play with your baby and make sure that the lights are kept low so you are still teaching her that different behaviour is expected at night.
- Make sure that your baby isn’t too hot on too cold. Especially during a change in the seasons, this is a common cause of a baby feeling uncomfortable at night. Feel the back of your baby’s neck to see if it feels sweaty or cold, and decrease or increase her bedding and clothing accordingly. Check the room temperature too. It’s just as important that it’s not too warm as too cold, and ideally should be kept at a constant 16 to 20 degrees centigrade.
- Perhaps where baby sleeps is too quiet. This might sound strange when we adults; normally crave a peaceful atmosphere for sleep. However, life in the womb is quite noisy for a baby with the sound of his mother’s loud heartbeat in the background, so introducing a regular, rhythmic sound into her room at night could be comforting for her. Try leaving a radio on low volume or a ticking clock in baby’s room.
Even if you are having problems with night waking, do persevere with your baby’s bedtime routine. This is important for keeping bad sleeping habits at bay in her later years. Remember too that other parents will be experiencing the same difficulties, and for the majority, things will improve in time.
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